How to make cat yowling?
by Alan Kovar
on
Aug 27, 2008 at 3:18:37 pm
Hi. I'm preparing a movie where should be a few shots of a yowling cat. I assume I can't make cat yowl during the shooting, so I'm asking - how to do it (in the most easiest way) digitally? There will be the sound of yowling of course. The only thing I need is to subtly open the cat's maw (it will be a static shot and the cat will be just sitting and looking at somebody, it won't be moving).
Can you reccomend me some application or tutorial for this? Thanks for any help!
Re: How to make cat yowling? by Dave LaRonde on Aug 27, 2008 at 7:10:17 pm
Well, that all depends.
Does this need to be photorealistic like the Bush's Beans spots with the talking dog, which takes three animators three weeks on three individual $150 thousand workstations running proprietary software to get it right ?
Or can it be cheesy like Terry Gilliam's talking people animations for Monty Python?
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: How to make cat yowling? by Alan Kovar on Aug 28, 2008 at 5:46:38 pm
I'm working with Sony Vegas 8. I also have available Adobe After Effects CS3 (but I never worked with it yet), but you can recommend me another software too.
Re: How to make cat yowling? by Mark Suszko on Aug 29, 2008 at 2:20:29 pm
There are numerous photo morphing software packages on the net for cheap. try a keyword search for morphing on google or downloads.com Build up several morphs and do fast dissolves between them or let the software create an AVI of the complete morph, which you can loop or ping-pong to make it open and close repeatedly.
But the way I would go is, wait until the cat's feeding time, set up some green paper or palstic on the floor, and shoot tape of the naturally-occurring yowling if you're just a second late getting out the can opener:-)
Re: How to make cat yowling? by Patrick Algermissen on Aug 29, 2008 at 8:10:31 pm
I agree with Mark that it is possible to elicit a yowl from a cat without causing it pain. It depends on the cat, I have one cat that if I pet him for a while and then stop he'll look up at me and let out a little yowl. You can always replace the audio with an obtained sound clip of a more horrible yowl.
That said, I think Andrew Kramer's Demon Face Warp tutorial will serve you nicely if you want to be able to do something in After Effects:
Andrew presents some really useful, versatile techniques there. If you own AE and don't have a clue on how to use it, his site is a great place to spend some time (as is the COW's own After Effects tutorials section).
