Layout
To give you a better idea of the layout, I’ve prepared four pages (three of which have illustrations) as they would look in the book:
The following are the same four pages in close-up:
The List
Most of these image descriptions may seem somewhat vague but then that has the advantage of giving you lots of scope for interpretation. In some cases I’ve provided sample photos to give an idea of what could be done but these are not proscriptive. If you have a different idea, go for it! Actual lines from the story are in italics.
1. One or more cats looking thoughtful. This photo will accompany a short introduction to the story.
2. Front Cover and Title Page — this may be the same photo but not necessarily since we’d ideally like to feature as many different pooties as we can to share around the fame!
3. We could use our hands — a photo of something in pootie’s paw, like a piece of toast or cookie (perhaps a cut-out cookie pic from a magazine, adhered to pootie’s paw with a little dab of butter?) so that it fits in with the next line…
4. to pick up crumbs — maybe a paw on a plate of crumbs… or maybe sitting in front of a plate of cake crumbs or tuna crumbs and licking a paw…
5. and open cans — pootie (with or without bib) seated in front of a plate — I can easily photoshop in an open can on the plate as I did with this photo for the original diary:
6. if we had thumbs — I’m open to suggestions! We can always photoshop a thumb onto a pootie (as I did with Noble Fur opening the door)… This line appears seven times and ideally we’d like seven different kittehs.
7. It would be sublime! We could fill our tums at any time — the following is the photo I used for the diary.
I’m not sure how easy it would be to set up — night time so the light from the fridge becomes a spotlight, some vegetables around the floor, kitteh treats on a shelf just high enough so kitteh has to stretch to get to them, with or without interested spectators…
8. We’d hit the books — so many possibilities! I’ll leave this one up to your imagination.
9. and do our sums — two elements needed for this photo: a clear shot of a page of sums something like this:
and a kitteh looking down at them or kitteh in a separate photo that can be superimposed on the first.
10. and learn to cook — again this will need some thoughtful setting up (and is likely to get quite messy!) The following is the photo I used in the diary:
Something like this would be ideal.
11. We’d snap our toes — This seems to be a tricky one but it’s all in the cat’s posture and attitude. Here’s the photo I used in the original diary:
As you can see from this photo, it’s all in the attitude of the cat. All he’s actually doing is holding out a paw while looking intently ahead of him. We can photoshop in a cap and the surrounding area if need be.
12. and call our chums — This is simply a photo of your cat with a paw on your smart phone… or, if they’ll let you do it, the phone up to pootie’s ear while s/he is lying back on a cushion or pillow, half asleep perhaps.
13. We’d choose the shows — photo of cat with a paw on the remote control.
14. for goes — pootie exiting the house
15. and comes — pootie entering the house
16. We’d tune the car until it hums — maybe a photo of your car with hood up and pootie on the engine checking it out...
17. Oh we’d go far if we had thumbs — pootie behind the steering wheel maybe… pootie on a motor bike… or pootie thumbing a lift on the side of the road?
18. We’d play the drums — I can photoshop in a drum and drumsticks around a cat with its front paws raised.
19. and strum guitars — maybe a cat sitting on a guitar… or with a paw on the strings?
20. and get less sleep — very sleepy pootie. I have a candidate for this one already but will look at others.
21. stop being bums — lying on their back, fully stretched out.
22. We’d earn our keep — pootie in any kind of job situation
23. We’d get the glums — cat looking distinctly miserable
24. We’re all so glad we don’t have thumbs — as this is the final line, I’d like to get in 3-6 photos if I can of happy pooties.
Please try to get photos of the whole cat, ie no ears, tail or partial paws cut off! Also try for neutral or single color backgrounds if at all possible. Lots of different shapes and colors can be very distracting and quite difficult to photoshop out.
So who is going to try for which illustration? I’m going to let you sort that out for ourselves in the comments!
I’m expecting that we’ll get multiple submissions for each illustration. I will be inviting people to join me on a panel to help make decisions about the photos. Whenever anyone on the panel has a submission, they’ll be asked to step out of the discussion for that particular illustration. It is quite possible that we may end up submitting 2 or 3 options for most if not all illustrations. In this situation, final decisions will be made by the professionals at Unbound.
Submitting Photos
Kosmail me for my email address as I prefer them to be sent to me this way. I can then email them onto those on the panel.
What is the Deadline for Photos?
If it’s possible, I’d like to have a half dozen more photos in place for the submission to Unbound. However, we will not need all the photos by then, just enough to give Unbound a good idea of what we have in mind.
In all, we should have from now until the submission is completed (approximately 2 weeks) plus time for Unbound to consider the submission (currently 6-8 weeks) plus fundraising (4-6 weeks) plus another two weeks after that. In total that is likely to be about 4 months.
Hey, that’s plenty of time! So go to it, peeps! Good luck and have fun!