The
star of 13-year-old Kasey Hancock's award-winning movie
is her American shorthair cat named Snickers. It's a story
of what a cat does when the family leaves her at home alone.
The movie, "Snickers' Winter Vacation," was a first-place
winner in the 2007 Show Me A Movie contest sponsored by
the Greater St. Louis Cooperating School Districts.
The movie was judged best in the Show Me Your Community
division for middle school students. The finished film was
2 minutes and 35 seconds long.
Kasey Hancock |
Kasey lives in Pacific, Mo. But, the 7th grader attends
LaSalle Springs Middle School in the Rockwood district.
Kasey can attend the school because her mother teaches at
Rockwood schools in both Eureka and Wildwood.
Snickers turned out to be Kasey's second choice to star
in her original movie.
Kasey said she originally planned to make her movie about
how a school gym was transformed into a theater for a school
play. Her mother, Karen Hancock, teaches theater for 6th,
7th and 8th grade students.
Kasey was going to feature the custodial staff as they
prepared the gym for the performance.
"But, I didn't have the idea until the school production
of "Annie Jr." was over and my mother didn't want to make
the custodians do the transformation again," Kasey said.
So, it turned out the cat was called on to star in the
new movie script.
Actually, Kasey changed her idea about the cat script
also. "At first, I was going to do a movie about how to
take care of a cat. But, that sounded pretty boring so I
changed it."
About her cat as a star, Kasey said, "Snickers is pretty
much a princess. She'd look right at the camera, although
she didn't like it if the camera got too close."
The movie starts with Snickers watching the family drive
away, leaving her alone.
The scenes in the movie show Snickers watching TV, jumping
on the bed, looking-but not fishing--at the family's fish
tank, looking for milk at the refrigerator and taking a
nap.
About the TV scene, Kasey said, "Snickers has a cat video
that she likes to watch."
While Snickers was a pretty good actor, Kasey didn't leave
anything to chance.
She found some gloves that pretty well matched Snickers'
fur color and pattern. "When you put on the gloves, you
could hold her in position and the gloves were just about
invisible in the movie," she said.
She said her mother was in charge of positioning Snickers
while Kasey did the filming.
Kasey also wrote the script and dubbed in the voiceover.
"The voiceover was what the cat was thinking during the
time she was home alone," she said.
She thought one of the best scenes was when Snickers was
looking face-on into the camera while the voice over said,
"I miss my Mommy." Kasey said, "Snickers looked right into
the camera with wide eyes and even cocked her head at the
end."
"At the beginning of the movie, we show Snickers looking
like she's anxious to see the rest of the family leave,"
she said.
Kasey said she had to hurry to finish the movie because
she used so much time planning the gym-conversion script.
"We had two months to do the movie but I used six weeks
on the first movie idea," she said.
One thing that did work out was that she was able to use
the sound background from the first movie idea to be the
background for the Snickers' movie.
She used music from a "superdoopermusiclooper" CD. That
allows the moviemaker to lay down the music as background
one instrument at a time. "And, you can mute individual
instruments part way through if you want," Kasey said.
Kasey said she also might salvage the first movie idea
if she enters the Show Me contest next year. Since she's
a 7th grader, she'll still be eligible to compete next year.
"I'd just have to get started earlier and film the movie
when the custodians are converting the gym for next year's
production," Kasey said.
Kasey made the movie in the gifted program taught by teacher
Cindy Hefling.
Kasey said she's thinking about a career as a nuclear pharmacist.
She described that as a person who administers nuclear medicines
to help cure illnesses.
Asked about the idea, she said, "My mother mentioned it
as a career with high demand and you make lots of money."
