Can new Toronto web series make it big?

Cats. Boobs. YouTube. It's a recipe that can't possibly fail. Or can it? Little Cat Version of Me is a new Toronto based web series that debuted at the end of June and so far - well, let's just say the video views aren't exactly reaching lonelygirl15 proportions. But it's not for lack of trying. This is good stuff - well written, well edited and better than any Canadian produced comedy shows on TV.

Adam Goldhammer, a 23 year old self-described struggling actor who has "become sick of auditioning for commercials and decided to stop waiting around and make my own project", is one of the brains behind the show that's filmed out of his apartment near Bloor and Lansdowne. Last night we connected over Gchat to talk about the series and what it's going to take to make it the next YouTube success story.

In one of your episodes you lament the lack of video views so far....with so many videos on YouTube, how do you cut through the clutter?

Oh man that is an amazing question. First of all if anyone had the answer to that and it worked scientifically they would not share that with anyone else. To be honest, you've stumped me. I don't know the answer to that question right now.

What is it about cats in videos that people like so much?

I think the thing about cats is that they are really solitary creatures. Normally when you meet a cat it's just hiding in a corner being a loner. So capturing a great video of a cat is like capturing lightning in a bottle.

That's actually one of the hardest things about the web series is working with Meowla. He is the nicest cat in the world but somehow when the video camera comes out he's nowhere to be found. It's as if cats know when they are being watched and immediately stop doing cute things.

Yeah. Cats are not the most cooperative of creatures.

Yeah for sure cats are really adorable but so are dogs. But dog videos aren't nearly as popular...that's because everyone with a dog can get a cute video of them being cute by telling the dogs to be cute.

Can the world max out on cat videos or do we have an unlimited appetite?

I think it's probably unlimited. I don't see that trend going down in the future. Cats and babies. Have you seen the baby eating a watermelon? I think that came out this week. Like wow. Never before the last 5 years could everyone in the world see a baby eating its way out of a watermelon! The world is a better place.

How many people are involved in the production of the web series?

We have our director/editor Daniel Reis, our director of photography Kian Marandi, the writer and actors (myself and Mitch Boughs) and we have a few guest actors (more in videos to come). Laura Hopf, my girlfriend, helps me come up with ideas and actually came up with the original idea for the video.

How long does it take the team of you to create an episode?

Well, the process is as follows. One of us will come up with an idea (Say: hey wouldn't it be funny if in one episode we fire meowla and hire a new cat), and then everyone is all like "Ya that is funny" or "No, that's stupid you should not have an episode where meowla gets run over by a car". And then if we like the idea we sit on it, thinking of other things that can happen or funny lines for the episode. And then Mitch or I will take the idea and then script it (that takes about half a day). From there we choose a date to shoot it. And the actually shooting of each episode will take on average an hour a minute of the final cut. From there Daniel Mitch and myself will choose the takes we like (this takes a few hours on another day) and then Daniel will edit the shit out of it and turn it into gold. Mitch and I will take a look at it, give suggestions for changes. Dan does that and then it goes on YouTube.

That's a lot of work for 250 video views.

250 views now. I really think that it has the potential to have hundreds of thousands of views.

True...I guess these really don't have an expiry date on them. They're not time-sensitive in any way.

No in fact most of these web series don't become popular until a whole season has been online for a while.

How often do you publish a new episode?

About once every other week. Sometimes we will get some on a few weeks in a row but that is more difficult as we all have other jobs and as you can see it takes time to get them online.

How many episodes do you plan to create?

I couldn't tell you. A lot. We have a lot we have already shot. We have a lot of scripts already written. And we have a lot of ideas that will become episodes.

What would be the best desired outcome that could happen from creating this web series?

The possibilities are endless. The Guild was picked up by Microsoft and they keep making webisodes for Xbox subscribers.