FINEDAY ORIGINS
(and a CAT TALE)
David Watkinson’s FineDay Academy produces all the content for the ZooYou website and ZooYou YouTube. This is the story of the transition to FineDay from David’s Main Street Multimedia company named after his studio apartment on Main Street in Santa Monica. He used the studio for his movies and TV work when he wasn’t required to be on the set during his 43 years working in Hollywood.
David started as a story analyst, writer and Assistant Director, but spent most of his career creating and programming graphics, videos and animations to play live on the set for interaction with actors. Here are photos and cast-and-crew screening invitations from some of the shows that prominently featured David’s work:
David and his wife Kim lived with their two cats in a little apartment across the hall from the even smaller Main Street Multimedia studio apartment.
Most of the time, David worked on set or in movie studio offices. Here’s David and colleague Maddy Dotto working in their office at the Fox/Disney movie studio:
And here’s David working on the set of Seth MacFarlane’s great Sci-Fi series The Orville:
After The Orville series wrapped in 2021, David considered that fact that he had to do most of his work on the final season from his home studio due to COVID restrictions. The remote work arrangement showed David that he was no longer tied to Los Angeles and Hollywood. He considered moving to another state, while pursuing work on other shows. Instead, David decided to not only move, but finally work on his own projects.
Drawing on his degree in psychology and spare time work as an educator (Visiting Assistant Professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Film, Instructor UCLA Extension, Director of Education at the National Business Academy, etc.), David decided to build an online academy that would produce humanitarian projects. That decision resulted in Main Street Multimedia being renamed FineDay.
David and Kim bought a house in Colorado and prepared to leave Santa Monica. But Kiku decided she didn’t want to make the trip and crossed over the rainbow bridge some months before departure.
However, TouTou at about age 18, decided he was up for an adventure. Kim flew ahead to start a new job at Dish/Sling TV. Then after one last regular trip to give free pizzas to people at a nearby homeless encampment, David and TouTou hit the road.
After spending the night in a motel in New Mexico, David and TouTou set out on the final leg of their journey.
Twenty minutes into the drive, David realized he hadn’t seen TouTou since he had climbed onto his spot in the back of the car, while David closed all the windows from the driver’s seat. David called for TouTou, then pulled over and frantically searched the car with no success. Knowing that TouTou would be very confused after climbing out of the car window at the motel, David raced back hoping to find the elderly cat before he got too lost. Just before arriving back at the motel, sleepy TouTou climbed out from under the driver’s seat onto David’s lap.
Arriving in Colorado, former 4th floor apartment cat TouTou saw squirrels and rabbits for the first time in his life:
David was also happy to see various critters on his back deck and invited them in for a snack.
He set up his new studio facing the door so the critters could entertain him while he wrote his books and worked on his ZooYou project.
David and Kim are enjoying their new life, but they have fond memories of Santa Monica. One of David’s favorites was a weekly event that he always enjoyed seeing while he worked late in his studio and looked down on Main Street. So this story will end with a look back at the weekend bike parade:
If you’d like to learn more about David’s life please get a copy of his autobiography on Amazon:
