Saturday 17 September 2011

Film production

Well, today was very full as we now are in post-production for my short film Groove on the Couch. I wrote a script with 6 roles for dogs to fill. The handlers, dogs and myself then spent four weeks training and assigning the roles to the different dogs. There was a broad range in skill, size and breed, so it was definately a challenge getting the right role to the right dog.

The fifth 'lesson' was a rehearsal with our wonderful actor, thankfully Kingsley is a master at improv. Great for those unexpected things that the dogs sometimes threw at us.

Some of the cast and crew (L to R - Jason, Jonny and Kinglsey)
 Today was week 6 and graduation. It was quite fun and the dogs all tried so hard. We got most of the shots we set out to get and had to modify some others a little. Our very patient director is now doing the post production side of things, so we should get a hard copy of our lifetime memory of all of this effort fairly shortly.

It was certainly an ambitious endeavour, and we tried to keep everything as simple as we could. I don't think I have too many more grey hairs...

More of the crew (front to back - myself, Jonny and Jarrad)
So, if you'd like to see the doggies strutting their stuff, watch this space!

Monday 12 September 2011

Ikea Catalogue: Rent

Gunny's TVC is now on television. His lovely tail stars in the Ikea TVC at about 13 seconds in.

http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/39022/IKEA-Catalogue-Rent

The pet guardian in me says, I wish there was more Gunny in it, but the film and TV person in me says it is about the living space, not the cat - so the focus is appropriate. It's funny, that was about 60 - 90 minutes of work on set, to get about 2 seconds of footage.

Sunday 11 September 2011

Letting dogs be dogs

I've been quite busy in the last few weeks, but we've still managed to squeeze in a little bit of "dog time".

Buddy, the Chihuahua, has had his time in the spotlight again and has gone back to his breeder. He was so happy to se her - it was so gorgeous! The Curtin film students for "Heart Donor" will be in post production now, so it'll be a little while before we can see Buddy on the screen again. At least, watching him on DVD!

Before he went back, my cousin and I did a short hike around Lion's Lookout in Kalamunda. I do love that walk. I expected to need to carry the short dog after a while, but Buddy stuck at my heels for the whole 6km walk - I was most impressed at his stamina.


Buddy and Joc
 It is such a beautiful walk in Spring, the weather and wildflowers make it a perfect place to be.


At certain points, you can see as far as the Perth city
Here's to finding great walks around Perth!