Portfolio Project 16 The Wrangler

 #16 The Wrangler

    There is a saying when it comes to the art of film making, never work with children or animals, by WC Fields. For a part of the opening we were going to need my dog Mani to be barking, and we had to film him from a low angle. Now my dog is easy to excite and get shouting, a big problem that me and my family have whenever we have to do a countdown from 3, my dog always starts barking at 1 (which is cool, I like knowing that my dog knows how to count) he barks whenever we grab his leash, whenever someone knocks obviously, and whenever someone uses a blowtorch or spray, not sure why. For the shooting we used all of these tactics, minus the blowtorch because I couldn't find it, and they all worked through some success. Getting my dog to bark wasn't the issue, it was finding a way to record below him while he barked, or at least at any level that made him look imposing that was hard, we knocked really loudly on the door to make him SCREAM but he kept running around the room. 

     Now at first I assigned myself as the animal wrangler, but eventually that title would go on to Nina, who wasn't using the camera as much and didn't have to appear on the film. Nina eventually came up with the idea of using my dog's leash to lead him after she saw him playing with it, a sign that he wanted to go on a walk. What she would do is hold the leash above the camera as I filmed on the floor, which would make Mani look up and give me opportunity to film him. We also used this leash technique later on to make the dog follow us, I'd have the leash in my pocket and he would just walk along side me. The only down side of this technique was that I had to take a 5 minute walk that would halt production with the dog to make sure he didn't go to the bathroom in a house that neither me, anyone in the production, and, at the time of filming, my own father owned. My dog was really tired by the end and he got a well deserved nap on the ride back home, after 11 years on this earth he finally had to work like we humans do.