Animal Trainer Breaks Down Dog Acting in Movies

Hi, I'm Bonnie Judd,

I was the Animal Coordinator for a Dog's Journey

and this is Notes on a Scene with Animals.

[light fun music]

[transitions to soft instrumental music]

In this scene, what you're seeing

is the dog jumping through the window

and he's coming off of a desk,

we originally taught him to jump through the window

on the desk without the backpack,

but while we're teaching him that,

we want him to feel like he's totally safe

and there's a little bit of a incline

in the roof here you can see.

So what you can't see, there's scaffolding all along here,

there's a trainer that's sort of right here

standing on the scaffolding

and that trainer's there to safety,

but the scaffolding's all closed,

so there's no way the dog can fall from here

as he jumps from the window.

When you see the dog running,

you can see this his stride is very long and stretched out,

which shows that the dog is relaxed and you can see here,

his ears are hanging down low,

they're not curling or stressy-looking

and his stride here is very long,

like if you watch how he's moving,

you can see that he's very relaxed.

So a stressed dog walks all buckled up,

so you can see that's a happy dog.

[light instrumental music]

On this part of the scene, see how tight you are here?

It's because when the dog first starts this jump,

I'm actually right, sort of, by the truck

and now I've backed out of frame as they go wide,

so as I'm backing out and the dog's jumping,

I'm just making sure he's hitting his target,

which is right here, I want to make sure

he hits that nice and right in the center of it

and that he has a good view of where he needs to go.

So when he is up here,

he actually doesn't really see the truck,

he needs me here to guide him to where I want him to land,

right smack in the middle of the truck

and that's the safest areas for him to be,

when you don't see the whole view,

it's because there's pads and stuff down to safety the dog.

For me, safety's everything,

if the dog's not happy and the dog's not safe,

or any animal that I'm working, I'm not doing it,

everything you see, we've manufactured,

if you see a dog itching, a dog sneezing,

we've trained the dogs to do that.

I don't want the dogs to feel that emotion,

I want them to be happy and joyful and enjoy working,

because, though we the trainers are getting paid,

how we pay them is like with happiness and joy and praise

and the odd steak and chicken [laughs].

[light fun music]

As we cut to this one, it's the same deal,

there's a trainer behind this plant.

The backpack is just stuffed with paper,

so it looks like it's full of stuff, but that kept it light.

As he moves you'll see how close it comes to his feet

and it bangs on his legs,

originally went this long and then this long

until we got to this length

and he just, over time, got used to feeling the backpack

hitting his legs and it was a fun thing.

So at first, we just do a couple steps

and then take the backpack out

and be like, yay, good boy, that was awesome

and give him steak or cookies or whatever

and then to the bigger backpack

until we finally just ended up

with a backpack that was this size.

We would teach this dog a down-stay,

then we'll start to get this dog

to run by with the backpack in his mouth,

so, in the end, we're now using several signals

all in one scene and we're using the trainer here,

loads the backpack here in this dog's mouth,

that happens over here,

so the trainer's over here behind this plant,

the other trainer's probably here somewhere,

where you can't see him

and then, we do the whole complete run.

And we actually wanted this dog to watch him go by,

so we teach our dogs a look, look or watch

and we point to the dog as we load it up

and send the other dog, so then, the other dog comes through

and he watches him go right through, just like we wanted it,

as if he was really, actually doing that all on his own.

[light fun music]

Hey buddy. [plays harmonica]

[dogs barking] Let's go.

[Bonnie] One dog's being taught

to just sort of guard the guy.

Hey buddy, why don't you come show us some moves.

[fun jaunty music] [dog barks]

[Basketball Player] Cover him.

[Bonnie] Here, we've asked the dog to go to a mark

stand, stay and speak. [dog barking]

So the trainer will actually be over here

and one sent him from here to here,

go to your mark, he's gone to a mark here

and then, another trainer

would be somewhere in front of the camera,

so he's looking at the camera and he speaks.

[dog barking]

We want them to look in the direction of the actors,

so often, we are the actor and we're shooting just the dog,

at this point, the dog's just coming to his mark,

we ask him to stand, stay

and then I pull the look wherever the actor was standing

or I stand beside the actor.

[upbeat dramatic instrumental music]

This part here, when you're actually throwing the ball,

it's super easy to teach the dog to hit the ball

exactly in the same place at exactly the same rate

to get it in the basket, what's really difficult

is for the trainer to throw the ball exactly the same way

and at exactly the same speed every single time,

but it's actually quite easy for the dog.

[upbeat music]

[transitions to soft gentle music]

Well, I mean, what can you say about this scene?

It brought us all to our knees, what a great actor,

I'm not just talking about the man, but the dog. [laughs]

You can just see the emotion in the scene

and the most difficult part about this scene

is the actor is sort of trying to find, within himself,

something sad and dogs are creatures that feel our emotions.

Here you see the actor's hand is on the dog

and that keeps the dog calm and quiet.

Keeping his head down and keeping him quiet

and breathing quiet is actually pretty difficult,

when we go through these really emotional scenes

where actors are crying or they're talking

or they're even just touching the dog,

because the dog is wired to try and make us happy,

to try and make us feel better.

So these scenes are actually a lot more difficult

than what most people would think [laughs]

and it's when actors talk to dogs or touch the dogs,

often the dogs believe that that's a release command,

so the trainer is probably right in front of the camera

as the camera's dolling in on this

and holding the dog's look with its head down.

And so, the camera is dolling in onto the dog's face

and the trainers are trying to keep

the eye line to the camera.

One that we did the scene on Dog's Journey,

when I release the dog and I say all right,

the dog jumps up and wants to play frisbee

and is bouncing around, but when we're shooting these scenes

we want them to then go back, lie down,

put your head down and stay calm.

The first time we ever deal with death

is usually with our goldfish or a hamster or a dog

and that prepares us for later on in our lives

when we will inevitably lose people in our lives.

[light music]

[sniffing]

[Dog] This box has smells like...

They've got the dogs all in the elevator,

the trainers have all come in, told the dogs to sit-stay

and we actually have Max right at the front door.

When this opens up, we want to make sure

that she gets out first and clear

before the other dogs start pulling,

when this door opens, we're calling the dogs like crazy

to get them to come through the door as quick as possible,

so I'm on the other side of the door just talking to her

and that's why you're getting the head tilt.

So I have her ready, steady, all right,

which means I want you to go as fast as you can.

We want the dogs to come out of the elevator

and pull as hard as they can

and get down to the door as quick as they can.

So they're gonna run down the hallway like this

and Belle's well in front,

make sure she doesn't get stepped on,

in actual fact, Belle is, at this point,

was probably four pounds, so she's very, very tiny

and we really wanted to safety

and make sure that the big dogs didn't actually step on her.

They loved her and they were very careful,

but when they're all overstimulated

and they're super-excited and we're revving them up

to get them to run down the hall, accidents can happen.

This way. Max.

[barking] Max come back.

Max.

I'm actually running beside the handheld camera

and then, I kind of ran down the whole gauntlet

and now I'm behind the door

and the rest of the dogs all come in.

[light fun music]

[barking] Max.

[Max Barks] Trent.

We've already taught the dog how to dig at the door,

with this particular dog,

she really liked a little duck that I had,

it was a little rubber ducky,

just got it from a dollar store

and so, originally, I would have the door open

maybe that much, an inch maybe,

and I'd have the rubber ducky

and I'd just block the door with my foot

and show her the rubber ducky on the other side

and I'd overstimulate her

and then when she started digging at the door,

I'd open the door and let her come through.

Here she identifies, yep, that's where the duck is

and then, she knows, I'm supposed to dig.

And then, we added the sit and then speak

and then release the dog to go in and get the ducky

as these guys are having their little chitchat.

So all in very small pieces,

all taught in very small pieces.

Our job, basically, is to set very strong patterns,

often directors, they'll say to me,

I don't even need you here,

you could just send the dog in a cab,

and it's because the dogs learn the patterns so well

that it looks effortless, but it's been weeks and weeks

of training to get them to that point.

The chemistry of these two actors,

they had a really good charisma together

and weirdly, the dog just got all caught up in that [laughs]

and she totally loved Kat, she would see her,

with 150 crew members she could pick her out

and she would just bounce on me and look,

bounce on me and look, she loved hanging out with her.

You can see the dog's ears are up, the tail's wagging,

she's super excited and happy

and you can just see the pure happiness in this dog,

look at this dog's face, I can't even look at her

without getting happy myself [laughs],

she's just such a sweet girl.

What drew me to this script is it really is what I believe,

I believe that animals are here to teach us stuff

and some of the most important things,

like being responsible, being a good worker, being loyal,

and as people and as trainers,

we learn something special out of each animal.

I didn't know when I did the casting call,

I just see 500 dogs, over two days I saw 500 dogs,

they were brought to the directors

and the director and the producers,

the writers, they all pick.

We, as trainers, develop lasting bonds

with the families and with the dogs for our whole lives,

and look at this dog's face, how could you not? [laughs]

She's a star, she was a star the day I saw her,

I sent her picture in, I made sure her owners, I'm like,

you better be sure you're gonna let me use this dog,

because I know, when they see this dog,

this dog is the face of a star,

they're gonna love her and she's gonna get picked.

That mug [laughs], that's the mug of a star [laughs].