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Should You Make a Movie with a Dog as the Star? 'Good Boy' Proves You Can
I’m not exaggerating when I say this is an exceptional and moving animal performance, and if you’re a dog parent who loves their furry companion as much as I love mine, you might be reduced to a blubbering mess by the film’s end. Leonberg sure got me with this one.
The making of the movie was a family affair. Leonberg and Fischer, married, own Indy and took three years crafting the film, living in the house where they shot. It took so long because of the usual restrictions with animal actors, and because they wanted to capture authentic moments of Indy, including his naps and the moments he woke up. They have a cut, they said, with an audio track that’s only Indy voice direction. The rest of the film's dialogue had to be ADR'd.
This is exactly the kind of movie indie filmmakers should admire—scrappy, dedicated, and well-crafted. NFS got the chance to sit down with the filmmakers (and Indy) to discuss the challenges of Good Boy and all the adaptations you must make when working with animals.
The Challenges of Working With Animals
Indy in 'Good Boy'
Courtesy of Ben Leonberg
Famously, there's the warning in Hollywood that you should never work with animals or children in a film because of the additional complications they can bring to a set. In this case, the filmmakers wanted not only to have a dog character but to make him the lead.
"The reason they say that is because it is hard and it's costly," Leonberg said. "One of the main reasons is that the kids and animals can't work a full workday. The film industry is based on 12-hour days, and kids and dogs can work like three. So that means that you're going to be filming either with many dogs, which we did not do. We just filmed with Indy, and he's real. He's not CGI. So that meant that the shooting schedule is just going to be really, really long."
This is why they decided to move into their shooting location full-time.
"Once you decide that that's something you're going to do, you just have to embrace the limitations as a benefit, and it changes the scope of the work. It changes how you even run equipment, and what kind of location agreement you're looking for. It's not like we're just going to be there for 12 days ... It's now more like, this is life."
What if you don't happen to have your own immensely talented dog on the project, and you need to rely on a trainer?
"My advice would definitely be to let the trainer direct, almost direct the scene," Leonberg said. He added, "The more you can put the dog considerations in the creative driver's seat, I know that might sound like, you're surrendering creative control, but really you're creating a huge opportunity that you're going to get something people haven't seen before. Because you're not trying to force what is unnatural for a dog to do and might feel false or not genuine."
Their Approach to Capturing Indy's Performance (and Sound)
Leonberg's background in virtual reality allowed them to use some immersive cameras that gave them the low-to-the-ground perspective at Indy's level, and they also frequently filmed set-ups twice—once with them inside it, giving Indy direction, and then a blank plate they could use to mask themselves out in post.
"He's an incredibly smart dog, and he just got to the point where he understood that the camera means that he's supposed to do something," Fischer said.
There were sequences when they wanted to capture Indy asleep and waking up, and that simply required a lot of time and patience.
For many of Indy's sequences, it was a closed set.
"When we recorded sound, because it's with a small number of people, there's so much verbal coaching to get these shots," Leonberg said. "So much of the production audio is just us talking to Indy. There's a whole cut of the film, it sounds completely silly. You're just hearing, 'Whoa, whoa. Stay. Good boy.' And then the sound team, one of our co-producers is the lead mixer and really marshaled the whole way. We called it the ADR shoot, where we went through all the scenes in the film, in the physical spaces with the actors who are doing the vocal performance that then go on top of these scenes."
Stuntwork With a Dog
Indy in 'Good Boy'
Courtesy of Ben Leonberg
There is a third-act sequence in the rain that took nine months to film, they said. There are impressive moments of action in this sequence, and I wondered how some of them were captured—especially when Indy's safety is so important. Again, the answer is working slowly and patiently.
"There's a lot of things that are done in reverse," Leonberg said. "I was working on a set once where the stunt coordinator was also the stunt performer, and she talked about victim control. It's a scene where she's getting kidnapped and they would set up the scene where she's the one pushing the actor who's attacking her hands into her neck, and then he's pulling back. So it still looks like there's tension, but she's in complete control of the scene.
"So there's scenes where if Indy ever looks like he's trying to pull away from something, what has actually happened is he's trying to run forward to a tennis ball, and we're just holding his hips and telling him to stay, to try and get that sense of action and tension."
They employed a lot of old-school camera tricks to make things look scarier than they were.
"A lot of the footage is shot at speed, ramped to look a lot faster than it is. Things are reversed. That's where a lot of the, I don't know if 'tricks' is the right word ... speed ramping, undercranking, overcranking, that kind of thing."
They also commissioned a stuffed-toy version of Indy they called "Findy" for any of the truly dangerous moments, meaning those effects were practical and not CGI.
What They Learned Making the Film
'Good Boy'
Courtesy of Ben Leonberg
Their unique approach was definitely different than the usual film project, but Leonberg said it was educational.
"I know I've said it a few times, but I really think there's something to a way of filmmaking that uses time as a resource," he said. He likened the "typical" film set to the barn-raising scene in Witness, where everything happens quickly. "Most films are made on 12-hour days that go on with no breaks, no weekends, whatever. The way we made this, by necessity—I don't think I would make my second film three hours at a time or less in some cases. It was much more than that in terms of the time I was put into it. But I think there's something to be said for making things that as a marathon, not as a sprint."
I asked if they had anything to add, and Indy came over to check on me.
"To Indy?" Leonberg asked.
"Yes, to you, sir," I said.
Indy offered up his paw for a shake.
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