Here’s a mini-documentary of our screening Q & A at Dances with Films 2014.
Tag Archives | furbabies
MOMS OF “FURBABIES” PROTEST IN HOLLYWOOD AFTER POPE’S COMMENTS SAYING COUPLES SHOULD RAISE REAL BABIES NOT PETS
MOMS OF “FURBABIES” PROTEST IN HOLLYWOOD AFTER POPE’S COMMENTS SAYING COUPLES SHOULD RAISE REAL BABIES NOT PETS
Moms of Human Babies Stage Counter Protest
June 4, 2014 (HOLLYWOOD) As busy crowds moved through the Chinese Theatres at Hollywood and Highland yesterday afternoon, they were caught in the middle of two opposing protests—both of which were very emotionally charged. On one side were the moms of “furbabies,” holding their tiny dogs in Baby Bjorns. On the other side, were moms of “real” babies who were caught in the impassioned verbal crossfire as they too dangled helpless and innocent in the baby carriers (which proved very helpful for both sides, as they allowed the use of both hands for picket signs and obscene gestures).
Fueling the fire for the furbaby moms were Pope Francis’ recent comments that couples should raise children, not dogs and cats. An article in Time seemed to sum it up the best: “In other words, all the effort you spend caring for your furry friends would be of better use if Fido or Fifi were children.”
The Pope’s stance that dogs and cats are not to be treated as babies got those who do just that all in a tizzy. And the fact that his statement gave their opposition fuel in this heated debate was noticeably upsetting to the fur baby moms.
“The Pope is behind us!” yelled one protester.
Abby Harmon, who seemed to be the leader of the furbaby protesters, made a bold statement in response to Pope Francis. “Last night the Pope made a statement and I am highly offended, as a dog mommy of a furbaby of my own, that he would say that dogs don’t have as much rights as babies. It is ridiculous.”
Her dog, a yorkie named Laila, seemed to take it all in stride as she hung on her “mommy” in a contraption designed to be used for human babies.
The moms of “real” babies (a term the furbaby moms seemed to find highly offensive) claimed that human babies are the real babies, shouting “my baby is my baby!” and making a clear distinction between the two types of offspring shouting things like “I feed my baby with my breasts, how do you feed yours?!”
The moms of human babies also claimed that it was harmful to the dogs and just plain wrong to push dogs in strollers and make homemade organic gluten-free baby food for them. And some experts have said that many couples use their pets as a way to avoid their relationship problems.
But the parents of pets may have a point. Just like with married couples with kids facing divorce, they have to endure long drawn-out custody battles for their beloved furbabies. They are also fearful of their little ones being kidnapped—just like their human parent counterparts—as pets being kidnapped and held for ransom is fast becoming a new crime trend.
Regardless of which side may be right or wrong, it was clear that all of these mommies cared about their “babies” and that they all had nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon.
Those who live in the Los Angeles area and would like to learn more about the “furbaby” phenomenon are invited to a screening of the film Gone Doggy Gone at 5 p.m. this Friday at the Chinese 6 Theatres at Hollywood and Highland. Tickets can be purchased here.
Day 4 – Do’s and Don’ts of Writing, Acting, and Directing
Writing, acting, and directing your own film is something I would only advise a masochist to take on. The only reason I attempted to do this was my co-director Kasi Brown (pronounced “Casey”) and I knew that we had each other to pick up the slack. We’d shot a bunch of sketches and had both worked on films for many years. We knew a feature length film would be vastly different, but we felt brave enough to try. We’ve always shared a creative shorthand with one another, where one of us thinks something, we lock eyes and the other says “that’s perfect! Let’s do it!” So we set forth with making Gone Doggy Gone, and we weren’t going to let anyone tell us we couldn’t do it. Here are a few examples to help future writer/actor/directors avoid mistakes we made.
Kasi Brown, Brandon Walter and our DP Garret O’Brien
USING THE CREW WHEN YOU CAN’T BE BEHIND THE MONITOR
If you think the camera crew or DP can be your eyes as a director think again. They’re doing their job. How are they supposed to do your job as well? Were this a short film or sketch, then maybe it could happen, but not on a feature so it’s best to just let this idea go.
When we weren’t in scenes, we were behind the monitors making sure the shot was ever so right. First we’d check the frame, then run over and act. So many times something would come up with lighting, or a lens change would happen at the last minute and the shot would be slightly re-framed. Since we had our acting hats on, we neglected to run back and check frame. Stupid us. The shot, which had a joke in the frame, didn’t register anymore. It was our fault because we didn’t switch hats and double check. This kind of thing happens all the time when you’re overextending yourself on set.
Kasi as Abby Harmon, Laila the Yorkie in the middle, and Brandon as Eliott Harmon
THE ACTING ROLES YOU PLAY
Kasi and I played husband and wife and were in nearly every scene together. Stupid us, again. If we’d played different roles then one of us could have been directing while the other acted. This would have made things much smoother. But if you have to do this and can’t be told otherwise, make sure your directing partner is an awesome actor. I was very fortunate to work with Kasi who is “all balls”. She doesn’t know the meaning of half-measures. Her acting brought everyone else’s up a notch. Thank God for her years of acting experience and helping me out when the proverbial celluloid sh*t hit the fan. She was the calm in the center of the hurricane.
THREE TAKE SCENES IF WE WERE LUCKY
Many times we’d set up a shot and only have 3 takes from one angle if we were lucky. When we’d look back at the footage and see there was only 1 take of something, we were horrified. “Are you kidding me? That’s all we got? Oh, yeah… we had an 8 page day with 50 setups, stunts and dogs!” Don’t do this to yourself! You’ve really got to break down the shots of every scene before hand so much that you’ve either got them storyboarded or written out extensively so they can easily be communicated. Although, we did this we could have done it in even greater detail. Plan your shots out like its D-Day. Eisenhower took a full year to prepare that invasion. He took his time, and planned, and planned, and planned some more, and made plans for failed plans, and planned for different plans. That’s the kind of attention to detail you need when you make a movie for $100 or a million dollars.
I hope I’ve conveyed to you why you shouldn’t write/direct/act in your own film or at least some pitfalls to avoid. We were a bit foolish in some aspects, but I’m glad to be a fool and have a finished feature film, than having a script I’m trying to get made.
Day 2 – The Bar and Kent’s Apartment
Garrett O’Brien (DP), Brandon Walter & Kasi Brown set up for a shot with actors Shaina Vorspan and Will Mulligan.
Continuing with the theme of location scouting – the bar was found using the same divide and conquer technique
- find a location close to your other locations to keep you on schedule
- make sure it fits your script
- make sure that it opens later in the day.
- make sure they have parking for the truck and street parking for crew cars.
- BEG them to allow you to shoot there.
If you cannot afford to ‘shut the place down,’ as we could not, then start shooting at 5am if they open to the public at 12pm.
On this particular day things didn’t quite go as planned however. Our first day cruised by ahead of schedule and on time. Our second day started with a big fat monkey wrench thrown in it as our location rep, aka bartender, over slept. Luckily the owner was able to rouse him when he didn’t answer our phone calls. Five hours later and its a wrap as the bar was opening to the public and we had another location to shoot that day #ambitious #indiefilmmaking! As with all days on a limited budget, the schedule is always the hardest to overcome. But all in all – shooting out four locations in two days was nothing to shake a fist at!
Thank you again Nate for letting us shoot at your place! Luckily our cat sized dog #dogsizedcat didn’t tear up the place in a war of ultimate cuteness! Can’t wait to hear more beat-boxing from our actor @J_Hendricks20 check him out – especially at 1:38 when the beatboxing begins!
Director, Kasi Brown measures her Teacup Yorkie Laila to a giant playful cat.
Production Begins Today!
Today is our first day of shooting our feature film. It’s been a long journey and we are very excited to begin. We’ve assembled a great crew and awesome cast. We’re going to be shooting some office scenes today with Mark Teich We decided to start the week with days that we are not acting in so we can just be directors and get used to it.
Pictured below are Kasi and Charles (1st AD).
