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I've recently started work doing commercials with my dog. I'm kind of having a blast doing it and finding it very rewarding. It's not without its challenges and peculiarities. I thought it might interest folks enough to start up an Ask/Tell. I'll not go into much detail about some subjects to honour contractual obligations, but much is fair game. My experience has been limited to working with my own dog, so that's what I know best. I've mostly just been involved in advertising projects, but commercial work extends to movies, TV, theatre, etc. Most commercial work consists of your dog just hanging out in the background, bein' a dog, to add depth to a scene. Dogs will frequently be sitting or laying down, moving from one place to another or interacting with an actor.  The real fun stuff comes along every once in a while that allows you to flex your dog's repertoire and shine as the focal point of a project. I just finished up this project that was kind of awesome to make. This one will be running online and before trailers in Cineplex theatres, which is pretty amazing to me. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axQhpQWzfIM Phone photo of the poster at Cineplex (which explains why it's low-quality):  Article: I wrote an article recently that covered some of the basics about getting started in commercial work. SA goons may not be the target market, but here it is if you're interested: http://ci-da.blogspot.ca/2016/03/twenty-things-to-know-to-get-your-dog.html In brief: It takes a great deal of luck to get started in this line of work. You can do everything right and still not get anywhere. Clients hire you (or your dog, depending on how you're looking at it) based off a photo or two, and they may be looking at dozens, if not hundreds, of photos in the early stages of casting. Generic dogs with light faces and pleasant expressions tend to be cast over unusual looking dogs with dark faces or light eyes, so the former tend to be cast more frequently than the latter. But funky looking dogs do get cast periodically. Again, it really just boils down to luck. My dog has an agent. Sometimes we're asked to attend auditions, but more frequently we're just told to show up at the shooting location on the day of the project. The latter is more common when they're just looking for a background dog doing dog things. I'm not sure about other people in the industry, but I find being hired to just do doggy things to be ten times more difficult than being hired to perform more actively. My dog gets fidgety and, quite honestly, isn't very good at just being a dog when the camera rolls. The meat and potatoes of any job is going to be basic training things like sits, downs, stays, recalls, fetching, etc. However, performing even the simplest behaviours gets challenging in the hustle and bustle of a set. Spaces are tight, time is tighter. So the basic obedience, while basic, needs to be bombproof. Dogs are expected to perform behaviours on a hand signal only from a distance of 10-15 feet. Shots may be repeated multiple times, so dogs need to be tolerant of repetition. The ideal dog candidate is one that loves to learn, one that is patient, resilient and confident. Sometimes you'll have an idea of what you're going to need to do before you arrive on set -- sometimes you'll have no idea. Regardless, plans with change and you'll have to adapt on the fly. I practice what I can ahead of time, and I ensure my dog has a firm grasp of the basics so we can change as needed. Things like staying on a spot when asked, moving from one target to another, looking at/away from the camera, etc., are behaviours I swear by. People tend to think this job is fun and easy. It's not. Not every dog is cut out for this sort of thing. I advise those interested in starting out with their dogs to be very honest with themselves about their motivations as well as their dog’s ability and desire to do the work. There can be a lot of money riding on a project, and you're still working with an animal who is by nature unpredictable. It can be stressful. The days can be long. Patience can wear thin. The dog wasn't the one to sign up for the job, so trainers need to have the animal's best interests at heart. Sometimes you have to say no. But, overall, I've had really good experiences with really wonderful groups of people. About me: I'm a dog training geek. Cohen is my 6 year old Australian Shepherd. I adore training tricks, and Cohen loves to learn, so it works out pretty well between us. I train new things via clicker training. She picks up new things really quickly because she's got a firm grasp on the basics. She's also really energetic and resilient -- nothing gets under her skin and she will gogogo for hours. She's my first dog, and she's pretty stellar -- I stopped counting when she hit 200 known cues and behaviours. She'd likely run off a cliff for a piece of kibble. Any questions? Shoot. 
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Apr 11, 2016 19:14
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How'd you get into the business? Is it something you'd always wanted to do or were you like "yeah my dog is smart, I can do that!" Most stressful part? Most fun part?
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Apr 11, 2016 19:19
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30 Goddamned Dicks posted:How'd you get into the business? Is it something you'd always wanted to do or were you like "yeah my dog is smart, I can do that!" I've wanted to get involved for a while, I think, but wasn't sure where to start. I got in contact with my agent a year or more ago now, and there was a year of radio silence during which I kind of forgot that I'd spoken to them and had moved on with my life. Then I got a call, which led to another, and then a few more... I've done live performances with my dog for a few years now and through those I've been in contact with other people who have done commercial work with their dogs; doing it myself felt like the next step to keep expanding my experiences. And while so much of what I've done so far has been luck, key parts have been via connections I've made through performing with a group. Plus, performing has given me confidence to tackle projects individually. 30 Goddamned Dicks posted:Most stressful part? Most fun part? Most stressful? I'm kind of a perfectionist, so... any time my dog isn't perfect? (Yay anxiety!) Most people involved understand that dogs aren't robots. But sometimes time is tight and endurance is wearing thin and getting a shot can become stressful. For instance, my dog is sort of a hands-off type animal. She'd rather people keep their hands to themselves, thankyouverymuch, so she can focus on her work. But when the scene calls for her to chill on top of an actor, I'm resetting her every other shot because she keeps fidgeting and shuffling away, possibly ruining otherwise good takes. It gets frustrating and tiresome on both of our parts when we're dealing with that for any length of time. The days can be long, so if you're running on empty, it can be harder to go "oh well -- next!" with any confidence. Most fun part? When I get to see the finished product. I love putting effort into a project and being able to share the fruits of that effort with other people. I also really enjoy teaching new behaviours on the fly, or in new areas. I love the moment when I see my dog go "aha, this is what you want!" and nail it on the first take. The troubleshooting keeps me keyed in mentally and always expanding my skills.
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Apr 11, 2016 21:05
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What's it pay? Are you in LA, or elsewhere?
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Apr 11, 2016 22:43
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Can you talk a bit about the training? Is it pretty similar to normal dog training? Are there any differences required for TV/photo work? Any times when your dog has to work together with another dog? Also, any stories about funny/interesting moments, or when things just didn't work out as planned?
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Apr 12, 2016 00:09
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photomikey posted:What's it pay? The pay varies quite a bit depending on the type of project. There's normally a rate for attending on set for a couple hours, a half-day or a full day, plus more if they're buying rights for photos, etc. I don't really want to get into the dollars & cents of it, but it's normally well worth my time. I'm in Toronto. There's a fairly healthy commercial & movie industry here, but it pales in comparison to work in LA or Vancouver. HisMajestyBOB posted:Can you talk a bit about the training? Is it pretty similar to normal dog training? Are there any differences required for TV/photo work? Training: I'm a pet trainer turned commercial person, so my approach is very similar to both. Most of what I do builds on a dog's self control. I motivate a dog to want to work and engage with me via positive reinforcement. I approach training and handling with the mindset that the dog is never wrong (okay... rarely wrong). I avoid punishing undesired behaviours because I want a dog to feel comfortable experimenting with new things without losing motivation or fearing reprisal. Most training geared towards pet dogs also follows this sort of methodology, but some people still prefer to shut down behaviour rather than channeling it somewhere more appropriate. We do a lot of target training. Things like paws on things, nose on things, looking at things, moving from things to other things, etc. to give greater control over a dog's positioning at a distance. These types of behaviours are sort of outside the realm of useful stuff for pet owners, but I spend a fair amount of time practicing them during training sessions. Targets are a staple of training within the industry. Working with other dogs: Yeah, we work with other dogs periodically. We do a lot of work with other dogs during the live performances in front of an audience, and sometimes a bit of work during the commercial gigs. However, trying to get two dogs to successfully hit their marks or perform their behaviours while the camera is rolling is... frustrating. It's uncanny -- no matter how awesomely trained two dogs are, it's like herding cats to get them both performing at their best. It's not impossible, but in my experience, it's tricky. Most of the time, it's dogs performing one after the other, or one performing a passive activity while the other is more active. My dog is a jerk too, and is uncomfortable with new dogs. It's not an issue when we're working, but I can see her stress levels rise when a new dog enters her area. Stories: I'm still new in the industry, so I've not had opportunity for too many things to go wrong (touch wood). There's an adage coined by W.C. Fields to never work with children or animals. Well, the first job we had was with a group of young children. The kids took turns crying and having stomach aches and refusing to work while their parents stood in the background and attempted to bribe them with promises of going to Chuck-E-Cheese afterwards and eating chocolate bars for dinner. Basically, my dog looked like a rock star by comparison. She was the easiest part of that shoot, and I had the parents looking at us with a bit of envy. It was a great experience to build my confidence on my first job. In the video I linked in the OP, the Golden Retriever that was brought by to play my dog's 'love interest' (weird typing that out... kind of eww) immediately elicited a growl and a snark from my dog when they first met. Because, again, my dog is a jerk. Whelp. So much for filming them playing together. Friendship was out of the question. Working relationship worked out just fine. a life less fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Apr 12, 2016 |
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Apr 12, 2016 18:03
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Serious question: is there a guild/union for animal actors? If so, is Cohen a card-carrying member yet?
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Apr 13, 2016 15:15
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Do you know how the gently caress do they ever get cats to do anything? My cat is about the nicest and chillest cat ever but there's still no way you'd get him to cooperate, unless the role is to sleep on top of whatever someone is trying to read in the scene.
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Apr 13, 2016 16:30
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viewtyjoe posted:Serious question: is there a guild/union for animal actors? If so, is Cohen a card-carrying member yet? Not that I'm aware of! Cohen is real good at carrying cards though. Grand Fromage posted:Do you know how the gently caress do they ever get cats to do anything? My cat is about the nicest and chillest cat ever but there's still no way you'd get him to cooperate, unless the role is to sleep on top of whatever someone is trying to read in the scene. Hah! Cats are trained via the same methods as (most) dogs and just about any other animal you see: positive reinforcement. Like with dogs, it's not every cat that is resilient and motivated enough to do this sort of work. It takes a special sort. Dogs are pretty forgiving of our poo poo. We can do stupid stuff like yell at them or roll them around and they'll still love you enough to do what you ask most of the time. Such is the benefit of domestication. (Note: this is a bad way to handle dogs.) Cats, being significantly "closer" to their undomesticated cousins, won't tolerate that sort of poo poo. So you need to motivate them with things that they want -- mostly treats. They're also not particularly interested in being handled the same way dogs traditionally are, so a great deal of how they're taught is via shaping. Shaping is the term we use for rewarding progressive, successive approximations of a goal behaviour. In laymen's terms, you don't teach a cat to shake a paw by grabbing a paw -- you'll likely end up with the cat pulling its paw away. You can start by presenting a target and marking then rewarding the tiniest hint of paw movement. Then you reset and hope for slightly more paw movement the next rep, then more in subsequent reps. Eventually you'll be able to mold what started out as a twitch into a confident and decisive movement. This can take a while, but the animal retains the behaviour for a great deal of time since they're an active participant in the learning process. The same tactics are used for teaching captive marine animals to jump through hoops, or hyenas to stand still for a blood draw, or Nile turtles to stand on a scale to track health and condition. Shaping and targeting are the pillars of this sort of training. We use a very, very high rate of reinforcement when first teaching a new behaviour, and then we systematically increase the requirements for reinforcement either by increasing complexity or duration. It's really fascinating stuff to watch.
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Apr 13, 2016 19:16
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Congrats on breaking out into pet acting! Has "my dog can do a handstand" come up during auditions yet?
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Apr 13, 2016 19:40
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El Gar posted:Congrats on breaking out into pet acting! Has "my dog can do a handstand" come up during auditions yet? Gar! We were working on a bedding commercial, hired just to have my dog hang out in the background, and the director was joking about how she was going to have Cohen handstanding back and forth through the frame. I don't think the clients wanted to sign off on it.  
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Apr 13, 2016 19:56
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Is this something you do full time now, or is it even possible to do it full time?
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Apr 15, 2016 16:12
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turbomoose posted:Is this something you do full time now, or is it even possible to do it full time? No, not something I do full time. Right now, work is sporadic. However, I know a few people who this full time, or close to it. Those folks tend to have many animals with whom they can work, so they're more likely to have what a client is looking for. Or full timers may acquire jobs with their personal animals as well as act as an agent to find animal roles for clients as well.
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Apr 18, 2016 15:16
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How does the acting business compare to famous pets like grumpy cat or Loki the wolf dog? I assume they those pet owners really don't have to work if they don't want to?
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Apr 18, 2016 19:50
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spwrozek posted:How does the acting business compare to famous pets like grumpy cat or Loki the wolf dog? I assume they those pet owners really don't have to work if they don't want to? I'm honestly not too sure. When you get internet-famous, companies pretty much fall over themselves trying to send you free stuff. But the internet is a fickle mistress, so I can't imagine pet owners cease working after that. I wouldn't be surprised if they never had to spend another penny of their own money on pet products though.
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Apr 19, 2016 18:02
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Cohen is all over my YouTube ads 
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Apr 20, 2016 19:44
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Emily A. Stanton posted:Cohen is all over my YouTube ads  Mine too. I think they call this a Youtube masthead takeover.
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Apr 20, 2016 20:04
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Emily A. Stanton posted:Cohen is all over my YouTube ads That's fantastic. Threads like this are a big reason I love SA. I'm not sure I gave ninety seconds of thought in my entire life to animal training for media that's not ludicrous poo poo like Homeward Bound, but by Dog I am enjoying this thread.
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Apr 21, 2016 18:23
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GreyjoyBastard posted:That's fantastic. That's awesome. Another commercial we did just came out. I had to laugh -- this was the culmination of about 8 hours of being on set. (Not complaining -- everyone involved with the project was a pleasure to chat with and loved the dog.) It ended up being about 2 seconds of dog laying on floor. And, funnily enough, it was a pain to get her to just freaking stay and not shift about when the model's arm blocked her view of me for a split second. 
a life less fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Apr 21, 2016 |
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Apr 21, 2016 18:28
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a life less posted:it was a pain to get her to just freaking stay and not shift about when the model's arm blocked her view of me for a split second. So is this the kind of thing that informs your next training plan? Like do you go home and say, "I need to train her to obey after I give a command and her view of me is blocked." Or was it enough that it eventually worked and you focus on less specific things?
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Apr 21, 2016 18:40
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El Gar posted:So is this the kind of thing that informs your next training plan? Like do you go home and say, "I need to train her to obey after I give a command and her view of me is blocked." Or was it enough that it eventually worked and you focus on less specific things? Yep. I'm pretty sure I went home from that job and immediately started working on getting my dog to watch a target stick. However, I've not worked on the visual targeting for a while and it could probably use some proofing. I doubt I'll be motivated enough to take up the training on it to really refine it to perfection until I book another job. Right now I have nothing on my schedule, so my dog training is geared towards competition type stuff, or stuff entirely for fun.
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Apr 21, 2016 19:58
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I was chatting with a friend of mine who does more commercial work with her animals than I do. She and her co-workers apparently had 12 days to prep all the behaviours that you see in this commercial -- two of the dogs belong to said friend. Five dogs and a cat performing together with (I think) not a lot of composite shots. Pretty impressive, especially considering the sheer number of animals needing to be directed during the project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3TUd5U-CPQ
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Apr 21, 2016 20:45
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Have you tried getting more work by pitching An Even Littler Hobo to CTV?
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Apr 26, 2016 17:41
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a life less posted:I was chatting with a friend of mine who does more commercial work with her animals than I do. She and her co-workers apparently had 12 days to prep all the behaviours that you see in this commercial -- two of the dogs belong to said friend. Five dogs and a cat performing together with (I think) not a lot of composite shots. Pretty impressive, especially considering the sheer number of animals needing to be directed during the project. I like that the cat's part is literally "be a loving rear end in a top hat".
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Apr 28, 2016 15:20
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Cats are really easy to train, it takes more time to overcome the common misconception that cats are aloof idiots that hate everything/need nothing than it does to actually train the cat. I mean that's true with dogs as well, 90% of dog training is just helping humans unlearn all the awful poo poo they think they know about dogs like that they are pack animals or that they have a hierarchy and alphas that dominate etc when that's all utter bullshit.
Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Apr 30, 2016 |
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Apr 30, 2016 21:19
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Ignore that, "pack" clicked in my mind like "pack mule" Antifreeze Head fucked around with this message at 19:21 on May 2, 2016 |
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May 2, 2016 19:17
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Pryor on Fire posted:Cats are really easy to train, it takes more time to overcome the common misconception that cats are aloof idiots that hate everything/need nothing than it does to actually train the cat. I mean that's true with dogs as well, 90% of dog training is just helping humans unlearn all the awful poo poo they think they know about dogs like that they are pack animals or that they have a hierarchy and alphas that dominate etc when that's all utter bullshit. I agree with this as someone who always ends up training her dumb fuckin cats instead of her dogs. Cats don't want to please for the same reason dogs do. Cats want to get the treat. Overfed cats don't work and that's at least half of the problem. People's cats are fuckin whalish.
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May 3, 2016 15:10
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I was chatting with a friend who does this sort of stuff with her cat (as well as other animals). She says the cat has had more days on set than all of her other animals combined. Trained cats get a lot more work since there's so few of them. She mentioned that it's a matter of finding a balance between hungry but not too hungry. If they're too hungry they can't focus. She feeds the cats two small kibble meals a day and then they work for either dry treats or canned wet food cut into cubes. Her cats are normally free fed so she gets them ready for a job by taking away the constant access to food and switches them to meals for a short period of time. The cats are trained almost entirely via shaping and errorless learning. That is, the animal is never "wrong". You reward all attempts, and build the behaviour by controlling the environment, not the animal.
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May 3, 2016 21:16
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