In movies like “Marley & Me”, “Rescued by Ruby”, “Beethoven” etc, how do they get the animals to cooperate/act? Is it not confusing for the animals being called names on set that are not their real names in real life?
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Watch a movie, and pay attention to every time the camera cuts. Not every scene, I’m talking about every single time the shot changes. It happens a lot.
Shot 1: Beethoven the dog has destroyed the kitchen. The table is turned over and the dog has spaghetti in his fur.
Shot 2: Change camera angle. Frustrated dad Charles Grodin walks in carrying a cake, and sees the mess. Shouts “Nooo! What did you do, Beethoven!?!”
Shot 3: Change angle again. Beethoven the dog hears his name and perks up his ears. Starts to stand up.
Shot 4: Back to dad. Charles Grodin’s face goes into a comical shocked expression. “No no no no nooooo!!!”
Shot 5: Back to dog. Dog has finished standing up, and now begins to run forward. This shot is in slow motion. As dog reaches edge of the screen, he starts to jump.
Shot 6: Back to dad. Giant dog goes into dad’s arms, knocking the cake backwards into dad’s face. Shot is still in slow motion.
Shot 7: New angle. Dad lands on ground. Cake lands in dad’s face. Beethoven’s body lands on cake.
Shot 8: New angle again. Camera is on dog. Dog runs out of dining room and we see dad laying on ground behind dog. Cake is everywhere.
Shot 9: Different angle again. Dog runs by mom and into living room. Mom says “Dad, what did you do to my cake???”
Shot 10: Focus on dad’s face. Dad makes comical outraged expression. He is covered in cake. Shouts “Beethoven!!!”
The whole scene takes 30 seconds on camera. Probably took 4 days of filming to get all those shots working properly. Just because it appears the dog reacted to the name being called out, that doesn’t mean it’s what actually happened. They might not have even filmed the dog’s reactions on the same day that they filmed Charles Grodin shouting out the “Beethoven” name.
It’s like when they film kids in horror movies. Most of the time, the kid doesn’t even know he’s making a horror movie. They film their scenes as separate as possible, the scary music hasn’t been added yet, and they’re very rarely on set with the people in monster makeup. And when they finish one shot, it might take them an hour to set up the next one.
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