LIGHTS, CAMERA & ACTION
Lights, Camera and Action! By Joan Payton
Late one evening in December, I received a call asking if I had German Wirehaired Pointers and would I be interested in using one in a commercial for a new dog food by Blue Buffalo called Blue Freedom. Just email pictures and we will get back to you. Christmas and New Year’s came and went with no news. Oh well, no one uses a wire in their ads. Wrong, there’s an email, they want the Payton GWP! Good thing we’ve been training them all to jump over things on command.
On January17th, I and seven other owners and dogs met at Tejon Ranch in Central California. Our previous training day was just four of us and the animal wrangler. Expecting this again, I wore my favorite bang around dog training “Pedigree” sweatshirt. Of course not only is the director there but so is the son of the owner of Blue Buffalo! Luckily he was a nice guy with a sense of humor. He had on a new company sweatshirt and asked if I would wear it instead. Of course I would. (It’s a nice shirt too) The next day is filming. It dawns amazingly clear and warm for January in the mountains. After driving over 20 minutes into the ranch we arrive at base camp. Wow, how many people and trucks does it take to make a 30 second commercial?! There are EZ Ups with chairs 52
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©2012 GWPCA
and monitors set up everywhere. We’ve all seen it on TV but it doesn’t compare to being there. The bathrooms were even nicer than a lot of houses I’ve been in! Then there are the food crafts. These people take care of you. All day you can grab a variety of snacks and sandwiches, all set out like a party. Then there was lunch, real table cloths surrounded by beautiful scenery. The food rivaled a 5 star restaurant. Two green salads and three main dishes both days. Filet of Sole & Penne Pasta to name a couple. Eight scenes were taped. Every scene took approximately 1-2 hrs. You do a lot of waiting while the director and advertising executives review the shot and save or erase it. Briar taped 3 scenes. The first was supposed to be running down rocks & jumping off about a 3 foot drop. Rob, the wrangler, and I agreed that we didn’t want to make that jump more than a couple times. After one jump they decided it wasn’t what they had envisioned so they decided to have her jump up. They loved it. One of the other handlers held Briar about 20 feet from the ledge. I had to climb on top keeping her attention. When action was called I had to hurry up the rock about 25 feet, backwards and call her. I set on my butt very gracefully so one of the crew spotted me and let me fall again.