We were commissioned by Bissell to produce four promotional videos for their new pet care product line “Pawsitively Clean,” which are items specifically designed for cleaning up the different messes that pets make. The four products we focused on were (we love these names) ewww®, yowza!, dang!, and yecch.
This was an exciting experience for DVS Creative, as we worked with several adopted dogs for the production. In collaboration with Director Ken Schmidt, we held auditions, or “dogditions” as Mike called them, to see which pets would work well for each product. Not only were we looking at physical attributes of each candidate, but the pets needed to be mild mannered and show us that they would take direction from his or her owner. We found that you don’t need to be afraid of working with non-professionally trained animals on a scripted production, you just need to be prepared and patient.
For ewww®, we selected a sprightly Pomeranian named Medo. She is incredibly cute and took direction well, but about 15 minutes into the production she decided to say hello to all of the crew members during taping. Who could blame her with so much going on?
Yowza! is a brush that attaches to the hose of most any vacuum, so it sucks up hair as you brush your pet. To demonstrate this tool we selected a dog named Krickit. She is a golden retriever with long hair and loves to be brushed. She is well trained and was very easy to work with.
The next product: Yecch, is an innovative window drool cleaner that includes a brush and squeegee all in one. To show this we needed a pet that could administer a hearty helping of slobber to a slider door window, and Dexter the Bull Mastiff was just the dog for the job. We helped him out a little bit by mixing some baking powder and water to apply to the window for a dried-on look. Showing this in tandem with Dexter’s floppy jowls gave us the look we were aiming for!
Finally, for dang! we were looking for a sweet dog that had the look of innocence and regret. Shaelie the Beagle was a great match. We asked a lot of Shaelie, and she worked very well along with her owner to get us the shots we needed.
Keeping the production on schedule was highly attributed to how well the pets cooperated with their owners, and also to the preparedness of our team. Remember that pre-production is an important part of any production, especially when working with animals. Click here to see all of the videos!
