Dog Park Scouting

We needed a dog park to shoot in – the question was whether we try to steal the shot in a real dog park, or permit and bring in our friends to create a dog park.  We decided to go legit.  The first park we found was in Griffith Park and was a little bit sad and drab… which was definitely one way to go.

Our first AD, Ellie, stood in for Zach’s character.

Then we found something more bucolic.  The Lake Hollywood dog park, right below the Hollywood sign.  Dog Brigadoon.

This park gets crowded and we were worried the weekly Ultimate frisbee game here might disrupt our shooting.  Also, the park rangers tend to show up and ticket any dogs off leash so it seemed like this might create some problems.

Well… it turns out our decision was made for us.  Los Angeles experienced some really strong wind storms, trees blew down, power went out and LA County closed all of the parks.  That meant that we couldn’t use the Lake Hollywood dog park or Griffith Park on the Sunday that we were planning to shoot.  And we had already coordinated everything.

SO… change of plans.  Our AD and producer, Ellie found this open lot behind her house.  A lush field….

David Newsom (time-lapse shooter, still photographer & Sian’s husband) and Kyle Kannenberg (production designer) drove all over Los Angeles, looking for a fence, to make this feel like a dog park.  You’d be surprised how hard it is to find a six foot piece of chain link fence.  We were on the verge of sneaking around in the dead of night with a pair of wire cutters, when luckily…

David ended up in Long Beach, with this guy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Andrew Hussey, Kyle and David set about building our fence…