Dave's Dawgs won a NAMMA Ten Best award in 2009.

The Making of ... DAVE'S DAWGS

by David Fuller

Still from 'Daves Dawg'.

An idea for a movie

It seems, we've always had a "dawg". As a boy in the 1930's Depression, I took it for granted that every farm had one. When my wife and I began our teaching careers in country schools, we always had a dawg. It wasn't till we retired and lived in a condo that things changed ...

That is, until, some years later our son gave us grandkids ... and a white Bichon.

A minor epiphany : how about making a short movie about all the dawgs we've ever had ! I thought back to the days when I bought my first 8mm movie camera.

The Artistic Dimension

How would I hold together this "succession" of dawg events recorded in those minuscule 8mm frames ?

I'll begin devising a premise

"The development of a dog's character depends largely on the alpha male and how the dawg reacts to the boss.
A "wing-ding" Boss matches a nutty mutt."

Ah, that'll be the focus of my movie.

A Presentation formula

Say, I introduce my premise in person, while showing in the frame our grandkids' Bichon. I can announce: 'A dawg is a reflection of its owner's personality'.
Following the introduction, I can show examples of our sundry dawgs' behaviors, with bare- necessity voice-over commentary.
A conclusion ? Return Reels of cine film. to where we started. 'There's the Bichon,' as I utter a summarial comment about "mutual affection".
What have I got to work with ? Just silent movies; 8mm brief sketches of what the family did with our dawgs. So, I'll dig up from the boxes the 8mm film reels to find examples of our past dawgs. A half-hour each reel of the stuff on a dozen reels.
Nostalgically, I look back at one main feature of each dog from Sausage (1961), through Rusty, Mutty - all three in Queensland; to Mac and Yoshi in Canada.

Picture of a twin-lens Bolex 8mm camera. Still from 'Daves Dawg'. The Technical Dimension

The dormant old bootlace film had been transferred to DV, of course. You may be somewhat surprised at the unexpected sharpness of the resulting digital conversion . I have no doubt that part of this quality of image resolution derives from the high quality lenses I had on my Bolex camera - for you bootlace buffs, a f1.5 12mm lens Switar and a f2.8 Switar 37mm lens. Cleaning, lubricating and filling in the vertical scratches with a waxy ingredient in the film renovation goop, is worth the trouble.
One hundred percent monitored, during digital capture, I had to occasionally re-check the focus as displayed on the 35 inch Sony tv. My aim was to get maximum film grain detail. (For those born in the video age: when it was projected, analog film could be focused using the faint, swirling pattern of graininess caused by the chemistry of the film itself. Get the grain sharp and any other focus issues were down to the camerawork!)
As I've done with all my Hi-8 and DV movies, both the raw stuff and the completed edits, I've entered in "three-ring" binders references according to Master tape numbers and time codes.

OK. This is a petty-fogging, cotton-picking piece of cookery at the time of making the entries,
but how sweet the cake tastes as I later search for a specific entry. I can go to the layered boxes of Masters and within minutes I have a heap of selected masters on my editing desk.

For a movie using voice-over, I write pieces of a rough commentary , and while choosing my edited scenes, I match the commentary words. The "voice" will be the same one as in the introduction. They will fit Now I record the real commentary "takes" .

Premise, bootlace images tightly-edited, titles, commentary and music: the making of Dave's Dawgs.