A quick Sketch idea



So, now looking at the stories to do with my dogs, after speaking with Alan last week and Justin today, I realise that my story skills need a bit of work- which is expected, stories are hard. So I’ve spent a bit of time rustling up bits and pieces, that don’t necessarily align or work yet, but they’re heading in the right direction and I’m feeling okay about it.

So there is the idea of the relationship between the two dogs, a sibling like relationship that we often see between animals when one is younger than the other. One often begins as the ‘only child’, spoiled with attention and love and then we see them learn how to share that love and essentially teach another dog, to be a dog. This is a really special thing to see, and so could be a nice thing to capture in my story. The story could begin with Ryan, the older dog, purebred and clever, a spoiled only dog- in his home where is the alpha and centre of attention. Then in comes Bella, the younger, sillier, runt of the litter pup, taking away from his spotlight a little bit. There could be an interesting dynamic to play with here, and follow through their relationship up until Ryan dies. We can then explore how Bella reacts to this death, another interesting relationship dynamic with animals is when one of a duo act dies, the other is left confused and in this case, she relied on him as her alpha, her big brother. So we see their relationship form into what I would call ‘a double act’, you don’t often see one without the other, they belong as a pair. So to see one without the other after Ryan’s death, has the potential to be an emotional story, with Bella sniffing at his collar, sleeping in their bed alone, ending up with her finding new ways to do things. (Could end up with the owner sleeping next to her in her bed, on a human bed, her curled up to the ghost of the other dog, seeing him again as dogs are sometimes said to be able to see what we can’t, etc.) There’s a fair bit to play around with in terms of story and potential to evoke emotions. 

There was the idea that the owner could come home after the death of their dog, with a collar in hand and have a dog asleep in bed, confused as to why their owner is sad. Dogs naturally want to make us happy, so the dog would follow the owner around the house or on a walk- the dog is happy and light, until the evening comes and the owner sits on the dogs bed, the dogs head upon the owners knee, waiting to be stroked. Until the owner pulls out the dogs collar, we see that the dog is a spirit, unable to be seen by the owner, but loyal even in death. This could also be done with the remaining younger sibling idea, the dog confused as to why the owner is sad, still able to play with the ghost of the other dog- leaving the owner more confused than the dog. 

So the basic idea we’re running with and working on at the moment is: Meeting the dogs, building their relationship up to the audience over their time/small stories together, the older dog dying, and resulting in the younger dogs reactions to this. 

There’s potential here to maybe dub over inner thoughts of the dog, but this could end up being too cliche, or not necessary if we purely try to empathise through the performance of emotions on screen. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to evoke emotions from the audience in these ideas and I’m going to continue developing these and coming up with other ideas along the way. 

(This is the initial ideas after my chat with Justin today- so I’m going to spend some time reading/watching other dog stories that evoke emotion in a smaller amount of screen time/short stories and take some note and inspiration.)