Production history around: diaDOGue
For my film diaDOGue, I wanted to continue my investigation into non-human agency like I did with Doggy Style and Tinguely Feeling. For both of those previous productions, I tried to embrace chance by recording the subjects (dogs/robots) and having agency in the editing process through the selection of footage and its use in the editing process.
I wanted to twist the format this time around. My plan was to film Toffee and Noodle and then use the selected footage to form a narrative. For example, if they looked concerned, I would write a piece of dialogue where they sounded concerned, and so on.
So, I spent a few hours on the first day filming the dogs. They got tired pretty quickly, so I thought to myself “okay, so this will take a few days. No problem.”
When I woke the next day, I found that Noodle had absolutely decimated my toy plesiosaurus (my favourite dinosaur). It was completely my fault because, one, she is a dog and knows no better, and two, the plesiosaurus lived in the bathroom, and I accidentally left the bathroom door open overnight.
Looking at the crumbled mess of a sea creature on the floor, I thought that it reminded me of Jean Arp’s ‘Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged according to the Law of Chance)’ — even the colours were reminiscent of it. Suddenly, the plot of diaDOGue was created.
When writing the script, I looked up information about plesiosauruseses, and learnt that they were in fact not dinosaurs (they are marine reptiles), so this discovery entered the plot as well. I really enjoy the process of the entire piece coming together through chance occurrences. The constant looking at the world like ‘how can I use that for a film’ makes everything a lot of fun.
I asked my friend Louis G. Limberg to help voice one of the dogs on the piece. He can be seen in my film After Images (2), but this is the first time I used his help directly. I like to imagine the dogs as really soft, dainty ladies in my day-to-day, so having two men (and one with a particularly deep voice) play the dogs was quite fun.
Normally I would collaborate online, but since Louis is a good friend and the dogs love him, we recorded the audio in person on the 22nd of November, 2024. Also, Louis had a nice microphone, so doing it in person meant I could use the mic as well.
We recorded 8 different takes of the script. In the editing process, I would take the best bits of each recording. It really was all over the place in terms of which chunks were used, with no take really being used more than others.
The music used in the majority of the piece is ‘Dark Ambient backgrounding 001’ by Steaq, uploaded all the way back in 2014! I love the idea that a creative can put something on into the world, and 10 years later it gets used for something dumb like this. I really enjoy the serious tone it gives to such a silly scenario.
In terms of my favourite parts of the piece, I really like the shot of Toffee looking towards the camera and saying “This is all your fault” — it is so genuine. Louis did a great job on the line.
I also like the “what did you doooooo?” being synced up with Toffee barking. A postie put something through the letter box while I was filming, and Toffee acted like a drama queen, as is the standard for her.
It was fun to see the audience side with Noodle.
RIP Rubble, the plesiosaurus.
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