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'Someone To Run With'
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news - 17/07/2005
Someone To Run With  -  Israel

dogs breeders dog pictures by Yossi Guy
In July, a TV movie based on David Grossman's book, Someone to Run With, is being filmed in Jerusalem. The plot of the movie is driven by a Golden Retriever who helps a boy locate a girl in trouble. Trainer Uri Bakeman was requested to prepare the four-legged star of the movie for this demanding role. A day on the set revealed the making of a movie with lots of soul.

"A dog gallops through the streets, followed by a boy. A long line connects them and gets entangled in the passers bys' legs and they grumble and fume, and the boy murmurs repeatedly, "sorry, sorry," and between these interjections yells to the dog, "Halt! Stop!", and once, to his shame, he also came up with a "whoa!", and the dog kept on running."



These are the opening sentences of David Grossman's book, Someone to Run With. The dog, who actually turns out to be a bitch, a Golden Retriever, drive the plot of the book, a journey of physical and spiritual search of two youths, Assaf and Tamar. The dog, Dinka, found wandering in downtown Jerusalem, leads Assaf in a chase after Tamar, her owner. Assaf discovers another person's life through meetings with different people who were in close contact with her until he finally locates Tamar and reveals her secret.



When Israel's cable network HOT decided to turn Grossman's book into a movie, it was clear that the dog had a leading part in it. The producers turned to veteran dog trainer, Uri Bakeman, who has a great deal of experience in working with dogs in TV, movies and commercials.



Bakeman set out on a journey of his own, in search of a four-legged actor for the movie. In fact, he searched for three dogs that looked as similar as possible to teach other, for several reasons. First, a dog cannot do a full day's work on a movie set and keep on giving his best performance since dogs have a relatively short attention span. Furthermore, since the dog was required to perform a wide array of actions each dog could be taught to perform some of the necessary actions thus shortening the time required to prepare them for the movie.



In March 2005, Bakeman announce "auditions" for dogs. Following the announcement, some fifty Golden Retrievers from around the country arrived at the World of Dogs kennel. Their owners – for all walks of life: young and old, single and families, from the north and the south – waited impatiently. The passed the assistants at the gate to the kennel, gave the dog's details and then approached Bakeman. After answering several questions, the owner was requested to demonstrate what his dog could do and the dog's reactions to various stimuli and commands were examined.



The dogs' owners receive notice of their advancement to the next stage (and sadly, many were disappointed). Ten dogs were chosen and these underwent a full day's training that culminated in selecting the three dogs that would take part in the movie. Sol and Nana (males) and Casey (the only female although the dog in the movie is female). The three are indeed similar in appearance but there are differences in temperament that Bakeman exploited, as mentioned, when preparing them for the movie.



"I divided the actions among the dogs according to their temperament," elaborated Bakeman. "I prepared the bitch with the energetic nature for actions that require vigor. Another - more gentle - dog was taught to perform the gentle actions. One of the dogs is quite boisterous so we taught him to go 'crazy' and wild."



"Time after time he threw himself at the cage fence and the entire row of cages shook and hummed…"



In the above scene, the dog has to act ferociously in a cage within the municipal dog pound. This action, in fact, is completely opposed to the nature of a Golden Retriever. "We had to shoot a Golden attacking like a Rottweiler and this was extremely difficult for me. I tried to put a cat into the cell with the dog but it didn't do the trick. It succeeded somehow in the end, although the director, Oded Davidov, was hoping for something even wilder," recalls Bakeman.



In another scene, the bitch drags the hero out to find her owner and he has to pass through a line of tables at a pizza parlor. The dog has to run between the tables, on the one hand, but refrain from getting scared by the noises that follow. "Since the scene was quite complicated for the actor, I worked with his double and told him how to get the dog to run forward and then get out of the scene before everything fell on it," said Bakeman. "My greatest fear was that we would have to re-shoot the scene and the dog would refuse to participate if it got scared the first time."



Bakeman continued: "the fear arose after in a previous scene the actor violently pushed a chair. The bitch got scared and refused to work with him. It was therefore important to prevent her from being scared in the pizza parlor."



The dogs, by the way, receive proper star treatment. Since the movie is being shot in July, a month in which temperatures soar to 30 degrees centigrade or more, and dogs suffer from the heat, the production purchased a mobile air-conditioner especially for the dogs. Between shots, they enter their air-conditioned van and rest until they are summoned to the makeup corner.



This is not the first time Etty Bin Nun, the makeup artist, has worked with animals. Over 14 years of doing makeup for movie and TV productions she has been in situations where she was required to make up a dog and create a "bleeding wound" on it. She even made up horses.



Makeup was necessary for two purposes. First of all, to cause the dogs to look dirty and grimy, as if they had actually been running on the streets for days. Secondly, three different dogs had to look like one. In other words, the differences between them had to be minimized and they had to look as similar as possible so they could be exchanged without the viewers noticing it.



Actually, Bin Nun used human makeup products on the dogs, ordered especially from the United States. She removes makeup with Estee Lauder products and remarks that they were not tested on animals.



Bar Belfer, 16, a student at Alon High School, Ramat Hasharon, plays Tamar, the heroine. The rather short, pretty girl, with a warm smile, didn't think of becoming an actress. "The production called me after a casting director notice me somewhere," recalls Bar.



"I did not prepare for the audition, I didn't take it seriously until I was told I had landed the role. I told them I wasn't into it and this was not something I do. But Oded the director was so charming and convinced me."



Although the production gave her acting lessons and vocal coaching, she had not read the book. "Last Sunday I began to take part in the movie and then I read the book," she confessed.



Bar appreciates the wonderful treatment she gets from the production team ("they treat me like a princess") and at the stage in which this interview was held she had not taken a large part in the shooting. "I only had a couple of scenes until now, but I will have to do some things that sound completely over the top. Those are the things relating to that girl's emotional aspect, crazy things. But I hope the acting lessons will help me perform them well."



When asked how she gets along with the dogs, she added: "I have two dogs of my own and this is the last thing I am concerned about. I really don't care if the dog steals the act from me either."



As for future fans, she says, "I prefer not to think of what may happen after they air the movie."



Yonatan Bar Orr who plays the other hero – Assaf, is also a "Cinderella story" in his own right. The production actually found the tall man with the youthful face on the street, at an ATM machine. "They approached me on the street and invited me to audition," recalls Bar Orr, 24, who worked until last month in the help desk of an Internet provider.



"I said why not – it's worth a try. I enjoyed the audition. I got a text and it was quite hard to memorize. They asked me to act it in many different ways. We even fought a bit. I almost threw an ashtray at the director. Then I thought they had forgotten about me. Three weeks later I was invited to a second audition and got the role."



Yonatan is used to dogs. "I had a bitch who lived to be 14 and died a year and a half ago," he says. For him, the movie is an adventure, but the work is far from easy. "It is sometimes frustrating to work with a dog because it may ruin my performance. I had to do a monolog in one scene but it smelled a cat in the middle of the shot and its attention drew away. It was pretty frustrating because we had to repeat everything."



HOT viewers will be able to see the results of these efforts early next year. It will be broadcast as a min-series in two 90-minute episodes or four 45-minute episodes. Considering the fascinating book and the promising actors – both two and four-legged – this is definitely something to look forward to.





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