How We Made Our Film We Don’t Deserve Dogs — Almost Alone

What resulted was an amazing year spent filming around the world. We were very fortunate to have our little runway from our Netflix deal, and we put it to good use. The most important thing was that we were maintaining complete control of our film. If we wanted to film something, we just did it – no getting permission from another producer back home. No explaining the concept to somebody in a suit. It was an intense period – from filming shepherds living traditionally in the Romanian mountains, to dog birthdays in Lima, we saw it all. 

We filmed on small DSLRs, fitting everything into two backpacks and a tripod bag. We utilized a small gimbal to achieve Kubrickian-like tracking shots of truffle hunting dogs running across mountains. We only ever filmed with natural light.

After filming the first 5 countries, we put together a sizzle reel of all we’d done. We dusted off the “for financiers” budget, with lots of zeros added in and line items for all those fancy things like sound mixes. And although there was solid interest, there were still too many annoying notes. A lot of suggestions to “cute up” the film a bit. We quickly realized that we were set to waste another six months showing around half a film, when the other half was just a few penny-pinching trips away.

So we committed to shooting the whole thing ourselves. We kept redrawing our runway, and sometimes it was a very short runway. But we managed to get the whole film into the can without bringing anyone else in.

This complete autonomy was daunting at times. We only had ourselves to rely on for the vision we wanted to achieve. But the autonomy was very necessary to seeing our creative ideas all the way through. In particular, some of the more confronting scenes – which investors would have talked us out of – were essential to our story.

Ever since we conceived of the film, people would ask us if we would tackle the culture of dogs as food in some countries. It would have been easy to avoid, but as a person of Asian heritage, it was essential to me that this part of the story be told in a non-judgmental, non-gratuitous way. Making the decisions on how to shoot scenes like these were already very emotionally difficult – I was glad we didn’t have the people in suits muddying the waters.

Before we knew it, a year had passed, and we had everything in the can. We were editing on laptops whenever we could – sorting through footage whilst waiting in airports. Then we isolated ourselves from the world for two months and edited the film. For me, that was the most rewarding part of this whole process. We were able to stop stressing about the finances for a moment, and Rosie and I would just spend ten hours a day in a darkened room, putting together the stories we’d collected. When it came to those tougher scenes, it was just us and the footage – no external voices.

It’s common to go get finishing funds after you complete a rough cut. Especially for documentary, a lot of people are happy to pitch in cash once they can see the film (and once you’ve gotten into some major festivals). With our film complete, the rough cut was accepted into SXSW. We knew we’d have a great chance of repeating the magic of our last film’s launch. It was tempting to rustle up some finishing funds to spit and polish the film, but then we had our next conundrum. We had put every last cent into this film, and every bit of emotional energy we had. For a sound mix and a picture grade, an investor could demand a lot of equity in our film. There are plenty of sharks out there ready to take a lion’s share for what is really a small bit of coin for them. We had given up a lot of equity on our previous film, so knew to be wary. 

We had come so far – why not see it all the way through?

So thus began the last (or so we thought) part we’d do completely DIY – the sound mix and color grade. We had color graded our last film ourselves, but doing a 5.1 sound mix was completely new. We bought a cheap surround sound speaker set online and set it up at home. I dusted off a mixing console I had from a decade ago. And we began mixing the film from our one-bedroom in Brooklyn. We even created our own mastered DCPs, ready for our SXSW premiere – all using two laptops.

We were ready for everything to be rewarded at SXSW. Hype was building for our little film. It was shaping up to be one of the more anticipated films of the festival. Our sales agent had begun showing the film to some of the heavy hitters. It was looking like this years-long crazy gamble was perhaps going to pay off.

Then, on March 6, 2020, you know what happened.

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