Staff Choose Premieres: "Ghost Dogs" by Joe Cappa |
The movie begins with a adorable rescue dog locked in the laundry room, looking forward to meeting its new owners. But, just before the new owners appear, things start to get strange. The robot vacuum begins to wander around the house as the dogs of the previous owners who have now transformed into ghosts, walk through walls. Cappa brilliantly mines humor by subverting human horror tropes in the sense that, when seen by dogs, the ghosts aren't scary but rather fascinating; as the vacuum cleaner becomes the main antagonist.. These differing tones and atmospheres are beautifully evoked through a grungy, heavily outlined and saturated color style reminiscent of TV's Liquid Television and early RAW comic collection.
The film has been a long time coming. Cappa decided he was finished working for others and wanted to take on his own project -- so he took the time to finish his first animated film. Cut to two years later, post-steep learning curves, mistakes, and an arm injury that was debilitating, his risk paid off. "Ghost Dogs" premier at Sundance Film Festival 2021, and then went on to appear at a number of domestic and international festivals.
In advance of this weekend's Staff Pick Premiere, we called Joe to learn more about his influences as well as his challenges. other things.
The inspiration for the HTML0:
"I have been drawing these dog people that crawl around on their hands and knees for long time. They appeared strange and made my colleagues giggle. In the past, I decided to purchase a Wacom tablet that allowed me to draw straight to the computer. My first thought to create was a person crawling across the flooring. It came out pretty well, and I even thought that I could create a short film out of it.
At the time I was creating music videos for friends' bands but I had not worked on a personal initiative for me. I believe I was just trying to prove myself to myself that I was capable of creating something that would have aired in MTV's Liquid Television back in the 1990's. I wanted to make something that would have inspired me as an infant when I saw my parents' camcorder. This is where I believe all the inspiration originated. It was probably inspired by the premise of every horror film where the family dog barks at something that is not visible to the rest of the family. I thought it could be an interesting tale when dogs can detect the spirit of dead family members ."
The dog's personality style:
"I find myself attracted to works of art and films that cross the line between humor and horror. I think a lot of my art goes there as well. It's such a fun emotion to evoke out of people where they don't know what to do, if they're afraid or having fun. The dog owners generate that kind of reaction. There's also something mysterious about dogs with human legs and arms. Do they look like dogs, or are they mostly humans? How would something like that behave ?"
In the style of visual:
"That goes back the time of Liquid Television. My director JW Hallford, and myself were adamant about the texture of the film as being old. Like an obscure short film which has been revived. We gave the film some film shake, but I wasn't looking to add any dust or hair. I think the animation style does the talking. Also, I want to give a shout out for the artist who created the backgrounds, Patrick Carroll, who I consider to have captured the look and attitude so well ."
From a perspective and on influences:
"I believe that what was the amusing about writing "Ghost Dogs' was that I was able to play with terror tropes through an animal's point of view. The underlying joke in the entire piece is the fact that the animal doesn't seem to be scared of the things it should be scared ofand is scared of things that should not be. Therefore, I needed to make an allusion to "The Shining," obviously. The film had a significant influence on the tone. It even has a reference to Michael Mann's 'The Keep'. But I think the spirit of the actual ghost dog characters (no intentional pun) are heavily borrowed from "Gremlins." Are they ridiculous? Are they dangerous? Are they dangerous? ?"
On conceiving of the robot vacuum character
"The original version of the film I wrote revolved around three dogs that were stranded in their the house. The idea was to storyboard for each scene as I was writing it and simply coming up with intriguing gags and what not. My brother suggested a run-in with the Roomba. The film was rewritten by me with just one dog protagonist and a robot vacuum, it just seemed like such an entertaining persona and an incredible plot element that can be used to create a lot of misdirection and humor ."
On challenges faced:
"I mean this was my first animated film so there was a learning curve right from the start. Everything was a mistake after an error after a mishap. The project I believed could be accomplished in six months ended up taking two years. My biggest hurdle to overcome is animating the psychotic sequence. The animation increases between 12fps and 24fps. As a result, it was a labour-intensive segment. Repeatedly creating the exact frame over and over took a toll on my arm! I got an injured shoulder that was frozen and I couldn't draw past the belly button of my body for a good two months. Not to mention it was painful to the point of pain. So I had to take the time off for six months as my arm healed. That was a major setback ."
What is your best point of advice for budding filmmakers?
"If you're planning to develop your own products (like, not to make it for anybody else It's difficult to get that drive in the face of the incredibly chance of becoming broke. I've had that anxiety my entire adulthood. At some point, I really saw nothing to gain from what I was doing for other people. I had no endgame. And at the same time I was not able to find a goal in making my own junk.
At the end of the day your only choice is to just follow the bliss. Ignore the doubt. It is your choice to sacrifice and you risk your life of following your dreams. I was trying to find something that seemed pleasing to me and miraculously is beginning to pay off. It's a very yogi thing to say and I don't really feel competent to provide career guidance such as that, however this is what I'm doing and something I would like I did sooner !"
What's next? Any upcoming projects?
"Yeah! I've been creating minute-long short films which you can view on my instagram @joecappa ."