Towards the end of the project, Alaine and I were searching for some kind of moment of finality. Robin had always been very clear that we needed one more vignette to complete the film, and while Alaine and I agreed, we didn’t want to put something in for the hell of it. One night, Alaine and I sat in the editing suites discussing what we could do for about an hour. We had very vague ideas, but none we really wanted to pursue. We watched videos of Camus, Sartre, dogs painted like Pokemon, kids dancing on a reality television show, and poetry amongst other non-related things. We then began to discuss the idea of someone forcing their ideology and/or unrealised dreams upon the helpless for their own twisted satisfaction; Mothers making their 3, 4 or 5 year-old daughters dress up in beauty pageants, the exploitative nature of reality television, etc. We then thought of animals, something that we have explored quite thoroughly in other moments. After searching for random CC-licensed footage of animals, we found this bizarre 70’s documentary capturing the behaviour of dogs. It was perfect.
We cut up a montage of a scene where a dog is brought to a home, played with by a family, goes to sleep under a tree, then a cut to a dream of the dog running for its master. We showed Robin and he agreed that this was it; a moment of completeness. Alaine and I could not believe how lucky we were to find this, especially on the final day of editing.