'Prey' Dog Actor is A Rare Breed and Ran Wild On Set, Says Director Dan Trachtenberg
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Created: Friday, 05 August 2022 00:26
- Published: Friday, 05 August 2022 00:39
- Written by Lupe R Haas
On-screen, Naru's trusted furry companion Seti hit all his marks, but on set the rare canine was a fur ball of energy. PREY director Dan Trachtenberg and Amber Midthunder describe what it was like working with Coco, an untrained Carolina breed that most likely existed 300 years ago.
PREY is an origins PREDATOR movie set in the 18th Century Comanche Nation. Producer Jhane Myers, a Comanche and Blackfeet American Indian, wanted to bring authenticity to the action-thriller. "It was as historically accurate as we can get it because if you think about the time when this was, you know, there weren't a lot of photographs and you know, paintings," says Myers.
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The authenticity extended to Naru's furry companion, Seti. Seti is played by Coco, a dingo breed referred to as a Carolina Dog. The dingo is a rare, primitive dog breed found feral in Southeastern United States.
During the PREY press conference, Amber and Dan discussed what a difficult actor Coco was and the delays she caused behind the scenes. See what they had to say below in their own words.
AMBER: You know, I love that dog with my whole heart and soul. It was rough. You know, this dog, I don't know where she came from. They got her like two months before this movie. And she had so much energy. Her name is Coco. So much of Coco being around was her like, running wild, and doing laps and like just so excited to see everybody all the time. So like for me personally, she was a dream. For like making a movie, you know, the character of Seti is very different from the character of Coco and that shows what a good filmmaker Dan is.
DAN: [LAUGH]
AMBER: He made a dog a really good actor.
DAN: Yeah, it was a huge difference, the making of the movie and the watching of the movie. The making of the movie was how do we get Coco out of this scene? How can we shoot her and get her away? What can we do [MAKES NOISE]
And the watching in the movie everyone, as we were developing it or showing cuts to friends family all those things, was like more dog. We love the dog. Add more dog. I'm like you don't understand, we can't. We are using every usable frame of this dog. There's not one extra frame that had the dog doing what it's supposed to do. But she was awesome. And the challenge, as Amber stated, was it's a dog that we believe is accurate to the time and Carolina dog they're called. And it's not like they've been training this dog for years like they do most movie dogs, you know? So we had to do the best with what we could. And it worked out, thankfully...
PREY is now streaming on HULU.