Tail Wagging Testimonials

Tail Wagging Testimonials

Tail Wagging Testimonials is a three-spot commercial campaign for Schell Brothers: Something to Squawk About, Pawsitively Perfect Home and Stretch Your Hamstrings. Something to Squawk About is a 15-second spot centered on a bird, with aerial coverage of the homes and the community. Pawsitively Perfect Home uses dog performances to frame a home tour. Stretch Your Hamstrings, which I wrote, stars a hamster.

The project came to us from on high, if you will, and the starting point was pets. We wanted to show pets that weren't the normal, average everyday pet. One of our coworkers had a pet hamster we could use, so we were like, well, let's use a hamster.

Filming that one was funny. Getting the hamster to roll towards the camera, whether in a straight line or with any sort of consistent movement, was quite the struggle, because that thing wanted to explore in the most jittery way. I think we definitely had to film it twice.

So we more or less had to roll him forward a little and then let him keep going. We'd give him a gentle nudge, and he'd be like, “All right, get going this way.” I remember chasing him over and over and over again with the camera and the gimbal, just waiting for him to run straight so it could actually look like he was navigating the house. I think eventually we kind of got it there.

This was one of those instances where I tried to narrate for him myself. I think there's a version where I'm narrating it, but it just doesn't sound right. So we eventually got another coworker to narrate it, and it sounded a lot better. It came down to finding the right voice to be a hamster.