You think that dogs and cats are difficult to direct?? Wait until you try working with a Shrieking Eel!
They're impossible!
First, they keep getting too far out of the water.
Then the won't open really wide, just a lazy little bit open:
When they finally get it right (after forever and a day)
then we can put our fearless (well... hopefully fearful) heroine in the water. We kept her dry while trying to train the eel, because a cold front had come through and the actor's union wanted double time when the water dipped below 40 degrees.
We finally were on the right track. However, the shrieking eel just couldn't get it right -- he kept getting distracted.
In this one, a bird just flew over, so he was looking up trying to go after the bird:
In this one he was going after a passing otter:
He just wouldn't turn and attack the heroine -- much less even get close to her!
When he finally did get close enough, then the heroine got side-tracked -- noticing that Mr. Eel had a bit of tooth decay.
after multiple takes, we were finally able to get everyone back in gear and get the shot done.
Did I mention that shrieking eels shriek the whole time they're filming?
I don't know how the managed to pull off that long of a scene in the movie. The must have had more than one eel trainer to handle it all.
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Outtake
And huge thanks to my son and daughter (who got tropical smoothies, chinese food and bumbleberry pie for the shoot. :)
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