How to Work With Animal Actors

Working with animal actors is a fun but demanding job in film and television. People make money to work with animals on the set. They stay behind the camera getting those animals to do all sorts of crazy, cute and wild performances. They even walk down the red carpet with their animals at the glamorous Hollywood premiers. Read on to learn more.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Motivate animals with food. Praise animals with affection.
2. Repeat your commands until your animal obeys. Use direct commands: "drop it," "hold it," or "pick it up."
3. Work the animal gradually. For example, if you need your dog to pull a small lever, practice with larger levers and work down to the smaller lever.
4. Train any animal to be in front of the camera. Patience is the key to a successful animal actor. Expect to work long hours on the set. Like on any film or television production expect 12- to 16-hour days.
5. Prepare your animal for filming. Find out from the director what tasks your animal needs to do in the film, then prepare your animal do those tasks before shooting begins.
6. Prepare for a change in direction. You can be told to what is needed from your animal for a scene, and then the director can change it on the spot.
7. Enjoy yourself. Have fun. Animals sense when their trainer is not happy with their performance. Keep the right attitude and your animal will too.

Tips & Warnings

• Check local listings. Your animal could be an actor. Even if you are not in Hollywood, you can find local work for your animal.
• Just like human actors, directors have animal trainers and animal actors they prefer to work with in a production. Start networking.