Technical Info
A Dog's Heart is
a film based on Mikhail Bulgakov's book of the same name.
Our original script can be seen here (written by R. Leao and
revised by Clarke Raymond).
About the Author (Bulgakov)
Mikhail Bulgakov (a qualified medical doctor) was born in Kiev.
Duringhis life, Bulgakov was best known for the plays he contributed to
Konstantin Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre. Bulgakov wrote a
grotesquely funny comedy about Ivan the Terrible's visit into 1930s
Moscow and several plays about the young years of Stalin. This perhaps
saved his life in the year of terror 1937, when nearly all writers who
did not support the leadership of Stalin were purged.
Bulgakov started writing prose in the early 1920s, when he wrote The
White Guard (Белая гвардия) (1924, published in 1966) - a novel about a
life of a White Army officer's family in Civil war Kiev, and a short
story collection entitled Notes of a Young Doctor (Записки юного
врача), based on Bulgakov's work as a country doctor in 1916 - 1919. In
the mid-1920s, he came to admire the works of H.G. Wells and wrote
several stories with sci-fi style elements, notably The Fatal Eggs
(Роковые яйца) (1924) and the Heart of a Dog (Собачье сердце)
(1925).
A Dog's Heart features a professor who implants human testicles and
pituitary gland into a dog named Sharik. The dog then proceeds to
become more and more human as time passes, resulting in all manner of
chaos. The tale can be read as a critical satire of the Soviet Union;
it was turned into a comic opera called The Murder of Comrade Sharik by
William Bergsma in 1973. A hugely popular screen version of the story
followed in 1988.
His dislikes about the Bolshevik revolution can be seen all over the
plot, as the dog becomes the 'manager' of the sanitation department
and a exemplary proletariat shortly after his transformation.
About our plot
Our film follows the same backbone as Bulgakov's book, however, it
aimed to criticise the human deatachment to nature (compared to a fully
attached dog) and the commercialisation of human creativity. A Dog's
Heart try to explore the antagonistic paradigm of scientific thinking
in modern times and how scientists have to adapt to the harsh reality
of capital-driven discovery.
We also tried to explore current affairs in Canberra and
Australia politics that resembles (softly) the Year of Terror of the
Stalin Era (1937) as politicians are free and unaccountable to perform
their evil and citizens are constantly policed by political repression
mechanisms disguised as anti-terror legislations.
About our film
Film:
16mm film for all the scenes
Aspect ratio:
4x3 (Regular 16mm)
Film
-
Orwo NP7 (Exp. 1988)
- Orwo NP32 (Exp. 1982)
- Fujifilm 8682 (F-400T)
- Fujifilm 8663 (Eterna 250D)
- Kodak 7231 (Double-X)
- Kodak 7217 (Vision2 200T) (Short ends)
- Kodak 7212 (Vision2 100T) (Short ends)
- Kodak 7296 (EXR-500T)
- Kodak 7292
Cameras:
Film processing:
- Black and white film was processed by us (R. Leao) using normal
BW developing process at 22C. The developer consisted of Kodak D-19
with some additional hidroquinone (eventually).
- We also developed some color footage using Tentenal C41 kits, after washing the rem-jet layer with 'borax' (on a darkroom).
- The total footage developed 'in house' were ~600m (~1650ft)
- The remaining color negatives were processed by the Movielab, Sydney
Telecine: Video8 Sydney (Rank Cinetel)
Sound Recording: Sony MD Walkman MZ-NF810 and a laptop equiped by our custom 'synchroniser'
