Detailed Animal Action Report

In the scene where we see the dog hanging out next to the slip and slide at the fraternity party, a trainer was off-camera cuing the dog to stand still.

In the scene where we see a man with a rat on his shoulders, then freak out when he realizes it’s there, prior to filming the trainer placed the rat on the actor’s shoulder. There is dialogue then he reacts to the rat and shakes it off his shoulder. Another trainer and the AD were lying down underneath the actor when the rat dropped so they could catch him with a pad.

In the scene where the family is having dinner in the patio outside and a steer walks up to the table and the man feeds it a rib from his plate, trainers cued the steer to walk up to actor during scene and the rib was a piece of bread food colored to look like a rib. The actors were prepped on how to behave around steer prior to filming.

In the scene where the actors drive ATVs, and Rusty hits the steer with the ATV, the scene was accomplished through split screen. When the actors drive the ATVs, the trainers kept the steer in the background in place by tying them to stakes in the ground.

They filmed Rusty quickly approaching the steer, by having the steer stay in place and having the ATV slowly backup. They reversed the film in post to look as if he were approaching quickly. The steer never came close to the ATV.