ART
PAWS: A Man, A Boy and A Dog
If backyard art has any place in the pantheon of American Arts, then Bill
Glader is its Leonardo da Vinci.
Glader's house in Evanston, which he shares with his son Max, is a labyrinth of invention. There's a kid's bed that turns into a slide, a gurgling fish pond out back, and a treehouse to die for.
But it's not the odd corners of his home that set Glader apart, it’s the annual release of Bill and Max Glader's short homemade movies about their dog, Akasha.
What they call the "Paws" series.
A few weeks ago, I attended a screening of "The Fifth Paw" at Northwestern University's Annie May Swift Hall -- along with 150 other kids and their parents, most of whom worked on the films in one way or another.
In seven short films, Glader showcased the exploits of his dog over the last seven years ordering out steak while the masters were away (and putting his dog food into the "leftovers" bowl in the refrigerator); getting a manicure while being pursued by an evil dogcatcher; attending dog acting school, marrying his owner, fighting off a rival "Mini Me" dog startlet; and, in this, the latest Paws adventure, getting shot out of a cannon in a circus that Glader and his collaborator, his son Max, 15, staged in their backyard last summer.
Whimsical? Heart-breaking? Cute? Clever? Fun? Inspiring? All of the above. The finest example of the kind of film Walt Disney himself once aspired to produce in Chicago before he went to Hollywood and discovered the studio system.
With all due respect to Akasha, the dog, “Paws” is a remarkable mind-meld between a father and a son.
It started when Glader found himself exploring a separation (and eventual divorce) from his ex-wife, living in one of those one weekday and alternate weekend schedules where every moment with his son Max, then 9, was precious time that meant all the world to him.
Their first idea in 1997 was to produce a children’s book, written by Bill and illustrated by Max, they could send out to their friends as a Christmas present.
"Max is really artistic so we started with this idea of sending out one of those keepsake books. I would write it and he would illustrate it,” Glader recalled. “But I didn't know anything about making books. So, because I was a video guy, we just started making a movie."
A professional filmmaker with over 25 years experience, and a shelf of awards for his corporate video programs, Glader channeled his son Max’s ideas about what Akasha did while they were away into storyboards, and, eventually, onto videotape.
Low budget doesn’t begin to describe the first production. "It was one of those shoots where you set up the camera, then walk into the shot to see how it looks on the monitor,” he said. “ If it looked okay, we’d turn on the camera and do it for real.”
The first “Paws”, running eight minutes, was a big success. It led off the Grant Park Outdoor Film Festival last year. Max had caught the film making bug.
When a second Christmas rolled around, Max enlisted his school friends for a Halloween spoof "Paws II: The Hairy Witch Project." Then came Paws III: "Pretty Paws" and Paws IV: "Paws4Ever."
With each succeeding year, the plots became more complex, and the circle of friends helping in the production grew. Chris Derfler, a neighbor who works in the Highland Park High School video department, took on the role of villain. Marci Rubin, another friend, became Akasha's agent; and Max, now 15, dons a beard and cane in the latest “The Fifth Paw” to become Uncle Max, the mogul behind Max Studios, producer of the Paws films.
Akaska, a keeshound born about the same time as Max, fell ill during the shooting of Paws IV, but the Gladers adopted another keeshound "Mini Me" during the shooting, and have since added another mutt to their collection named "Snicklefrits", who stars in the latest episode as "the dog shot out of a cannon."
One of the charms of Paws are the cheesy special effects. To film an early scene of a dart heading to a target, Glader hung it by paperclips on a string and pushed the camera along behind to follow it's course. In the latest Paws, he does the same thing with the dog -- hanging it in a felt harness on a wire to simulate it's path coming out of the cannon. During the heyday of the Matrix films, Bill and Max did it again with a bullet -- spoofing a million dollar special effect with 26 cents of supplies and artistic genius.
"I think Max likes the 'high tech' special effects best right now," Glader said. "We were sitting at the kitchen table last year trying to rig up a phonograph for our circus scene. We had this sewing needle stuck in a twig with a wire hanging off it to convey the idea this was a cheapo circus . . . and we wanted to see whether the needle would stay in the grooves.
"I didn't want to ruin any good records, so I pulled out this album of 50 classical greats I bought in college for $8 to test it. And we could hear it. So we put a paper cup on the end of the wire -- and we could hear it really well. So, in the end, we stuck a microphone in the paper cup and recorded it. That was the music we used too. It was really cool!"
The latest Paws episode -- premiered in Evanston two weeks ago -- is by far the most elaborate. It's the story of a dog who runs away to join a circus complete with fortune tellers, a strongman, Siamese twins joined at the head by braids, and feuding Hollywood agents. It's actually kind of hard to explain. But the cast and crew numbered over 60 friends and neighbors.
Lee Goldberg, a commercial producer at Young & Rubicam, remembers getting a call from his wife on the set. "You've got to get over here. Bill's got a circus tent in his backyard, and two horses, and he's going to shoot a dog out of a cannon."
“The Fifth Paw” is the most professional production yet. Dark, intensely comical, and interwined with all the "Paws" that went before. There’s a “Making Of” video that HBO should be proud to show; and a cute swichteroo short – that Glader and his son dreamed up on a long road trip to South Dakota – about Akasha writing the script then, when Glader returns from a weekend writing retreat, slipping it into a screenwriting contest submission envelope in place of his own.
Is this an adult sensibility pretending to be a kid? Or a precocious kid trying to act like an adult.? It’s neither. It’s a wonderful story of a man, a boy and a dog sharing the experience of living life to the fullest.
"You know how it is," Glader said, "You see your son once a week and on weekends, so you want to do something with him. You don't want to waste your time. So 'Paws' kind of became our way of doing something together. What can I say? I love it.”
