LOS ANGELES — Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine media company recently partnered with Baileys Irish Cream Liqueur on three romantic comedy shorts. Inspired by “Meet Cute” from the women-first dating and social networking app Bumble, the shorts put women at the center of the story, with subtle inclusion of Baileys liqueur.
Carly Usdin, Sadé Clacken Joseph and Haroula Rose are three filmmakers who were selected from hundreds of entries to retell real-life romances in their own voice.
Haroula Rose’s (www.haroularose.com) Hound of Love stars a dog named Sonya, who is very protective of her new best friend and owner Sam. Sonya has a good read on Sam’s dates and sabotages her plans until the right guy comes along. Jess Weixler plays Sam and Kate Micucci provides the voice of Sonya, who narrates much of the story.
“We shot this in three days at various locations in LA, with many costume, cast and HMU changes,” says Rose. “It was really amazing to have a supportive team with all these logistics and having the room to be creative.”
The team used an Arri Alexa Mini for the shoot and cut the project on an Avid editing system.
“Our post process also included some score composed for the film and the VO I wrote for Kate Micucci to say as our beloved lead, Sonya the dog. It was really fun thinking up this idea inspired by real-life, true-love stories, and thinking about it all from a dog’s POV as we were filming and in the edit.”