Vivian The Giant Dog: The Sweetest Photog Crowdfund Ever
Pedigree chums
An absolutely delightful crowdfunding project that went viral has surpassed its US$10,000 goal. The campaign centred around a children’s book featuring Photoshopped images of Vivian, an adorable giant dachshund.
The book titled ‘Vivian the Dog Moves to Brooklyn’ is a project by Vivian’s owner, Mitch Boyer, a New York writer and photo-illustrator. A passion project for Boyer, it’s goal is to help children cope with the stresses and fears of moving home.
“My family moved around a lot when I was a kid,” Boyer explains, “I remember how hard it was each time I moved and I’d have to go to like a new school and have to meet new friends.” Boyer claims on his Kickstarter page that in the U.S alone, over 5.5 million kids between 1 and 9 years old move home every year.
In the planned 32-page book Vivian finds herself moving from her own hometown in Albuquerque New Mexico to New York City, along with her owner/friend, ‘The Human’. Being aware of the city’s nickname, ‘The Big City’, Vivian expects everything there is going to be big like her and is very excited at the prospect. When she finds she is mistaken and her large size causes trouble, a saddened Vivian decides to find a way out of New York and a way back to what she considers her real home.
That sound you heard was your heart breaking at the doggoned cuteness of it all.
We are sorry to says that Vivian is not actually 6 feet tall. Boyer, who has experience working as a VFX artist created these images using a mix of camera trickery and editing prowess.
It begins with a basic sketch outline of each picture from which a shoot can be planned. Executing the shoot can vary in complexity, some requiring nothing more than a camera and a location while others require special lenses and lighting. Because several images will be captured on location so as to make a composite, great care must be taken so that perspective and angles match. To guarantee that lighting remains constant (especially for exteriors) it’s important to get all the shots on the same day so that they match. After that, it’s simply a matter of combining the elements to create a wonderful but very odd image.
Though Bower’s Kickstarter has already surpassed his initial goal for the project (having earned over US$16,0000 so far), there are still several days left to back the project.
Bower promises to invest any extra money in improving the print quality of the book, which is planned to ship next April. However, there is also still the matter of finding the other main canine character who will appear in Vivian the Dog Moves to Brooklyn, Lulu.
Lulu is a normal sized dog that Vivian befriends in New York, who we guess will probably convince Vivian that life in the city isn’t all bad. Boyer is opening up a casting call for the “perfect Lulu”, asking Instagram users to hashtag pics of their prospective pooches with #VivianNeedsLulu and/or mailing them to findlulu@vivianthedog.com. The lucky winner will have their dog featured in several images in the book. Frankly we’re tempted to put a pair of ears on Lok and enter him.
Beyond all the sweetness and silliness of giant dachshunds, Boyer has a simple, good natured goal. “What I’m hoping for with this book,” says Boyer “is that it will help kids like me feel like they’re not alone and find some comfort by reading Vivian’s story.”
This article was written by Rick Boost and was first published on DigitalRev. You can follow us on Facebook or Twitter for more photography stories.
