A Conversation with “Good Boy” co-writer/director Ben Leonberg.

Name: A Conversation with “Good Boy” co-writer/director Ben Leonberg.
Uploaded: 2025-10-07T00:35:38+00:00
Duration: 14 min 11 s
Channel: Elements of Madness

Elements of Madness

5 days ago

EoM Senior Interviewer Thomas Manning recently had a conversation with filmmaker Ben Leonberg, co-writer and director of "Good Boy" from Independent Film Company. This story is told entirely from the emotional perspective of Indy, Leonberg's real-life canine companion in his acting debut. Leonberg talks about the bootstrapping production of this project that he made with his wife and producing partner, Kari Fischer, as well as what it takes to make a movie with a dog who doesn't know he's in a movie.

In theaters October 3rd, 2025.

Official Synopsis:
A loyal dog moves to a rural family home with his owner Todd, only to discover supernatural forces lurking in the shadows. As dark entities threaten his human companion, the brave pup must fight to protect the one he loves most.

Official Trailer: https://youtu.be/q4-CRkd_74g
Director: Ben Leonberg, Alex Cannon,
Screenwriter: Alex Cannon, Ben Leonberg
Cast: Indy, Shane Jensen, Larry Fessenden, Arielle Friedman, Stuart Rudin, Anya Krawcheck, Max

Category

🎥

Short film

Transcript

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00:00We're alive! We're alive!

00:02Hey there and welcome into EOM Presents. This is Thomas Manning, Senior Interviewer for Elements of Madness.

00:07And today I'm talking with Ben Lienberg, Director and Co-Writer of Good Boy,

00:12which is a film that I'm sure has crossed your radar if you keep up with anything related to the horror genre.

00:18But for those of you who are not familiar, it's a horror film told from the emotional perspective of a dog as the main protagonist.

00:25So I think that's really all I need to pitch you on this film and this conversation.

00:29So I hope you all enjoyed this interview talking with filmmaker Ben Lienberg about Good Boy.

00:34Thanks for watching and listening.

00:35I was actually going to say, if you're all interested to see, the good boy himself is right there.

00:41There's the star. Oh my goodness.

00:44Is Indy his, that's his name in real life, right?

00:46That is his name in real life. We named the dog Indiana.

00:49I love it. It's beautiful. So do you have a connection to Indiana?

00:53Or what was the name?

00:54No, he's named for the famous globetrotting archaeologist.

00:58Well, yeah, that too. The second most famous Indiana, I guess so.

01:02Yep. Yeah.

01:03Love it. Love it.

01:04Indy or he's indie for indie film, which this certainly was.

01:07That's it. Yeah.

01:09Well, I really appreciate your time today and glad we could fit it in.

01:12I know you've been all over the place and a pretty crazy rollout for this film, it sounds like.

01:17But yeah, really happy to have you here.

01:19Yeah, no, it's been great. I mean, it's been a wild ride.

01:21You know, we made this movie not expecting any of this.

01:24And I mean, we always thought the idea was really good.

01:27And we're really happy that the Internet and the world seems to have responded so strongly.

01:32And a lot of people are hopefully going to be able to get to see it.

01:35Yeah, for sure.

01:36And, you know, I'll head right into it, asking about the home video montage that we have at the beginning of the film.

01:44I assume that was just stuff that you shot over the years and then realized that you could incorporate.

01:49So I'm curious what that moment of realization was for you when it clicked.

01:53You know, oh, wow, I have this gold mine of that I can use for a montage to right off the bat, create this emotional connection and depict a years long journey just right here within a minute.

02:04Yeah, I mean, so we didn't we certainly didn't know that Indy was going to be the star of the show when we started writing the movie.

02:09That came later after we we were I was making these test films before I started before I'd even finished the script to learn how to work with him.

02:17But once we get into the actual filmmaking, you know, we realize there's this big opportunity when just by nature of his height, most of the humans in the film are going to be cropped.

02:28So we we never see their faces.

02:30We'll see their their legs and hands and, you know, from like the neck or chest down.

02:37And there's a big advantage there because that means, you know, part of the reason the way we learned to work with Indy is that my wife and I were the ones who coached him or, you know, like, you know,

02:47suss out his performance that meant since our faces didn't have to be in the film because we are not actors, we could be the stand ins with him on set.

02:55And it's our bodies with actors voices coming out that, you know, play the characters, which is kind of a very odd way to approach a film.

03:03But I guess makes sense when you're making a dog movie since we weren't going to have to have other people in the movie.

03:09We looked at all the home movie footage and thought this is an amazing way to just instantly get the audience on your main character's side.

03:16You know, I think it would work even without the home movie footage.

03:21But something I've noticed in, you know, screenings I've been to is that as soon as the movie starts, the first shot is of Indy asleep on a couch and audiences go, oh, you know, the first 10 minutes that most films have to spend convincing you to root for the hero.

03:37We just skip that.

03:38And then we go from there to you thought that was good.

03:41Here's that same dog.

03:42But as a puppy, you would just we twist the knife as much as we can.

03:46You know, it's it's almost like cheating.

03:48Yeah.

03:49And you mentioned pretty, pretty much hiding the actors faces for the entire film and you consistently find creative ways to do so.

03:56But it didn't feel like a gimmick.

03:58It just felt situationally natural.

04:01So was that a challenge for you to kind of walk that tightrope and have it feel like an organic part of the world rather than something contrived or something a little bit forced?

04:10Yeah, for sure.

04:10I mean, I really do think it was like a combination of a creative and a practical choice because we wanted to anchor the perspective with Indy.

04:19That meant that the camera is on his level.

04:22You know, we're seeing the film unfold through point of view and objective shots, you know, shot, reverse shot, which means the camera is going to be really low to the ground with him.

04:31So, as I said before, that naturally crops people where we just see their legs or just like parts of them in the background.

04:39We really embrace that as like the creative aesthetic.

04:42There were some really fun or fun, practical challenges we had to learn how to like embrace.

04:47There's certain times where, you know, we had to light things in a way once we've decided that this is the vibe we're going for, that we don't want to show the people's faces.

04:54We, you know, need to essentially, I need to light my own face so my features aren't quite shown, but you still can see me in the background with a little bit of backlight, but my features are hidden.

05:06And it's all meant to reflect how a dog might see the world.

05:11And yeah, it was certainly fun to try and execute.

05:15And on some of the shots that were lower to the ground, there's one scene in particular where it's handheld shaky cam and it's right on Indy's level.

05:24I'm just curious what that setup looked like.

05:26You know, was the camera operator just holding the camera very low to the ground or was he crawling with it?

05:31Like, I just had a vision in my head of, you know, camera guy just army crawling with it.

05:36Yeah, I mean, it's, it's my back is paying for it still probably, but it's, it's, it's, it's kind of the way like you would see kids.

05:43I mean, I grew up doing this shooting skateboard videos where they hold the camera by a handle on the top and the camera's real low.

05:49And I'm just kind of hunched over hovering the camera behind him as we're following him around.

05:55Fortunately, I have long arms.

05:57And to Indy's credit, he certainly did not know he's, he was in a movie.

06:02But he did learn to just accept that the camera was around him.

06:06I think he knew what it was, but he, you know, wouldn't try and interact or play with it.

06:11Although I will say his nose made contact with the lens many times throughout filming.

06:15So that was a, that actually slowed things down quite a bit of just nose contact with camera was a, a near constant, you know, risk.

06:25Yeah.

06:26So were you basically the DP on this film as well?

06:28Cause I didn't notice a DP in the credits and wondered if I'm miss somebody or he just, no, no, that's correct.

06:34So, yeah.

06:34So it was a, the majority of principal photography, which is just, just me, my wife and my dog.

06:39That was our house we lived in.

06:41So we also decorated it.

06:42We had the advice of a production designer who builds the cave and, you know, portal to the afterlife you see in the finale.

06:48But we wore a lot of hats.

06:50My wife is the producer.

06:52I was the director, co-writer, co-producer, or also a producer.

06:57You know, I was like Trishan, carpenter, DP, gaffer, grip, best boy, animal trainer.

07:03Also, I stood in, so I'm in the movie.

07:06It was, this is not a normal way to make a movie.

07:08I was frequently setting the camera up, turning it on, rolling it, getting the lights.

07:13Just so, calling Indy, walking in front of the camera, doing something for his benefit that, you know, plausibly would be what the actor would, you know, voice.

07:24And then, you know, running back, checking the shot, trying it a few more times.

07:29It's kind of, maybe what I learned as a kid making movies where you do that kind of, you know, filmmaking probably was useful, similar to the skateboard videos.

07:38So it's not a, it's not a normal way to make a movie, but it worked for us.

07:43Yeah, yeah.

07:44And the score obviously plays heavily here.

07:47I think Sam Boatsmiller.

07:48And I guess a part of this was for you to just go, you know, hey, score the hell out of this movie where there are practically no human faces and a dog that doesn't know he's in the movie.

07:58So, you know, what about Sam's work connected with you and elevated the film in your eyes?

08:03Yeah, I mean, Sam was an amazing collaborator.

08:06And I think just really got what we were going for in terms of that we wanted to anchor things in the dog's point of view.

08:14And I should mention, not just Sam, but our lead mixer, the whole sound team was just five people, including the musicians.

08:21And then a lot of them had all worked before.

08:23So there was a lot of collaboration there.

08:25You know, the sound definitely reflects the animal world.

08:30You know, in speaking of sound and I'll come back to music.

08:33But, you know, some of my favorite moments are, you know, there's important dialogue happening and Indy will just wander away from it and it'll fade into the background.

08:41The music will pick up as he starts his own adventure.

08:43But that's what I mean when I say it was really rooted to this unique point of view character.

08:48One of the things Sam and I talked about early on that he was really excited and embraced and ran with was that he wanted to create music that felt like it was unique to the story and kind of the scope of the film that, you know, the production in the film we were trying to tell.

09:03There's a lot about the story that is very simple.

09:06And I don't mean that as a bad thing.

09:07Simple things can be very elegant.

09:08And one of his ideas was, could I create a score with just five instruments?

09:15You know, could this be something that could be feel minimal, still very rich, still very evocative, but it would feel like it's very in line with the rest of the production, which was practically made by a very small number of people.

09:28He performed most of the instruments himself.

09:30He even built some new unique instruments that kind of create these really nightmarish sounds.

09:37I could talk just about that because some of those are like some of that's one of my favorite music that is truly unlike anything else because he's the only one who owns this instrument.

09:45But, yeah, Sam's work is just amazing.

09:47He definitely like kicked into a gear, you know, that surprised us all and certainly elevates the movie.

09:53Yeah.

09:54And I think when you get down to the core of the film, it's about how the scariest thing for a dog is to see its person, its human in pain and not knowing how to fix it or not having the ability to fix it.

10:06But so I'm curious for you, did you begin with that theme and then craft the film around it around that?

10:12Or did you find that theme from the seed of developing a horror film from the perspective of a dog?

10:18You know, which of those came first?

10:19I mean, it's a little bit of both.

10:20We landed on the idea that, you know, characters in any kind of character is supposed to have a want or a need that motivates them throughout the story.

10:30And we determined really early on an advantage of working with a dog is that the relationship they have to their person is really uncomplicated and really easy to understand.

10:42Nobody questions why do these two characters like each other?

10:46The dog and the guy clearly are best friends.

10:48The dog loves this guy.

10:50That's not a stretch.

10:51You don't need to explain that.

10:52The movie can just start.

10:53So one of the arcs we were always trying to track is that, you know, you see this in the movie.

10:58All Indy wants to do is be close to Todd physically.

11:02And that's a really easy thing to show visually.

11:04You know, there's times where Indy is left home alone in the house and we see he's very upset to be left alone.

11:10And then when Todd comes back, he's happy.

11:12But Todd isn't doing so well.

11:13So like their closeness is like a way to create an arc for, you know, this character who can't speak and doesn't have dialogue.

11:22You'll notice that the worst thing that can happen to Indy, you know, at the second act climax, where the worst thing typically happens to any character in a movie is he's chained up outside and separated from his person.

11:32So that was one relationship that we realized was, you know, it was easy to explain visually, maybe not easy, but it was it was intuitive to understand.

11:42So that was a big realization that helped us in crafting the full narrative.

11:46Yeah.

11:47And as far as that bond between Indy and Todd for I guess for Indy, it's Indy and Shane Jensen.

11:52You know, I bought that immediately.

11:55How much did they have to spend a lot of time together to build that?

11:58Or, you know, what did that look like?

11:59So that's where it's another trick of the filmmaking.

12:04The person Indy is acting with on set is me.

12:08OK.

12:08So that's part of the reason the love looks so genuine and real is that the it is it's for Indy.

12:15He can't fake that.

12:16He's a method actor in a way that, you know, humans could only dream.

12:20So you you see that, you know, real relationship is that's because the person's body is mine.

12:27And Shane is adding the performance the same way, you know, James Earl Jones adds Darth Vader to the the person, the guy in the suit from Star Wars.

12:35And I got to say, that's an incredibly hard job.

12:39But that's one of those things that we were pretty sure was going to work.

12:42We had sound mixers, you know, that sound team I mentioned, they were on board well before we had finished filming just because we knew this was going to be a challenge.

12:50But finding actors whose voices sounded correct coming out of it's Shane Jensen who plays Todd.

12:57His voice is coming out of my body.

12:58Errol Friedman plays the sister.

13:00Her voice is coming out of my wife's body.

13:02There's a weird alchemy to get that right.

13:05And then the performance both has to be good, but then it also has to match the physicality of what we are doing, which was never performing.

13:13What we were doing was coaching Indy.

13:15They then have to make the lines sound like they're plausibly coming out of a guy's body who is awkwardly sitting up in bed because I'm telling Indy in reality, stay, stay, good boy, stay.

13:26But in reality, or in the story, it's totally different.

13:30Yeah, yeah.

13:31Man, that's awesome.

13:32I guess that probably should have clicked sooner that that's how it went.

13:36No, I'm glad it doesn't appear that way.

13:38And to be so clear, Shane plays Todd.

13:40I'm just a body.

13:43Yeah, yeah.

13:43That is his performance.

13:46Man, that's awesome.

13:47Oh, Ben, well, really congrats on the film and really happy that it's I think it's getting a much wider release than originally anticipated.

13:54So congrats on that.