TOOTH FAIRY

“No Animals Were Harmed”®

Derek (Dwayne Johnson) becomes the tooth fairy after revealing to his daughter (Destiny Whitlock) that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist.

Featured Animal Action

Cat
Derek, as the tooth fairy, is miniature in size. He is walking toward a child’s bedroom when he passes a cat asleep on the floor. As he leaves the bedroom, he comes face to face with the cat, which appears gigantic to him. The cat chases and corners him. Derek blows a loud horn which frightens the cat and the cat runs away. This scene was filmed in separate shots and the cat was filmed without the actor. A trainer placed the cat on the floor and sat with it until it fell asleep and then the cameraman filmed the cat sleeping for the first part of the scene. This footage was inserted into the film in post-production  alongside the actor’s face. For the chase scene, one trainer placed the cat on its mark while another trainer stood at an end mark, using a bait stick and a buzzer to get the cat to run to him. In this way, they filmed the cat running all over the house and then edited in the footage with the actor and the horn (the cat was never around the loud horn). The grounds were checked ahead of time for hazards and only limited cast and crew were allowed on set. Cast and crew members were instructed on the handling of the cat before filming began.

Dogs
Derek goes to another house and uses his special amnesia dust to make the people who live there forget he was there. He comes across the family dog and he puts some dust on it, and the dog’s eyes suddenly look funny. The dust and the weird-looking dog eyes were computer-generated effects. The dog sniffs and licks the camera. A trainer put the dog on its mark and verbally cued it to stay and to lick the camera.

At another house, Derek encounters another dog. This time, the dog looks at the camera, which represents Derek’s point of view, and barks and growls at the camera. The dog then grabs onto Derek’s wing and hangs from it as Derek walks around. The dog was filmed without the actor. A trainer put the dog on its mark and used a combination of verbal cues and hand signals to get the dog to look in various directions and bark and growl. The shot of the dog hanging on the wing was computer-generated.

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