‘NITRO’ LIGHTS IT UP FOR THE SUPER BOWL
HUSKY FROM OKOTOKS A SCENE-STEALER IN CAR AD TO AIR DURING BIG GAME
There’s a thumping soundtrack from rapper 50 Cent, gorgeous scenery from Kananaskis Country and a shiny new 2012 Suzuki Kizashi sport sedan.
But the true star of a new Super Bowl ad that will air in the U.S. on Sunday might be Nitro, an eight-year-old husky from Okotoks.
Shot in Kananaskis in early December, the new commercial from Suzuki will run in an expensive and highly coveted Super Bowl time slot. It features an Inuit man saying goodbye to his wife outside an igloo and riding his dog sled into the snowy, mountainous horizon. He is then pictured arriving back home in a shiny red Kizashi with his dogs buckled in and boogying down to 50 Cent’s Movin’ On Up.
That’s Nitro in the front seat, tapping his paw to the beat. The other huskies in the commercial are from a dogsled team in Canmore. But Nitro is the star.
“I have to say he loves to act and he loves to go to work,” says Flo Krisko, who trained all of the dogs at Alberta Film Animals in Okotoks. “He’s an actor dog.”
Last year’s Super Bowl pulled in a U.S. audience of 111 million, making the ad spots hot property. Unfortunately, most of the high- profile commercials will not be shown during the Canadian broadcast of the game. Nevertheless, companies tend to trot out their high-concept or star-heavy commercials for American viewers. Advertisers can pay up to $3-million for a 30-second spot.
This year, for instance, Honda has Matthew Broderick revisiting the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Acura has Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno, while H&M has an ad featuring David Beckham.
Nitro may not have reached that stratosphere in terms of star power, but his film and TV resume is growing.
Originally from Vancouver, the dog is actually owned by Krisko’s neighbour. He was featured in the 2007 film Christmas in Wonderland and will be in upcoming episodes of the Calgary-shot CBC show Heartland.
Krisko has been providing animals for film and TV since 1989. And not just dogs.
She has trained and wrangled everything from cats, to pigs, to cockroaches for TV shows such as Pet Heroes and Corner Gas and films such as the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain.
While most dogs are trainable, Krisko says the ones that shine brightest in film and TV usually possess a specific type of personality.
“It’s mostly that they are exuberant and have confidence,” she says. “They have to have confidence to work on film. I go through a lot of different dogs when I’m training and I have to pick that certain one.”