St. Louis residents Aaron Bowden and Erik Becker didn’t expect to get nominated for a Daytime Emmy (much less three) when they were approached by Purina to create a documentary series based around its nationwide dog sporting competition, The Incredible Dog Challenge. But they knew they had something special when even the slow-motion camera operators they hired couldn’t stop smiling during the filming process.
“One guy didn’t even want to take lunch,” Bowden says. “He said, ‘I want to shoot some more of these jumps because it’s just so cool.’”
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A Different Breed, released last year on Amazon Prime Video by Bowden and Becker’s Maplewood-based production company, InkBlot Narratives, details the lives of trainers and their pooches as they prepare and compete in the intense competition.
Having met while working at St. Louis–based video production company Coolfire Studios, Bowden and Becker decided to start their own company in 2018, producing true-crime documentaries and working for Amazon Web Services to create a documentary on its DeepRacer competition, in which competitors would use machine-learning to train and race a 1/18th scale car.
“People love dogs. It’s a weird subculture. It’s got this very cool mix of the quirk of the subculture and the passion and drama of the sports part of it,” Bowden says. “But we didn’t know a lot about this world.”
After shooting three initial episodes at Purina Farms to prove the capability of the format, the team was off to the races, traveling across the country interviewing the people behind The Incredible Dog Challenge. The backstories and journeys of both the trainers and their dogs are on full display, says Bowden.
“We’re sort of the NFL Films of dog sports,” he says. “There’s a broadcast for each of these events that they do already, but [A Different Breed] takes you behind the scenes, and now you understand where [the competitors] come from.”
Released in August of last year, A Different Breed quickly began picking up steam. After being invited to Sundance Film Festival, the team decided to submit the documentary series for the Emmys. They were stunned to receive three nominations for Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Editing, and Outstanding Lifestyle Program. What excited the team the most, however, were the craft nominations.
“They really liked it,” Bowden says. “That’s a full-spectrum ringing endorsement: We love this show because it’s well-made.”
With the ceremony approaching in October, and a second season in post-production, Bowden is optimistic for the future of InkBlot.
“It’s an incredible development for us,” he says. “Being able to put ‘Emmy-Nominated’ in front of our names is fantastic.”
A Different Breed is available on Amazon Prime Video.
