'No Animals Were Harmed' in Studio City

During a recent visit to the Studio City offices of the Film and Television Unit of the American Human Association, communications director Joan Bouman asked the most unnecessary question ever posed in front of a dog:

“Would Heidi like to go to the Treat Room?”

Heidi doesn’t know the word “room,“ but the girl knows “treat,” and she reacted to this unexpected invitation like a kid handed a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.  To Heidi, the Ventura Boulevard headquarters of the Film and TV Unit, “No Animals Were Harmed," was suddenly the best place ever.

And – although no one offered me dog biscuit -- I felt much the same way about being invited in to learn more about this business, which moved from Sherman Oaks to Studio City in November 2010, but has been operating in the Valley for generation.  Amazing—right here in our neighborhood is the entity responsible for the famous seal of approval seen at the end of Hollywood movies viewed around the world: “No Animals Were Harmed In The Making of This Film.”

“Yes, that is our trademark language – we own it, we came up with it, no one else is allowed to use it,” says Bouman, who like several staffers brings her pet to work (Twigdon, a Lhasa Apso-terrier mix, is unnerved by big dogs like Heidi).  “When you see that, you are seeing the American Humane Association at work.”

 There’s plenty of background info to be found on the company’s website, but while Heidi sniff-tested her office and bonded with communications coordinator Lisa Yassa, Bouman gave us the short version of the history of the organization.

Not to be confused with The Humane Society of the United States, the American Humane Association, founded in 1877, is according to Bouman the oldest humanitarian organization in this country and was founded to serve the needs of the voiceless – animals and children, addressing issues of neglect and abuse. The organization began taking a look at the use of animals in film as early as the 1920s  -- particularly horses in the all-popular Westerns, where instead of training the animals, dangerous trip wires were often used to cause horses to fall. 

The Film and TV Unit became official in 1940 after a particularly disturbing incident: in the 1939 film Jesse James, starring Henry Fonda and Tyrone Power, an action scene called for a stuntman on a horse to jump over a cliff into the water to make his getaway.  “Unfortunately, in order to have realism in that scene, the stunt guy jumped over the cliff, but they put the horse in a greased chute at the top of a 70-foot cliff and forced the horse through the chute to its death,” Bouman says.

 The association staged an international boycott, and the negative publicity led the industry to routinely rely on the association, bring its representatives to the set and adhere to its guidelines in order to win the “No Animals Were Harmed” certification.

It’s not just horses, or dogs – it’s insects, bats, rats, cats, snakes, dogs, elephants.  “We currently work on approximately 2000 productions each year,” Bouman says. “Whenever you see an animal, odds are we were on the set.”  Some recent examples are the movie Like Water for Elephants and the HBO movie Temple Grandin. Many of the safety representatives that the organization sends out on location were trained at nearby Moorpark College’s Exotic Animal Training and Management Program. 

“Many are equine specialists – the horse tends to be the animal that the most is asked of in this industry, “ Bouman says.  “But they have to know all breeds.  Mice to bats to eagles to reptiles – you never know what you are going to be asked to be there for…when you get on the set and you have a big director, everybody pretty much kowtows to that director.  We have to be able to say no. That’s not always an easy place to be.”

Like most organizations that have to do with animals, The American Humane Association has had its critics, including PETA and Performing Animals Welfare Society, and was engaged in a highly publicized legal battle in 1990 with animal activist Bob Barker, whom the organization sued for libel for “spurious” accusations of allowing animal mistreatment on sets.  And of course there are always those who don’t believe animals should work in Hollywood at all.

After a one-day visit, Heidi and I are not in a position to comment on any of this – but tend to agree with Bouman that animals serve a vital purpose in storytelling. “The animal human bond is intrinsic in nature,” Bouman says.  “Seeing it on screen serves as a reminder that we share this planet with these other creatures.”  That includes highlighting the negatives, including dog fighting or species extinction, she adds. “A lot of good can come from the fact that animals are part of this business.”

That being said – is your cat, dog or hamster ready for the camera? Bouman says she gets calls and e-mails on a daily basis from pet owners who want their “children” to be stars.  We’ll hear her answer to that question in next week’s