Monitoring Agreement Keeps Hollywood on a Tight Leash

The American Humane Assn.’s Film and TV Unit is empowered by a clause in the collective bargaining agreement between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The agreement was ratified in 1980 after public outcry over the treatment of horses during production of the films “Heaven’s Gate” and “The Legend of the Lone Ranger,” in which association monitors were barred from a set at gunpoint. Once the agreement became part of the standard SAG contract, the agency was authorized to review all scripts that feature animals and to monitor all sets during shooting.

Should an association officer witness animal cruelty, he or she can write a citation or even make an arrest--at least in California, where monitors are licensed as law enforcement officers. Not that the agency has ever played cop. Ginny Barrett, director of the unit’s western regional office, says that since monitors were granted law enforcement powers in 1997, the agency has never made an arrest or written a ticket.

“‘We’ve threatened to--and that’s the end of the discussion right there,” she says. “If we’re there and we see something going wrong, we say, ‘You can’t do that,’ and we cite the penal code. Filmmakers are not criminals. It’s just a matter of having the expertise and clout to keep them in bounds.”

Just as persuasive as its legal power, she says, is the association’s public influence. It screens all movies featuring animals before release, then rates them as Acceptable (the association supervised the production and found no cruelty); Believed Acceptable (the association wasn’t present but is satisfied the animal action was safe); Questionable (the association wasn’t present and no information is available on the film’s animal action); and Unacceptable (animal cruelty occurred during production). The ratings are published in the association’s magazine, the Advocate. Usually two or three movies a year get slapped with the lowest rating; the most recent example is a Chinese film called “An Assassin’s Romance” that featured a horse falling off a cliff and into a pile of rocks.

The nonprofit agency’s $1.4-million annual operating costs are covered by donations from SAG and a grant from the Industry Advancement and Cooperative Fund, a partnership of production companies.