"No Animal Was Harmed In The Making Of This Film..."

[KGS]

Every movie featuring animals has a tag in the credits saying that animal action was monitored by the American Humane Society, blah blah blah…usually, it includes the line, “No animal was harmed in the making of this film.”

However, I’ve noticed quite a few movies which don’t include that line, usually adding something to the effect of, “All animals were treated with great care for their safety and comfort,” or something like that. I’d assume that if no animal got hurt, they would say it. So, if they don’t say “no animal was harmed,” does that mean somebody stepped on a duck?

Also, how far down the food chain do you have to go before the AHS doesn’t care anymore? Would they get upset about, say, somebody boiling a real lobster for dinner?

[Ike_Witt]

I would guess that Apocalypse Now didn’t get the support of the humane society. That scene of the villagers slaughtering a water buffalo was real.

[Dewey_Finn]

@KGS

Also, how far down the food chain do you have to go before the AHS doesn’t care anymore? Would they get upset about, say, somebody boiling a real lobster for dinner?

It’s entirely reasonable that the Humane Society would care about the welfare of lobsters. Consider, for example, this anecdote about the making of the movie Splash (taken from the IMDB):

Darryl Hannah is a vegetarian, and so refused to eat real lobster for the restaurant scene. The crew scooped out the insides of real, cooked lobsters and made up a thick, tofu-like paste to fill the shells - this is what Hannah ate when she chewed into the lobsters. Director Ron Howard said in an interview for “Biography” that she cried after each take over the deaths of the lobsters for their shells.

[a35362]

This isn’t going to be very helpful, but I’m sure Roger Ebert addressed this very question, and his answer was something along the lines of “the HSUS doesn’t actually have any power to make a film crew do or not do anything while making a movie – all they can do is grant or refuse to grant their disclaimer.” I don’t know anything about how picky they actually are about what they require to grant the disclaimer.

[JSexton]

There’s a new Burger King commercial that features two guys in chicken suits wrestling and boxing, promoting an upcoming match between them. Apparently they represent BK’s chicken sandwiches. There is of course a disclaimer saying “no chickens were harmed, etc.”

However, the disclaimer appears during a shot of a chicken sandwich. WTF? Didn’t chickens die to make chicken sandwichs? I certainly hope so. The alternative is…icky.

[Eats_Crayons]

Well, my ex worked on a rat movie that had almost 100 real rats (supposedly “trained”*) and there were pretty strict rules about how long they could work, what they could do as far as safety etc.

For example there was a scene in which thousands of rats burst out of drainage pipes into… a swimming pool of children! Oo, eek, the horror, the horror. CGI of course, was used for the “big stuff”, but for the close-ups of little rat legs paddling away as they swam (they were actually really cute)…

The pool had to be drained because they weren’t allowed in chlorinated water. The water temperature had to be very specific so the rats wouldn’t catch cold. Crew members had to stand in the pool in case some rat got a cramp and couldn’t keep swimming (and you got coated in rat crap for your efforts). After the swimming scene they had to go back to the rat trailer (which was also kept at a specific, rat-friendly temperature) to be dried off. Etc., etc…

Basically they were treated better than your average B-list actor.

This is in stark contrast to the chimps used in Project X in which there were serious allegations of beatings.

Some animals also suffer a great deal from the stresses of handling, transportation, bright lights, loud noises, being in truly weird and unfamiliar environments. So there is great care in making sure that the animals don’t undergo any trauma (like cold swimming pool water).

The disclaimer usually means they were following some pretty stringent guidelines, and or had monitors on set and/or vets on set and great care was taken to meet the animals’ needs. Approved animal wranglers also take great care to ensure the animals are safe. Kind of like having a gun wrangler on set to make sure all the phony firearms are used safely, the animal wrangler supplies the critters, but also takes on the responsibility of being sure the animal’s safety needs are being met.

I’m not sure how far down the food chain it goes. The TV show Fear Factor regularly has contestants eating worms and bugs alive. On the other hand , some movie that had huge bunches of cockroaches had a “roach wrangler”. So I dunno.

*Oh and as for “trained”… the rats just ran around and ate peanut butter that was smeared on the set. (CGI was used to make it look like thousands of rats eating peanut butter). When about 30 of them were supposed to run down a tunnel, only about 9 ran toward the rat-snack rewards at the end of the tunnel. The other 21 took off in every which way, climbing on film equipment, and leading the crew on a merry chase… A lot more CGI was used than initially planned. Lousy actors those rats. Just don’t follow direction well.

[Santos_L_Halper]

@KGS

Also, how far down the food chain do you have to go before the AHS doesn’t care anymore?

Pretty far down, apparently. From the IMDB listing for the Shawshank Redemption:

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals monitored the filming of scenes involving Brooks’ crow. During the scene where he fed it a maggot, the ASPCA objected on the grounds that it was cruel to the maggot, and required that they use a maggot that had died from natural causes. One was found, and the scene was filmed.

[Larry_Mudd]

@JSexton

However, the disclaimer appears during a shot of a chicken sandwich. WTF? Didn’t chickens die to make chicken sandwichs? I certainly hope so. The alternative is…icky.

It’'s pretty likely that the chicken patty was, in fact, an ersatz one – not because of any cruelty issues, but because real food doesn’t hold up well under lights, etc. There’s an entire cottage industry of folks who create model food for film and photo shoots.

It’s worth noting that the ASPCA disclaimer came about after some pretty egregious abuse back in the glory days of Hollywood. One of the most notorious practices that met with a lot of public outcry after it was exposed was a common technique for getting spectacular shots in calvary battle scenes: A measured wire was attached to a horse’s leg. with the other end secured solidly to some anchor point. The horse was then run at a gallop toward the camera, and when it was perfectly framed, the wire would snap taut, felling the horse and throwing the rider. Of course, this would break the horse’s leg and it would have to be shot, but what drama!

Now we have hollow heels for scenes where we want to show someone stepping on a cockroach. Works for me.

[Rufus_Xavier]

In re: the maggot of Shawshank, I read that the crew thought this was so funny that someone made up a little tiny ‘chair’ with the word Maggot on the back for the maggot to ‘sit’ in between takes. And here’s Frank Darabont’s version of the story:

@Frank Darabont

she decreed that no live worm be fed to the bird. Only a dead one would do. One that died of natural causes. My suggestion that we have the maggot autopsied to determine cause of death drew nothing but a blank stare. Patiently explaining that the maggots were actually waxworms purchased by the prop department at a local bait shop also cut us no slack. Apparently, the God-given right of any fisherman to blithely feed a waxworm to a steelhead bass is denied the Hollywood filmmaker and his baby crow, even when the Clock of Doom is ticking off $120,000 a day in production costs. Thank God we found a dead waxworm in the batch, or we might still be there.

Before the day was out, our intrepid grips had presented us with a tiny director’s chair made out of matchsticks, just in case any of the waxworms needed a breather between takes.

• from http://blogs.pumpernickle.net/billy/2002/05/waxworm_redempt.html

[Captain_Amazing]

Here’s the website of the AHA’s Film and Television unit, so you can see exactly what films animals weren’t (or were) harmed in.

www.ahafilm.com (it rederects you to the AHA’s film page).

[Kizarvexius]

I had a conversation some years back with director Brian Trenchard-Smith (as a glance at his filmography will show, not a very good director), during which he mentioned the SPCA.

He said that if an animal is to be used during even a single scene of the film, the SPCA rep will have to be on set during every day of the shoot…and get paid for it.

Trenchard-Smith said that he was filming a scene in a movie (no idea what movie it was) during which a nun squishes a cockroach with a yardstick. The SPCA rep, upon learning what was about to happen, confiscated the roach, took it outside, and (apparently) killed it humanely (whatever that means). Then he came back inside, handed the dead roach back to the film crew and permitted them to squish the dead roach on camera.

Make of it what you will.

[tracer]

What about the poor sea sponges that are cruelly cut loose from the ocean floor and asphyxiate to death in the air, so that the cleanup crews can have something to sponge down the set with? Does the Humane Society oversee those, too?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Eats_Crayons

Well, my ex worked on a rat movie that had almost 100 real rats (supposedly “trained”*) and there were pretty strict rules about how long they could work, what they could do as far as safety etc.

Now I’m picturing a rat stomping off to its trailer, muttering, “You’ll be hearing from my agent about these working conditions!”

[Mtgman]

@adam yax

I would guess that Apocalypse Now didn’t get the support of the humane society. That scene of the villagers slaughtering a water buffalo was real.

He shoots… He SCORES!!!

Enjoy,
Steven

[h.sapiens]

In Robert Altman’s commentary on the “Gosford Park” DVD, he points out that the film doesn’t have a SPCA disclaimer because the pheasant-hunting scene is, basically, film of a real pheasant hunt, staged specially for the movie. Even without the commentary, it’s pretty obvious that at least one pheasant died for the sake of art.

[ouryL]

other than the ones we scarfed down between takes.

[Hail_Ants]

@adam yax

I would guess that Apocalypse Now didn’t get the support of the humane society. That scene of the villagers slaughtering a water buffalo was real.

Although its not on their list I’ve read that the horse head in Coppolla’s The Godfather was not only a real horse’s head but actually was the head of the horse shown (very much alive) in the previous scene. I guess maybe they euthanized it humanely or something so it doesn’t count?

I love animals too but these people go too far. Bugs don’t count.

[Dewey_Finn]

The IMDB trivia page for The Godfather says that the horse’s head came from a dog food factory.

[Lamia]

@Eats_Crayons

I’m not sure how far down the food chain it goes. The TV show Fear Factor regularly has contestants eating worms and bugs alive. On the other hand , some movie that had huge bunches of cockroaches had a “roach wrangler”. So I dunno.

It might have been Men in Black. I remember one of my professors in college telling us a story about how they weren’t allowed to kill any roaches in that movie, and Will Smith had to be really careful not to stomp on any of the live roaches. But this wasn’t a film professor or anyone with expert moviemaking knowledge, so I’m not sure if this is really true.

[DesertDog]

@Hail Ants

Although its not on their list I’ve read that the horse head in Coppolla’s The Godfather was not only a real horse’s head but actually was the head of the horse shown (very much alive) in the previous scene. I guess maybe they euthanized it humanely or something so it doesn’t count?

Not so says the IMDb, which matches what I had read, that they picked the head up from a slaughterhouse. Why kill a whole horse when you can get the bit you need for next to nothing?

DD