Mike Werb met his writing and producing partner, Michael Colleary, when they were both graduate students at the UCLA School of Film and Television. Werb sold his car to go to film school, but the high price may have been a good thing in the long run.
“(Colleary) started giving me rides to school,” Werb said of his car-less days. They would often talk about film ideas while stuck in traffic. “We ended up writing “˜Face/Off’ together.”
UCLA connections are key to many filmmaking Bruins’ post-graduate success. And UCLA film school alumnus Todd Holland, who directed the new children’s film “Firehouse Dog” (co-written and produced by Werb), is no exception.
Holland and Werb will return to campus today for a Q&A panel after a screening of “Firehouse Dog” at the James Bridges Theater.
Fresh out of school, one of Holland’s friends worked for Steven Spielberg and put Holland’s student film “Chicken Thing” on the top of the pile. Spielberg watched the reel, and after seeing “Chicken Thing” immediately wanted to meet him, and eventually hired Holland to work on his television show.
“Go to film school in California, because what happens is your friends graduate and become a network for you,” Holland said.
Holland and Werb were in different graduating classes and did not meet until later on, but even after leaving the UCLA campus, being a Bruin is still binding.
“The actual connection never burns out,” Holland said. “It’s that sense of having shared that journey in school together.”
The pair will be joined at the panel by Colleary, writer Claire-Dee Lim and star Bree Turner, all UCLA alumni.
Though they come from different fields within filmmaking, they all learned to fight for their work, as UCLA filmmakers typically enter into major debt when creating their thesis projects.
Holland said the extra passion and willingness to fight is vital and this latest Bruin collaboration was not much different than a student film.
“Making a movie is hell. If you’re going to go through hell, go through it for something you love, not (something) bogus,” Holland said. In “Firehouse Dog,” for him, that was dogs. “I needed to make a movie that honors the great spirit of dogs and what they bring to our lives.”
Werb, who had co-written the “Firehouse Dog” script, knew Holland was looking to make a dog movie, so he called up his friend and made him a deal.
“I pitched him the story in two minutes. He had said, “˜I’ve been sent every talking dog script, I don’t want to do a talking dog movie,’ (and) I reassured him this was not a talking dog movie. And he said, “˜Sure, I’m attached,’ just like that over the phone,” Werb said.
“Firehouse Dog” is about a movie star dog who is separated from his owners and winds up the mascot of a firehouse.
“In a way, it’s a 21st-century old-fashioned film. (It has) a lot of heart and a lot of sentimentality,” Werb said. “The movie has a lot more complexity that can’t be captured in trailers. I’m quite proud of it.”
Though making the deal with each other was simple, pitching the idea to the studio was another thing. To get the green light, Holland explained that they went for the heartstrings ““ they pulled out the puppy dogs.
“We paid the trainers ourselves. We wrote checks out of our own checkbooks,” Holland said. “We were able to jump-start the studio’s interest and its lack of willingness to commit. They fell in love with the dogs.”
Picking the dogs, however, turned out to be one of the hardest parts of making the film ““ more difficult than casting the human actors because it was such a demanding role.
“It was a very ambitious script to say the least. The dog had to be very agile and very quick to learn,” said Ursula Brauner, a trainer from Boone’s Animals for Hollywood and the animal coordinator for “Firehouse Dog.”
“The dog had to skateboard and do a lot of jumping,” Werb said. “And we didn’t want to use a dog that had been overused in films, like the Jack Russell Terrier. We didn’t want the Australian cattle dog. We didn’t want a dalmatian.”
So they bought a dog photo encyclopedia and flipped through descriptions of each breed, comparing their strengths and weaknesses in a process Holland described as “”˜American Idol’ for dogs.” The dog had to be large enough to be intimidating, but small enough to roll in a tube. But the dog also had to have the right personality.
“We needed diva quality,” Holland said. “I’m a Labrador lover. (But) they don’t have the standoffish quality; they’re like big love blobs.”
The dog selection was very important because the character Rex was essentially the star of the film. Acting dogs also have to be pure breeds, not mutts, because they need multiple dogs to specialize in certain tasks.
“I was pushing for a poodle because (the firehouse) was going be a biggest joke in the city because a poodle is one of the most derided (breeds),” Werb said. They ultimately all agreed on the Irish Terrier.
“I still think it would have been very good with a poodle,” Werb said.
Irish Terriers are not commonly used in films, so the “Firehouse” crew rescued and trained all new dogs.
“We had to rely on a lot of very subtle body movements and looks and to bring personality out of the dogs because it was not talking script,” Brauner said. “We teach them (how to) shift their weight, to look left, look right, up and down.”
Even with the dogs, Werb described the experience of making “Firehouse Dog” with so many Bruins as similar to making a student film, except with $20 million instead of $20.
“There’s nothing more fun than making a movie with your friends; nothing,” said Werb, who also occasionally teaches courses at UCLA. “I always tell my students to find the people you like and whose talents you respect and nurture those relationships.”