Duran: Shooting in Slippers 
Talking Dogs and Sharks with authors of the Doqwalker

     The   makers   of   "The   Dogwalker"    spent   three    weeks    in   the duplex apartment of producer Vera Anderson to shoot this feature film. Not only  was it  cheaper  but when you are shooting a movie you have to live it through  anyways,  says  the director Paul Duran, who was hanging out on the  set  in  slippers.  And   when   they   needed   to  shoot  a  scene in a dingy-looking bar toilet, they simply built it up in the backyard.

    Same as Andersen who is on her normal job as the Los Angeles Bureau Chief  for  Cine  Premiere  magazine,  Duran  was a journalist originally. He then  started  working  as  an  assistant  cameraman  and  special  effects coordinator  on  low budget  indie horror films. Later he shot movie clips for Tom Petty, and Neil Young.

     The  Dogwalker is Duran's second feature film after "Flesh Suitcase" (to those  of  you  American  readers  who  would  think  it's a porn movie, or a horror  movie,  it  is  in  fact a story of two drug-smugglers). Thinking up the basic  set-up  evolving  around  a  man  who  is  hired to walk a dog was no coincidence  for  Duran.  "One  day,  when  I was during this low part of my life,  I  was walking around with two dogs thinking: 'What the hell do I know about [to make a movie out of it]? I know about walking dogs."

     The  idea was born and Duran and Anderson had to find the man to play the  dogwalker.  Although  they hired a casting agency, which kept sending good  looking TV stars, it was themselves again who found now 27-year-old Will  Stewart. Andersen stumbled across Stewart at casting for his role but at  first sight she could not figure out whether he was a construction worker or  an  actor.  In  fact, Stewart had appeared in Mr. Holland's Opus, Murder She  Wrote  and  Playing  God  (along with David "Mulder" Duchovny in his attempt  to  get  away from the X-Files). But in addition to his acting career he describes himself as a passionate dishwasher.

     Casting  for those more untamed characters - a dog - turned out to be a little  bit more difficult. Although they were originally planning on using their own  Scottish  terrier,  perfectly  in  line  with  keeping  the  budget  low  by eliminating  outsourcing,  they  failed  to  train  him  as  he was too spoiled. Instead, they went for the large-headed boxer.

     With  the  exception  of the older lady, the boxer's owner in the film and more  of  a  cat person in her real life, who had a hard time dealing with the dog (they had to  put salami on her face in order to convince the dog to lick her),  Duran,  Andersen,  and  even  Stewart  all  had  a thing for dogs, and animals.  Stewart  said  his  dog helped him go through a dark period in his college  days  (after  a  brief  period in his life when he wanted to become a brain  surgeon  in  Bozeman, Montana, since there is no speed limit there). Duran  and  Anderson  went  both  as  far as thinking about becoming vets. Andersen  has  in fact explored her relationship to animals more deeply as she,  inspired  by  Bertolucci's  1900,  was   indulging   in  the   so   called "frog-gigging"  which  involves  catching  frogs and putting them on a string, and then was selling them to schools.

     When  talking  about  his  film, Duran often brings up Tom Sawyer, and describes  Jerry  Cooper  as a Tom Saywer 20 years later. "I've always had this  boyhood   recollection  of  that   scene  from  Tom Saywer when he is painting  the  fence, " he  says  and continues telling the story of Tom who convinces  everybody  around  him that it's in fact a great thing to be doing just that and gets offered apples and money from others for letting them do it.  "And  that's  how  I  saw  the  character,  he is also taking advantage of people, but not in a bad way."

     Stewart's  dog-walking  character  is  a  good-looking  young  man  in a nice-looking suit who is forced to spend a night  in his old Lincoln, the type with  the  suicide  doors.  But you don't get to know much about him really, Duran intentionally kept Jerry's life outside the neighborhood a bit obscured. At  a  certain  point,  it  is  only  hinted  that  he  previously  worked   as  a salesman.  Duran  in  fact  admitted  to  us  with  a  straight face that Jerry was selling waterbeds, which "used to be a really booming business in the US in the 80īs."

     As  Duran  explained,  Cooper  really functions like a catalyst on all the people  around him - by taking the job of a dogwalker he enters a life of the old  woman,  the  dog  owner,  her  daughter and grand-daughter, and three bridge-playing  older  men.  "He  is  like  a  stranger  coming to town," said Duran.

     Eventually  Cooper  is  destined to leave this little world as well and he only  finds out at the birthday party of a 16-year old girl that he has became  a stranger again and that everybody is exhausted by him.

     Duran's  next  film  is  called The Shark, and although it refers to a loan shark,  there  were  already problems with the animal protection authorities who wanted  to make sure that Duran is not going to be harming "that fish."