The Dogwalker took more than six years from concept to completion. Most of that
time was spent raising funds, but much video workshopping and script development also took place. It was produced through our mutual support collective, Filmmakers Alliance (FA). FA is the nine-year-old filmmaking collective founded by my wife and myself that has supported the production of hundreds of award winning shorts, features, commercials, music videos and more. Besides the numerous material resources, much of the crew and cast are FA members, or were brought into the process by FA members.

The film was shot on MiniDV on a Sony VX1000. We shot for five-and-a-half weeks with approximately ten days of pick-ups. Adobe AfterEffects was used to create the film simulation through a proprietary formula developed by co-producer Andy Somers.

The film was screened at the Independent Feature Film Market in New York in 2001 where it was one of five finalists for the Gordon Parks Independent Film Award. The Cinequest Film Festival hosted its world festival premiere.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Jacques Thelemaque

The Dogwalker is the product of many issues and factors. I wanted to make a film
with my wife, Diane Gaidry, that incorporated elements of our own life.

Diane once worked as a dogwalker and I decided to build a story around that particular world. But as the story developed, I become less interested in the details of dogwalking and more focused on the specific human characters and what the dogs mean to them. Dogs are truly unbelievable mirrors of our raw emotional states. Moreover, they provide a rich allegorical context for the exploration of female anger – how it is socialized, how its manifests itself in many women. Ellie’s abusive boyfriends are extensions of her own inwardly directed rage, while Betsy is still paying the price for a rage too fully expressed. Ultimately, however, the film is about coming to terms with that energy and moving on to a place of self-forgiveness and transformation. The Dogwalker is a term that both describes the job and, metaphorically, the task of caring for our own inner selves. Finally, the film is about my home, Los Angeles, and the often forgotten myriad of modest, though complex lives that exist within the city.

Diane Gaidry - “Ellie”
Diane Gaidry has played lead roles in numerous independent films, including The
Dogwalker, directed by Jacques Thelemaque, and America So Beautiful, directed by Babak Shokrian. Most recently, she starred in indie film legend Rob Nilsson’s Need and in director Katherine Brooks’ Loving Annabelle. She has also done numerous episodic television guest spots, most recently on the hit show Medium.

A native of upstate New York, Ms. Gaidry received her BFA in acting from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She landed acting assignments in a variety of productions, becoming a veteran of dozens of film, television and commercial productions including Movies of the Week 87th Precinct on NBC, and ABC’s Summer Dreams, in which she played Shawn Love, the wife of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. In addition, she was featured in the independent feature films, The Thing at Pete and Julie’s and Hero Lover Fool. In 1993 Ms. Gaidry and her husband, Jacques Thelemaque, co-founded Filmmakers Alliance in Los Angeles, where she currently serves as Executive Director.

Under the auspices of FA, she has starred in, produced and directed numerous short films including the award-winning short, Egg (Best Comedy Short-Cinequest Film Festival and Best Short – Methodfest 2001), Transaction (Grand Prix Du Jury Award– 2006 Cleremont-Ferrand International Film Festival, Honorable Mention– Mill Valley Film Festival), Birth of Industry (Cleveland International Film Festival), and Thanksgiving, her short film directorial debut, developed from her original story. She also co- produced The Dogwalker, which played at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and won Best First Feature at Cinequest.

Ms. Gaidry holds a Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Santa Monica.

Pamela Gordon - “Betsy”
An icon of theatre and independent film, the late Pamela Gordon’s distinctive
style informed a long and successful career.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Ms. Gordon was educated at Bennington and Carnegie- Mellon. She eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting opportunities. In the course of her career, she won countless awards for acting and was well known to theatre and film audiences alike. Her extensive list of credits in film and television includes roles in NYPD Blue, The West Wing, King of Queens, That’s Life, X-Files, Uncle, The Good Girl, Chuck and Buck, and Stars Maps. Ms. Gordon also brought her unique sensibilities to a number of national commercials.

She worked with an impressive array of directors including John Cassavetes, Miguel Arteta, Bruce McCulloch, Larry Clark, John Frankenheimer, Thomas Schlamme, John Hughes and Donald Petrie. She was a key member of The Actor’s Studio and other influential theatre companies.

The Dogwalker was Ms. Gordon’s final feature film. She passed away in 2003.

Jacques Thelemaque - Writer/ Director/ Producer
Jacques Thelemaque has combined writing, directing and arts activism to develop his own film projects and enable others to realize theirs. After attending USC and UCLA film schools, Thelemaque soon obtained screenwriting assignments at Imagine Entertainment, Weintraub Entertainment, Paramount Pictures and a number of independent companies.

In 1993, Thelemaque co-founded Filmmakers Alliance, and as president, has built the grassroots collective from a loose-knit group of eight filmmakers into an important independent filmmaking resource organization with more than 400 members. He has overseen the production of hundreds of films and videos, set up important vendor deals, built resource and crew databanks, and facilitated a regular series of seminars and workshops covering all aspects of filmmaking.

Recently, Thelemaque struck a deal with production financing entity Bigfoot Partners to produce two to four independent films per year in the $200,000 to $2 million range under the FA Productions banner. He has also recently been named partner and Chief Community Officer of the innovative film festival submission site, Withoutabox.com

His extensive writer-director filmography includes Infidelity (in equal parts) (Sundance Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival), The Dogwalker (Los Angeles Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Best First Feature – Cinequest Film Festival), Egg (Mill Valley Film Festival, Best Comedy Short – Cinequest Film Festival, Jury Award for Best Short – Methodfest) and Love Without Socks (AFI International Film Festival), as well as several other films that he wrote, directed and/or produced.

Thelemaque also served on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival (now the FIND Los Angeles Film Festival), helping organize that influential event, as well as executive producing the 12998 Seminar series.

His latest short, Transaction, has enjoyed tremendous success on the festival circuit, winning a BAFTA Award at its first festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, and earning the prestigious Grand Prix Du Jury Award, the top honor, at the 2006 Cleremont-Ferrand International Film Festival in France.

He has recently completed the script for Red White and Blue as one of ten filmmakers selected for the feature-length omnibus projects. He recently co-produced the Bigfoot Entertainment horror film Midnight Movie and is currently preparing for production of his new feature film, Rust.

Thelemaque serves on the boards of the Silver Lake Film Festival and Santa Monica Film Festival.

Marco Fargnoli - Director of Photography
Marco Fargnoli began his career as a camera assistant in Chicago, then relocated to Los Angeles to work alongside some of the most talent DPs in the world, including E.T.’s Allen Daviau.

His own talent has emerged in an impressive fashion through his work as a Director of Photography on a series of independent features and shorts including Egg (Best Comedy Short – Cinequest Film Festival and Best Short – Methodfest 2001), The Giftbox, Kickin’ Chicken (Best Short – San Francisco Black Film Festival), Lost Dog, Solitude, String Theory, and The Dogwalker. He has also served as second unit director on the HBO feature A Better Way to Die and received credit for Additional Photography on Christopher Munch’s The Sleepy Time Gal (Sundance 2001).

She has worked as a producer/ line producer/ unit production manager on numerous award-winning and profitable features and shorts. Some of these include Horses and Champions, Ole, Sand Trap, The Emerald Cut, Hall Junkies, Leela and The Dogwalker. These films were made by talented and award-winning writer/ directors such as Will & Grace writer Adam Barr, ground-breaking independent filmmakers Christopher Munch, Mary Kuryla and Whitney Ransick.

Actors appearing in those films include Jacqueline Bisset, Timothy Bottoms, Veronica Cartwright, Freddy Rodriques, Nick Stahl, Christopher Walken, Chazz Palmenteri and Rod Steiger. Ms. Miller recently produced the award-winning short film, Egg.

In addition, she has worked on music videos, documentaries and commercials, including work as a visual effects producer on an Oliver Stone commercial for Motorola.

Hilary Six - Producer
Hilary Six relocated from New York City in 1998 where she was the founder and artistic director of Avalon Repertory Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She had been producing and directing plays for ten years when the call to Los Angeles and a new career in filmmaking prompted the move. Since arriving in Los Angeles, Ms. Six worked for two years as development associate for Academy Award-winning producer, Jerome Hellman (Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home).

Since then she has worked as a production manager, line producer and producer on several films, including Leela, an independent feature from India with an international cast including Dimple Kapadia, Gulshan Grover and Vinod
Khanna.

In 2003, Ms. Six joined the independent filmmakers collective, Filmmakers Alliance, and has worked in production on many projects, most recently Jacques Thelemaque’s The Dogwalker.

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Based in Asia, Bigfoot Entertainment is the parent company of Bigfoot Productions, Bigfoot Production Services, the International Academy of Film and Television (IAFT) and Bigfoot Partners. Through all of its divisions, Bigfoot Entertainment recognizes a global competitive organization that provides critically acclaimed and commercially viable content as well as providing training, facilities and services to international filmmakers.

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