Filmmaker Lee Stanley had already been involved in the lives of violent juvenile offenders for several years before he seized on the idea of making a film about the Camp Kilpatrick football program. One of his earlier documentaries, Desperate Passage, won several awards for its story of the 10-day at-sea expeditions Stanley took with incarcerated young men on his sailboat to teach the boys teamwork and self-confidence. 
"I had volunteered my time to kids in lock-up for 15 years," says Stanley. "When I first started, I was cautioned by one of the probation counselors that if I changed one kid, I'd be lucky. And I agreed, that if I could change even one kid's life, it would all be worth it."
Stanley directed and produced the 1993 Emmy Award-winning documentary "Gridiron Gang" with his wife, Linda Stanley. Their son Shane, an Emmy Award winner who often worked with his father, served as the documentary's co-producer and 2^nd unit director. The film chronicled the team's 1990 Cinderella season, the camp's first with an 11-man high-school-level football team. That year, coaches Sean Porter and Malcolm Moore led their team (which was comprised of hardened juvenile offenders) through a monumental season, during which they shook off their early losses and reached the region's championship game against Montclair Prep High School. Although Montclair Prep had lost only three games in the past four years, the Camp Kilpatrick Mustangs held them to a hard-fought 13-7 Montclair win - a game many say the Mustangs could have won except for a series of unfortunate penalties and mistakes late in the fourth quarter. By making it through even one game, however, the Mustangs had already proven themselves winners.
"'Gridiron Gang' was a powerful example that if you can invest some time and care into a kid, that kid's life will change," says Lee Stanley.
When producer Neal H. Moritz (The Fast and the Furious, xXx, Sweet Home Alabama) saw the documentary, he was immediately moved and intrigued.  "I was watching television one day and I came across this documentary about taking troubled kids and making them into a football team," Moritz relates. "I watched the entire thing and I cried. I said to myself: 'I have to make this into a feature film.'"
The first step was coming up with a compelling fictional narrative interweaving the situations that made the documentary so compelling. Moritz turned to busy screenwriter Jeff Maguire, who had recently earned an Oscar® nomination for his script for In the Line of Fire starring Clint Eastwood. "Jeff could not have been more in demand at that time," recalls Moritz. "He also happened to have seen the documentary around the same time I did and had been so moved he volunteered at a prison camp. Right away he told me he wanted to be involved and immediately talked to all the kids, the coaches and the Stanley family. What he realized is that there was so much to the story that the hardest part was going to be fitting it all into a two-hour movie."
As the project was developed, Moritz began his search for the proper teaming of director Phil Joanou and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and he knew his search was ended.
Joanou, known for his progressive and energetic direction of documentaries (U2: Rattle and Hum), feature films (State of Grace), commercials and music videos, didn't even need to read the entire script to be convinced he wanted to direct Gridiron Gang.  "After reading only the first 30 pages of Jeff's screenplay, I knew I wanted to be a part of this story.  I was already hooked into the kids' and Sean's struggle to overcome the odds."
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was equally eager when he first heard about the project over dinner with producer Moritz. "Neal told me about the movie and handed me the script," says Johnson, star of such recent popular films as The Scorpion King and The Rundown. "He asked me to watch the documentary before I read it. I did and I was moved and inspired. The battle that Sean Porter and those kids went through was amazing. I liked the fact that most of the young men who accepted the Mustang challenge back then went on to become productive citizens. It made me admire them even more."
For Moritz, Johnson was the ideal fit for the character because "He embodies all the qualities of who Sean is. Sean Porter was a troubled kid himself and playing football saved him. Sean's story paralleled Dwayne's since, as a kid, Dwayne had been arrested numerous times and was also saved by channeling his energies in a positive way through a competitive sport like football." 
"I had been arrested eight times before I was 14," Johnson admits. "I was lucky in that my arresting officer told me that he was either going to continue to kick my ass and arrest me every week, or take me off the streets and put me into the freshman high school football program. I was fortunate to have someone care enough about what happened to me at that point in my life. He took me out of a bad environment and filled the void in my life with football. It taught me so many things beyond the actual game, like teamwork, sacrifice and choosing to do the right things in life."
Football became a major influence for the future actor. He excelled at the sport in high school and won a scholarship to the powerhouse football program at the University of Miami in Florida, where he continued to shine as a defensive end, becoming a member of the school's national championship team in 1989. The following year, however, injuries forced him to abandon his dream of playing professional football.
"It was exciting to have Dwayne, because he'd lived this story himself," says Joanou. "He and Sean Porter were similar in so many ways. Dwayne understood Sean's toughness and his dedication to the kids, as well as the role football could play in helping them change."
With his director and star onboard, Gridiron Gang was ready to go. "It was very important for Joanou that the film be shot at the actual Camp Kilpatrick, a functioning youth probation camp high in the Santa Monica Mountains between the communities of Malibu and Agoura. Producer Stanley helped him secure the location by interceding with the City Council.  Shooting at the camp was crucial for Joanou in helping him achieve his objective or having Gridiron Gang accurately convey the environment in which the story transpired. "Being able to shoot at Camp Kilpatrick made all the difference in the world," he says. "I truly believe the impact of the film would have been dramatically lessened if we had not shot around 120 real prisoners. Every day, we would look out into the camp and see the real version of our story unfolding. It helped to keep us honest."
There were some serious concerns voiced about using Camp Kilpatrick for the filming, admits Lee Stanley, such as "How would the inmates and staff tolerate a 200-man shooting crew in their domain ever day? The Los Angeles County Probation Department asked us a very important question: How can the wards benefit from this? So Shane and I suggested creating a production class on the camp grounds that would teach the wards the methods of filmmaking they were witnessing every day around them."
The class was taught throughout production, with director Phil Joanou and "The Rock" offering their service as speakers. Stanley also made arrangements to take small groups of wards around the actual production as it shot, pointing out the many facets of making a movie on location. "Our department heads took time out to explain their roles in the production and to answer questions. It was an inspiration for the kids and showed them that someone respected their lives and their space," says Stanley.
Before production began, the filmmakers addressed another crucial aspect: creating a viable football team for the many sports sequences. Allan Graf, a noted film football coordinator who had created teams for such films as Friday Night Lights, Necessary Roughness and The Replacements, was hired to train the actors and their stunt doubles for the Camp Kilpatrick Mustangs, as well as to work with the members of the opposing teams. 
A training camp was set up at Moorpark College, just a few miles from Camp Kilpatrick in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. Many of the actors chosen for the central Camp Kilpatrick team were athletes, but few had actually played football in high school or elsewhere.
"I think only one guy on the main team had ever played much football," says Graf. "And Mo, the guy we picked to play our quarterback, had never thrown a football in an actual organized game, but that played to our advantage because we didn't want these players to be too good. After all, at the beginning of the film, they are supposed to be terrible."
Graf and his assistant football coordinator, Justin Riemer, went over all the prospective plays and players with Joanou before football training started. "Allan is the best in the business at putting the football team together," says Joanou, "and making sure the football looks authentic and believable on every single play. I wanted to try to show our actual actors as much as possible instead of doubles, so that we would stay involved with our characters during the games."   
The camp lasted three weeks, during which time the main actors learned every aspect of the game. Jade Yorker, who played star running back Willie Weathers, was basically a basketball player in real life. "I had played some pee-wee football," he says. "I had some talent and dreamed of playing football like Deion Sanders. But when I went to high school, I chose not to play. I chose acting instead. But what a blessing it was to come out here and play football again."
Graf would start each training day with a "chalk talk" classroom session, in which the new plays of the day were diagrammed and discussed. "All the guys had playbooks. We used the classroom time to teach them the plays step by step just so everyone knew what they were doing. In the classroom, they were all focused on me and payed attention. We do the same thing in pro football. We also wanted to make sure the actors played safely, because you can't finish a football movie with injured actors."
Stunt doubles were trained to take most of the potentially damaging blows on the field, although the actors were involved on every play. A large group of specialty players portrayed the opposing teams.
After two weeks of daily drills and conditioning, everyone was ready to start filming at Camp Kilpatrick. Seeing the camp for the first time was a sobering experience for cast and crew alike. The facility was spartan and surrounded by high fences and tightly secured with guards at each exit. 
Working on the actual Camp Kilpatrick football field, the team bonded in ways similar to the real Mustangs while more than 100 real inmates went about their day with a movie shooting around them. Every so often a real fight would break out, or a real ward would be marched into the "box" in the solitary confinement building. "I would look out into the camp during filming," recalls Joanou, "and I'd see the kids lined up, being given orders. Sometimes a fight would break out and a kid would be sent to the box. And I'd think 'I am actually shooting that scene later today.'"
For Johnson, shooting the film at Camp Kilpatrick gave him and his fellow cast members an appropriate sense of place and purpose. "Authenticity is a large part of this story," said Johnson. "It was so important to go there and shoot on the very field they practiced on every day. It wasn't even a football field -- it was only about 60 yards. The grass was all beaten up, you'd trip over the sprinklers in the middle of the field. Becoming a part of that world was an eye-opening experience, not only for us, but for the wards watching us work on their turf."
Producer Stanley was adamant that the crew not wear "gang colors" -- certain shades of red or blue -- while working at he camp. "Knowing that these colors could set off some of the prisoners was important. Everyone had to sign an agreement that they would not wear certain colors," he says. "By so doing, we showed the kids at the camp that we understood their world and that we weren't trying to provoke them by being disrespectful."
The truce between the filmmakers and the inmates continued throughout the six weeks of shooting at Camp Kilpatrick. Although the wards were within earshot of the crew at all times, both sides were asked not to address one another. Johnson, however, recalls one memorable encounter with an inmate late one night on the foggy football field between takes. "I had been sick the day before," he says, "and the next night we were shooting in the dorms. A fight had broken out among the inmates, and I saw a kid in cuffs on his way to solitary confinement. The odd thing was that he had no one with him. He was walking himself to solitary. He looked up at me and said 'Hey Rock, I heard you were sick'. Up until that point, I had not been aware of how fast word spreads through the real dorms. Then he said, 'I'm gonna pray that you feel better,' and just walked on. Here's someone I didn't know, who I'll probably never see again, taking the time to express his concern for me. It was very moving and it showed that no matter what these kids have done, they are still just kids with feelings and emotions for others."
Another memorable day for Johnson was the afternoon he got back in football pads for a scene in which Coach Porter toughens up runner Willie Weathers by forcing the young player to knock him over time and again. "It was a great day for me -- back in pads," he says. "When I read that in the script, I got charged up. I hadn't played football in so long but it really stays in your blood. My coach at Miami used to say I had great 'upper body violence,' and for this scene I was able to use that again. I had so much fun talking trash to Jade [Yorker, who plays Willie Weathers] with the whole team around us. He got some good hits in on me, too."
"That was mad fun," recalls Yorker. "I mean, I got to go up against this guy who is supposed be this tough wrestler. I just psyched my mind up and let it ride."
Perhaps the most meaningful day on the set was the afternoon some of the real characters from the "Gridiron Gang" documentary paid a visit to the production at Camp Kilpatrick. Coaches Sean Porter (now a probation camp director in Valencia, California) and Malcolm Moore (the former USC and NFL great who is currently a deputy probation officer in Antelope Valley, California) got to meet their acting counterparts. Two of the players on the 1990 Mustangs team came face-to-face with the actors who portray them in the film.
"Malcolm is a very real dude who carries himself with a swagger," says Xzibit. "He has a great relationship with Sean Porter. He serves as the voice of reason, the calmer viewpoint, though they both have the same goal in mind. Malcolm is a special person and he still works as a probation officer with kids to this day."
In addition, several former Camp Kilpatrick Mustang players worked as extras on the film. One former inmate, Joseph Lucero, even landed a speaking role. Lucero now works with gang members in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, his personal effort to make a difference and hopefully help other boys avoid some of the missteps he made in the past.
"We wanted to use true gang kids like Joey who had served time in this camp before," says Moritz. "Joey went from being an extra to having a featured part. He had been in Camp Kilpatrick for some very serious crimes, but managed to turn his life around. While we were making this movie, we made a conscious effort to offer our help to some of the kids, and maybe, in our own small way, we succeeded."
After almost two months on the prison grounds, the production began shooting away football games at other high schools in Southern California at stadiums in San Fernando, Agoura and Sherman Oaks. The site of the climactic game between the Mustangs and their well-heeled rivals, the fictitious Barrington High School (the real life opposing team for the final championship game was  Montclair Prep High School at Pierce College). During this phase of production the heat was brutal with the temperature routinely soaring past 100 degrees on most shooting days.
Director Joanou and his director of photography Jeff Cutter used multiple cameras on every play to maximize their coverage. The director and football coordinator Graf also concentrated on using the real actors as much as possible for the games while, at the same time, ensuring that they were kept out of harm's way for the bruising blocking and tackling shots. "We didn't want to hold the actors out too much," says Joanou. "They had to run the plays, they had to take some real hits. They had to make it real. But it was incredibly demanding, because we'd have these guys out there for 12 hours a day. Even if you're playing a real football game, you aren't out on the field more than four hours at the most.  And here these kids were out there all day long with five cameras for several weeks."
"I cannot stress enough that this was real football, with real football players," adds Graf. "Our biggest problem physically was ensuring that the guys were all properly hydrated. We made sure they drank plenty of water and ate watermelon and ices. We'd take a knee for 10 minutes and make sure no one was tiring. Even though they were all good athletes, the time you get injured is usually the when you are fatigued and not drinking enough water. You tend to lose concentration and not look out for yourself as you normally would."
Luckily, there were few mishaps and no time lost because of injuries to the principal performers. The actors on the team exceeded their capabilities even though they faced many physically demanding days on top of their other duties of acting their lines and hitting their marks.
"It was fun, but it sure was hard work," claims Trever O'Brien, who plays receiver Kenny Bates. "One day I had to run the same pass pattern for 20 yards for about 10 different shots of coverage. There were no football regulations, no game rules like there are in high school. It was 102 degrees and we were running the same play over and over again. The great thing was that the stunt doubles and the actors encouraged each other. That kind of support made it possible for us all to get a great film made. It was truly teamwork."
For Johnson, the most important accomplishment in making Gridiron Gang was the focus of the story about real young men whose lives hang in the balance because of the choices they make as youths. "Perhaps after seeing this movie, a few young men won't make the kinds of mistakes that may cost them their lives and will choose instead to become a functional part of society," he says.
"I am hoping that everyone in the audience is inspired watching this film," Johnson continues. "Everybody's goal on this film was to capture the emotion and essence of the Stanleys' great documentary. I'm sure we achieved that and I'm extremely proud of what we accomplished. Gridiron Gang may not have a $100 million budget, but I think it will rock people. This is a story of how two men made a difference in the lives of so many kids who had absolutely nothing. The kids learned that they weren't losers and knew that they would never be called losers again. Maybe someone in the audience will be touched by this as well."

PHIL JOANOU (Director) has experienced considerable success in several areas of production during a career that includes feature films, commercials, television shows and music videos.
The California-born filmmaker pursued a childhood interest in shooting Super 8 films by attending college at both UCLA and USC to study moviemaking. His USC student film, "Last Chance Dance," won the school's award as Best Student Film in 1984 and brought him to the attention of Steven Spielberg. In 1986, he directed two episodes of Spielberg's science-fiction television anthology "Amazing Stories" and followed that by directing his first feature, Three O'Clock High, for Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment in 1987.
He was soon hired by Irish rock band U2 to chronicle their 1987 tour promoting the hit album "The Joshua Tree," resulting in an acclaimed feature documentary, U2: Rattle and Hum, for which he also operated the camera as well as edited. His stark use of grainy black-and-white footage coupled with color and the intimate capture of vibrant performances set it apart from previous concert documentaries, and it became a benchmark for rock concert films.
He went on to assignments making cutting edge commercials (for clients such as Coca-Cola, Nike and Gatorade) and music videos (for artists such as U2 and Tom Petty) to complement his guidance of major motion pictures such as State of Grace (starring Sean Penn, Gary Oldman and Ed Harris), Final Analysis (with Kim Basinger and Richard Gere), Heaven's Prisoners (starring Alec Baldwin) and the semi-autobiographical Entropy.

JEFF MAGUIRE (Written by) was involved for several years with writing the original screenplay for the feature film version Gridiron Gang for producers Neal H. Moritz and Lee Stanley.
After struggling for many years to make a career as a screenwriter and comprehend life's meaning, he broke through, as a screenwriter with his Oscar®-nominated original screenplay for Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire, which also garnered him nominations from the Writers Guild of America and the British Academy of Film and Television.
Gridiron Gang joins In the Line of Fire as the only projects on which he was the sole writer. His other credits include Richard Donner's Timeline, the French-Canadian film Toby McTeague and John Huston's Victory (for which he received a story credit).

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