Interesting that the pictures of the geese were shot on video! No 16mm Aaton Minima, no Super-8 Canon 814XLS. hmmmph! [img]frown.gif[/img]

The images that were captured are quite spectacular however, I've only seen them once, but wow!

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/f...roduction.html

Thirteen year old Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) opens her eyes to take in the cold, sterile surroundings of a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. They come to rest on the face of her estranged father, Thomas Alden, (Jeff Daniels) who breaks the devastating news that her mother did not survive the car accident. The life Amy knew is gone forever.

Soon, Amy is bundled off to the Ontario farm to live with her estranged father, an artist/inventor who has shaped his environment to reflect his eclectic interests. Life with dad will certainly be different. It is difficult, too. Amy is a stranger in the country of her birth. She is not sure how to relate to her father's girlfriend Susan Barnes (Dana Delany). Overwhelmed and still grieving for her mother, Amy spends hours alone, wandering around the farm.

One day, Amy's travels through the farm's woods lead to a discovery that touches her: a nest of orphaned goose eggs. Amy gathers them up, takes them home and builds a makeshift incubator. She nurtures the eggs until they hatch. And, since geese imprint on whoever they see first, Amy becomes Mother Goose.

Seeing his daughter happy for the first time since her mother's death, Thomas does not have the heart to deny her family of goslings. Time passes quickly and the young geese thrive in the rustic setting under the love and care lavished on them by Amy, Thomas, Susan and Thomas's mechanic pal, Barry.

The idyll is disturbed when an officious wildlife officer tells Thomas that it is illegal to raise wild geese without clipping their wings. The idea of grounding Amy's feathered friends outrages Thomas; he knows that nature will compel the geese to migrate south in the fall and that the flock must be allowed to go. Amy agrees, but there is a problem. Amy's geese have never learned to fly and with no other geese to show them the way, they seem doomed. Thomas, however, has found a cause and, with a determination born of his need to help Amy, he decides to use his modest flying skills and hang glider experience to teach the geese to fly....

Fly Away Home is a fictional story but the events at its core are grounded in scientific fact and real experience. Thomas Alden, who exists only in the film, has a real-life model in Bill Lishman, the Canadian artist who really did teach geese to fly. Lishman, with Joe Duff and Dr. William Sladen, working together in Operation Migration, proved that wildfowl can be imprinted to Ultra light aircraft and taught new, safer migration routes.

"Migration is not actually instinctive with birds," explains Lishman, 'it has evolved over time and the route is passed on from one generation to the next. If a species is wiped out in an area, the migration route is lost with them, so if you want to reestablish that species in that area, you have to find a way to show them the route. In 1993, Joe Duff and I raised a flock of 18 geese and tried an experiment to fly them to Virginia, and it was successful."

Their widely-publicized success with Canada geese offers hope for seriously endangered species such as Japanese Red-crowned cranes and the Trumpeter Swan. It also offers images of such heart-stopping beauty that they virtually demanded a feature film. Around those images, writers Robert Rodat and Vince McKewin built a warm story of an estranged father and daughter forging a new life together.

"The story is about a father/daughter relationship and that's nice," says Lishman, "but I think visually it's going to be fabulous because we'll be able to share that image of the birds, that point of view of flying with them. A lot of people are going to enjoy that image no matter what the story."'

Columbia Pictures and producers John Veitch and Carol Baum accepted the challenge of bringing the story and its amazing images to the screen. Having themselves been 'imprinted' by Bill Lishman's incredible shots of geese flying only an arm's reach from him, the filmmakers were determined to share with feature film audiences the sense of awe the sight inspires. To do so, they approached the team responsible for the breath-catching visual glory of The Black Stallion; director Carroll Ballard (Never Cry Wolf, Wind) and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Natural, The Right Stuff).

"Carroll had done The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf," says producer John Veitch, "and he seems to have a kind of talent or flare for stories about animals and children so we felt if we were lucky enough to get Carroll, we should grab him. I felt that we would be very, very fortunate to deliver the story that Carroll is delivering. And Caleb... one of the stars of our picture is the photography and Caleb is delivering that."

"This film is a drama and an adventure," says producer Carol Baum, "It has a child at the center and kids will be able to identify with her as the leading character, but its classical qualities hopefullly will appeal to everyone."

Still, even for people possessing uncommon talent, the making of a scripted, feature-length film with a cast of essentially wild creatures is not easy. "There are more challenges in this picture than any film I've been involved in," says Veitch, "The weather is always a problem. Working with the birds and getting them to work on command or 'hit their marks' like an actor would - would they do it? The flying... how close would they stay to the planes? We have been very lucky. The geese... they would follow Anna and the father's plane would take off and they'd stop, like it was on cue, with her, and they wouldn't go any farther."

The fictional characters who live Lishman's dream of flying with the geese are Thomas Alden, played by Jeff Daniels (Speed, Dumb and Dumber), and his daughter Amy, played by Anna Paquin (Jane Eyre, The Piano), a father and daughter who were parted when the child was three and re-united by her mother's tragic death ten years later. The story of their tentative steps toward a loving family life provides an emotional counterpoint to the saga of a little family of wild geese, orphaned before hatching and adopted by the lonely girl.

The fictional characters give a dramatic context to the true story of Bill Lishman's activities with the wild geese. "We really wanted to capture the essence of Bill Lishman's character, because he is larger than life, but we had to make a movie of it," says Baum, "So we invented a story about a girl who has lost her mother and who reunites with her father. That is made up. In real life, Bill has a wife and a nice family. But when you make a movie, you have to create situations that allow for the growth of the characters."

The dramatic story line was pure invention, but the heart of the film is truth - the geese, and the fact that, despite those who said it couldn't be done, Bill Lishman and his colleagues did fly with the geese and teach them a new migration route.

Making this film was, perhaps, more complex than Operation Migration itself. First, a flock of geese had to be imprinted on actress Anna Paquin, who plays Amy Alden. This involved elaborate precautions, including having Lishman's real daughter, similar in age and size to the actress, "stand in" for Paquin with the new hatchlings while playing recordings of Paquin's voice until the young performer could arrive on the scene and be accepted by her feathered co-stars. Then the geese had to be taught, like the real-life Operation Migration flocks, to imprint on the Ultra light aircraft that would be used in the filming. And, because geese mature at their own rate, with no regard for the many things that affect a film production schedule, several clutches of eggs, with staggered hatch times, were needed to allow filming of Amy with the geese at various growth stages. Initially, about 60 geese were prepared for possible starring roles in the film. Wrangling them was no small job for Joe Duff and his helpers.

"We [Operation Migration] imprint the birds to the aircraft to teach them to migrate, but with these birds, we had to imprint them to the aircraft Tom Alden flies and the one Amy flies, and to our camera ship," says Duff, "There's also a boat that we put an aircraft and a main actor on... the birds will come and fly off the wing and it looks like they are all actually flying. So we've got birds that are imprinted on lots of things, but it's not going to harm them in the long run because the imprinting process is a natural phenomena that basically expires as birds mature."

The cameras presented a technical problem, too. The original footage of the geese flying with Bill Lishman was shot with a small video camera. A feature film camera is much larger and has a lot more weight. Geese fly at a maximum speed of about 32 miles per hour - stalling speed for most aircraft. The Ultra-lights that are used for Operation Migration can fly at "Mach Goose" but they are too light to carry a film camera with its operator, batteries and film load. A special aircraft, with extra long wings, was designed that could be flown slowly enough, without falling out of the sky, to capture shots of the flying geese. The only other thing required was the cooperation of a flock of geese.

"When they head for home," says pilot Duff, "the message is clear. It starts with one bird... then two more will follow him and the first thing you know, the flock's going that way.' The pilots had more than just birds to keep track of. There was also a helicopter in the air and the Ultra Lights had to be sure they did not venture into the wash from its blades. The coordination required was similar to mounting an aerial acrobatics act.

"Before we all go up," says Westcam operator Hans Bjerno, "we have a meeting with the Ultra Light pilots to let them know what type of scene we will be filming and what we are looking for. Up in the air, we talk to them on the radios, but we work around them. In formation flying there's always one person who flies off the other and in this situation, we're always flying off the Ultra Lights. . . we can't get in front of them and cause turbulence. The beauty of the Westcam is that we have a long lens on that camera, and it's gyro stabilized, so we can be far enough away and still get a tight shot on a goose or on the formation."

All the difficulties involved in the flying shots were, in the end, more than worth while according to Joe Duff, because what the audience will see is very much what he and Bill Lishman see when they fly south with one of their flocks. "We knew the visuals were there," says Duff, "It is a beautiful thing and most of what you are seeing in this film is real. It's right there. It happened." Making a film about flying with a flock of Canada geese made an impression on most of the cast, too. The project offered sights and experiences that don't come along as part of most movie deals.

For actress Anna Paquin, filming offered one new and exciting experience that would be a thrill for most young people. "I think one of the most enjoyable things I did was taxiing an airplane," says Paquin, "but you know, I don't actually get to take off. Not fair! I do get to taxi it by myself with Jeff [Daniels] sitting in the back. He could actually override my steering and the gas, but he didn't need to."

For Daniels, working with the geese provided a variety of experiences unique in his acting career: "We had one scene with about fifteen little goslings on the breakfast table... and they were nipping at my beard, which didn't really happen until we were shooting. You think you've lost your nose or something!"

"We had to bond with the geese. You know, it's one thing for Geordie, Bill Lishman's son... they'll follow Geordie anywhere, but eventually, Geordie's got to get out of the picture and they have to follow me. So you spend a lot of time making some of the most ridiculous sounds you've ever made in your life anything to get them to follow you while the cameras are rolling." Dana Delany, who plays Thomas Alden's love interest, Susan, agree

"You just have to throw your dignity out the window. There is no way you can't look like a fool, because, basically, you have to become a goose. You have to get down and make weird noises - you just have to make a fool of yourself."

For Daniels and Delany, as for so many of the cast and crew, enthusiasm for the picture started when they saw tape of the 20/20 television item about Bill Lishman flying with his geese: "It just brought tears to my eyes," says Delany, "We all want to be able to do that and Bill Lishman actually does it."

"It was so moving, you know," says Daniels, "I remember seeing, on TV, Lishman going across Lake Ontario with the geese and going, 'Whoa! Here's this wild guy, this free spirit with ideas.' it's just one of those roles you want to do, got to do.

"The story is about this guy who... who won't take no for an answer - so anything is possible for him," concludes Daniels.

Like many others, Daniels found moments of pure amazement in the filming. "We filmed a lot at 'magic hour' with that orange sunset light and here comes Lishman over the trees with these geese, and our whole crew - the jaded Hollywood crew - just goes, 'Wow. Time out. Look at that.' That's why we're here - to get that on film."

Terry Kinney was drawn to the role of Thomas Alden's brother, David, by a similar fascination with Bill Lishman's story. "I was fairly amazed that this guy dreamed this up and then actually did it," says Kinney, "It's just eccentric enough that it makes you feel kind of hopeful about life in general."

Kinney was also eager for the chance to work with director Carroll Ballard, whose previous work had impressed him deeply. Never Cry Wolf was a movie that epitomized film making to me because film making has never been about dialogue for me, it's been about images. That's what he concentrates on. He tells his stories through imagery."

For actor Holter Graham, the role of Thomas Alden's friend Barry Strickland was draw enough in itself. "I've been cast as a hit man, I was cast as a rock star, and as a drug dealer," says Graham, "My character in this is just a guy, he's just a nice guy who gets involved in this whole big activity of taking the geese south."

That nice guy's role in the story is essential. Barry Strickland helps Thomas build the flying machines and he teaches Amy to fly before becoming part of the vital ground support team.

"He is one of the people driving the pick up truck," explains Graham, "with radios to tell them where they need to land and whether or not they're going to hit a storm. While those two are up in the air with the geese doing the beautiful banking across the sunsets, we're driving on to make sure the landing sites are safe."

Graham, like most of the cast, found there was something amazing about working with the geese. Of the moment when he called them down and was rewarded by having the entire group land within a few yards of him, Graham says, "I'll remember that for a really, really long time."

Jeremy Ratchford, who plays Ranger Glenn Seaford, is the nearest thing to a villain in the film because it is his character's job to see that domestically-raised wild geese have their wings clipped.

The ruling actually exists because domestically-raised geese might introduce disease into wild flocks, and Bill Lishman had to get special permission to release his flocks into the wild. But, bound by rigid duty though his character may be, Ratchford himself was caught by the beauty of Bill Lishman's footage: "If this film is anything near the magic that their own story was, I think it's going to be beautiful."

And, finally, what of the geese themselves? Were they destined to be ruined for life by their brush with Hollywood? Not for a moment, as Bill Lishman explains: "We are mixing up science and entertainment here to some degree, but the birds we are raising for Hollywood will be migrating south, too. We will take them on the route, so they are being added to the experiment and this year we will probably take 50 or 60 birds south with several aircraft."

So, when audiences watch this incredible tale in 1996, they will know that the geese they see on screen have left show business behind to settle into the serious business of their lives - heading north each spring to raise a family then teaching the migration route they first learned from Bill Lishman to their offspring. But, should a crew be filming beside an inviting pond along the Atlantic fly way some fall, they just might find some Canada geese stopping by to see if there are any old friends among them.