THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609130085
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: 131 lines
THEY HAVE funny little feet and a strange nose that pokes along in front of them.
Their measurements are not quite the same as Sharon Stone's.
Nonetheless, the little fuzzballs are destined to be stars. In front of millions of moviegoers worldwide, they'll migrate south and the popcorn crowd, if all goes according to director Carroll Ballard's plan, will cheer when they land.
There were even a few sobs heard in the audience during the world premiere.
They're the home-grown goslings who migrate from Canada to Virginia in the movie ``Fly Away Home.''
Behind the scenes of ``Fly Away Home'' is a fascinating story of how moviemakers turn out a commercial product.
In the real-life story, Bill Lishman and Joe Duff undertook the first man-led goose migration. In the much-changed movie version, Father Goose becomes Mother Goose.
``Fly Away Home'' stars Anna Paquin (Oscar winner for ``The Piano'') as a lonely, bitter 13-year-old whose mother dies in an automobile accident. The girl is bundled off to Canada to live with her estranged father, an eccentric artist and inventor whom she hardly knows. A loner, she's sullen until she finds a nest of orphaned goose eggs and secretly nurtures them until they hatch. Since geese ``imprint'' on the first thing they see in life, they think she's their mother.
Because these geese have no feathered parent to lead them south for the winter, Dad invents a motorized hang glider in which little Amy leads the trek. The movie's destination varies, vaguely, from North to South Carolina, including a run-in with the military in a location that would be near Fort Bragg, N.C.
That's the movie story.
It is not nearly as fascinating, though, as the real-life adventure behind it.
Director Ballard, who also turned out such animal classics as ``The Black Stallion'' and ``Never Cry Wolf,'' points out that ``the movie is not a documentary. Every movie is fake.''
Bill Lishman, a grey-bearded man who lives about an hour's drive east of Toronto, admits that his Operation Migration project was somewhat different from the movie, but he has no complaints.
``My wife is not dead and we've never been separated,'' he says, laughing. ``My daughter, Carmen, is about Anna's age, but neither of them have ever been up in the ultralight aircraft. It was Joe Duff and I who led the geese south, but the movie is essentially correct in its message and mood.
``I sold the rights to my life story, and to my book `Father Goose.' Then I was hired to provide the geese for the movie. My son was the `goose wrangler' during the filming. I have no complaints.''
In 1993, Lishman, aboard a motorized glider he called Goose Leader, led 18 geese from Ontario to Airlie Center, a wildlife preserve near Warrenton, Va.
Duff, who flew along in a second ultralight craft, recalls that ``the most dangerous part of the journey was the 36 miles across Lake Ontario. We were dealing with young birds, so they couldn't fly long distances. They could fly only for about two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, and their average speed is 32 miles an hour.''
The real test came in the spring of 1994. The geese voluntarily took off from Virginia, but would they go back home? Chris Fox, an assistant in Operation Migration, recalled the triumphant day when 12 of the 18 landed in Lishman's front yard. The first man-led bird migration had been a success.
The success depends heavily upon ``imprinting,'' a term that dates to the 1930s. The geese, in fact, believe that the first being they see is their parent. Lishman, who was there when they hatched, literally became Father Goose.
For the movie, he raised three sets of geese, since varied ages were needed. Actress Paquin was not available during the incubation period, so tape recordings of her voice were played for the eggs. Lishman's daughter Carmen, who is about Paquin's age and size, was the first person the goslings saw. It worked. When the actress arrived in Canada, the little fuzzballs didn't notice the switch. They followed Paquin across field and marsh, with the camera catching the parade.
A different flock did the flying, following the ultralight aircraft they had been conditioned to trust. Models of the aircraft as well as the sound of its engine had been a regular part of that flock's life since incubation. Lishman points out that ``the goslings are alive before they hatch. Imprinting begins then. It's important that a tone of voice or an image remain the same.''
Some other experiments weren't as successful. Duff said that a failure was what he called the ``truck migration.'' A flock were driven by pick-up truck to varied locations between Canada and Virginia and allowed to fly for a day or so in each location. ``The hope was that they would associate, like in a dot-to-dot connection, and they'd use the association to migrate,'' Duff said. ``In the spring, though, they didn't come back to Canada.''
``We had trouble with hunters and bobcats and threats from alligators,'' Duff said. ``It's a little like dropping your children off in Brooklyn. Radio transmissions can only track so far. We had to rely on sightings to track their return, and that isn't reliable. At one point, we got a report that a bikers' group that was on the return route was having goose dinner, with some 10 geese dead. The report turned out to be false. Most of our geese survived.''
Operation Migration, with the technical advice of Dr. William Sladen at Airlie Center, now hopes to achieve with the endangered whooping cranes the same migrating success it has had with geese.
The movie is expected to help rouse support. Director Ballard, who worked with horses in ``The Black Stallion'' and wolves in ``Never Cry Wolf,'' said that geese were relatively easier.
``Animals, in general, are easier to direct than humans,'' he laughed. ``Horses are difficult. Wolves are, perhaps, the easiest of all to direct. One scene we had called for a guy to be eaten alive in `Never Cry Wolf.' The wolves wouldn't play it. We had to bring in police dogs.''
The geese you see are all real, expect for the scene when they fly through skyscrapers in Baltimore. That scene, filmed in Toronto, required ``special effects'' geese.
The destinations in the movie are vague. In one scene, a place called Vallhalla, N.C., is identified as a goose stop. It is a fictional location.
The scene involving the geese landing near a military operation was, according to Lishman, probably conceived as Fort Bragg, N.C., but it never happened.
``We at one time considered the wildlife marshes near Virginia Beach, but we changed our mind because there is too much military aircraft there,'' he said. The military base scene was shot near Niagara Falls, N.Y.
None of that gorgeous scenery is either Virginia or North Carolina. The film was shot entirely in Canada.
Movies do have a way of changing things. MEMO: ``Father Goose,'' by William Lishman is available through Crown
Publishers. $25. 211 pages, with illustrations. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAKASHI SEIDA
Jeff Daniels plays a father who helps his daughter (Anna Pasquin:
see story below) teach orphaned geese to migrate. In real life, the
migration was led by two men.
Photo
COLUMBIA PICTURES
To help his daughter Amy (Anna Paquin) teach the orphaned geese to
fly, Thomas Alden (Jeff Daniels) builds a motorized glider. by CNB