Flies like a bird

The bird was the first puppet I cast for this film.  I'd never done a bird before and I honestly can't remember whether the story spread from my desire to fly a bird or whether it was purely coincidental.

I've shot a couple of slates with the bird this week and I have to admit there's a certain freedom in  anthropomorphising a flying animal.  I've spent so much of the last year idly watching birds in preparation for the role.  It's quite a complex and beautiful act, flying.  You can see why the ancient artists and inventors were so desperate to get themselves wings made of feathers.

An aeroplane is a lovely instrument and perhaps living ten years next to a busy airport has left me complacent about the spectacle of those giant metal creatures taking to the air but the majestic grace of a large bird flying is something much more inspirational.  Even the humble pigeon is a more sophisticated flier than the cleverest airbus. Watch that one dart across the square hardly moving  a wing then gently alighting in the space between those two metal spikes by the CCTV camera.

Richard Bach wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull to express the idea of intellectual and spiritual freedom.   A Seagull was the perfect bird to describe this, if you've ever watched them ducking and wheeling across the sky,  the speed of their diving for morsels describes a great skill underlying their airborne squabbles for old chips.  You can see in it the single minded ambition of a scavenger bird.    Our contemporary urban existence is, in fact, not dissimilar to the lives lived by pigeons, gulls and other municipal nuisances.

Runners gather at the telephone post

Pigeons, for example, live huddled together in communities near transport links and food outlets, ignoring hierarchy when they choose.  They indulge in and are the victims of petty crime and muggings.  Their youngsters can be particularly antisocial.

Pigeons fly around the park

I saw a gang of adolescent pigeons on Staines High Street last year deliberately buzzing passers by, forcing them to dive out of the way.  The pigeons gained nothing from it and they totally seemed to be doing it for a laugh. A kind of Avian Happy-Slapping.

Pigeons gather in groups on the shed roof at the end of the park and on the signal of a leader they all set off as a single body on a circular flight around the park to land on the same roof. I've seen joggers and rollerbladers doing much the same thing.  It's sport.  We've achieved Michelangelo's dream of living the lives of birds.

Where was I going with this?