[822] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
Re: "Babe" - reactions?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ed Piekos)
Fri Mar 1 16:21:53 1996
To: mhlerner@HULAW1.HARVARD.EDU
Cc: vsg@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 01 Mar 1996 15:22:58 EST."
<9603012023.AA20737@milanese.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 1996 16:19:45 EST
From: Ed Piekos <espiekos@MIT.EDU>
Michelle wrote:
> I keep seeing all this stuff about "Babe" on this listserve. I
>haven't seen the movie myself, but I'm wondering if anyof you who are so
>excited to see it know about the conditions under which it was filmed?
This point came up on some of the other veggie lists when the movie
was originally released. I can't remember exactly what was said, but
I recall being relatively satisfied that the animals were treated
well. Admittedly, this type of activity can be seen as exploitive
because they didn't exactly answer a casting call, but that's a very
complicated and long issue I'm not sure you were raising.
To back up my impression, I poked around in the production notes on
the MCA page for "Babe"
http://www.mca.com/universal_pictures/babe/prod.html
and have included some excerpts below. Overall, I am pretty
satisfied. My sister lives with a pig, and I find that it *will* sulk
like a child when upset, as they mention in the notes. They are *very*
intelligent creatures and I don't suspect you'd want to point a camera
at them if they weren't happy because they would do anything but what
you want them to do. My conclusion is, therefore, that the statements
made in the notes are more or less factual.
While I haven't seen the movie yet, it seems like it's message
contains the concept that animals have feelings too, which furthers
our cause. I therefore consider it a win, and will at least watch it
so I am able to refer to it in talking to people about
vegetarianism/animal rights. It's always nice to have a common point
of reference. Most "mainstream-types" haven't read Diet for a New
America or Diet for a Small Planet, but many *have* seen, or at least
heard of, "Babe".
<<ESP>>
-------
"The porcine stars arrived when they were just two weeks old.
Trainers spent two weeks bonding with them via constant coddling,
bottle feeding and TLC. "We became their mother, father, sister and
brother," said Miller. Week three they were put on solid food and
taught that obeying commands brought a click sound and a food reward.
Disobedience brought silence only. Three more weeks of basic training
were followed by four weeks of a more advanced training during which
piglets learned to perform specific stunts to prep them for their
acting debuts.
Trainers had a fine line to tread, offered Miller: "I told them not to
discipline the pigs because they would sulk and not to baby them as
they become too happy and giggle."
[snip]
"At the beginning, so much seemed impossible," director Noonan
reminisced. "I was honestly afraid that we'd be chasing animals all
over the place and not be able to give the film the look and emotion
we wanted. In most animal films there's an element of wildlife
photography which distances you from the animals. Our story had
animals that were true characters, so I wanted people to quickly
abandon the idea that they were watching animals and just accept them
as normal beings. That meant treating them as actors and moving them
so that the camera could operate around them as it normally does with
humans. We tried to create performances from them that clearly
communicated an emotion.
"Many things we didn't think we could do, we did, thanks to Karl
Miller, a true master of animal psychology. If we were rushed and
started to push things too fast and he thought it was adversely
affecting his animals, he'd chew us out in no uncertain terms. He was
very protective of his animals and, by being that way, he was
protecting our film as well."
