How to Film Birds Flying

At Universal Studios we attended the Animal Actors show, which was very interesting. They demons rated how they are able to film birds in flight without having a videographer hanging out of the side of an airplane.

We did not get a complete picture of the set up, unfortunately. To the right of the large television, they had an enormous fan blowing towards the TV. The bird was released from the trainer and flew straight to the ball, where it kept flying but appeared to be still in mid-air.

I assume they use a less visible ball on a real set. They then showed us how they can change the blue background to whatever they need for the movie's plot: mountains, desert, farmland, etc.