From March through December of '97, Nancy Kobert of the Amazing World of Birds Show relocated to Hollywood joining the team at DreamWorks for the motion picture, Paulie. Working with Hollywood animal trainer Boone Narr, (MouseHunt, Mad About You, Buddy), Nancy joined seven trainers given the task of encouraging these avian actors to bring the screen character's action to life. Like human actors, the birds learned to enter a scene and stop on their "marks". Nuzzling actors, head turning, picking up objects, flapping wings, lots of free flight - all in all the birds learned to perform hundreds of behaviors and appear in over ninety percent of the movie's scenes. With over ten years training the Amazing World of Birds Show, Nancy was able to put her experience to work teaching unusual "prop" behaviors like popping soap bubbles, turning pages, manipulating an ATM machine and countless "retrieve" behaviors. The trainers used positive reinforcement and operant conditioning utilizing "clickers" and food rewards along with over seventy-five hand and verbal commands.

Training conures for Paulie was an incredible experience! The techniques Nancy used to train these avian actors can be seen at her live performances and be yours too! Check out her new book: Working for Peanuts: the great wild way! Also training aids and props available!   All Paulie photos and art are the property of DreamWorks LLC. and are published herein with permission from DreamWorks Pictures. Visit Paulie @ ww.freezone.com/paulie

Nancy was assigned three blue crown conures of the twelve that act most of Paulie's scenes. Here are some scenes to look for: "PSUE" : fairy godmother scene "she was soooooo patient! An absolute doll wearing that princess hat and waving her magic wand take after take!" the dance scene "Psue is the greatest "action" bird! The dance scene on the piano was her moment! "LENNY": every biting scene! "Lenny is your typical mature male parrot. By praising him for being territorial, Lenny's biting scenes, (Misha's hand in the basement cage / dad's shoe / research assistant's hand on the desk/ taunt the kitty) are real! This is a bird that truly loves his job. Don't worry, no humans were harmed in the filming of this motion picture!" hint: Lenny is easy to spot, he has a lighter colored lower beak. SQUIGGY": ATM machine "three birds shared this scene. Squiggy's job was to fly to actor Jay Mohr, snatch the ATM card and fly back to the machine. Squiggy was a great "flying action" performer." dad's homecoming party scene - "This was the scariest scene to shoot and it looks so easy! What you have on screen is a real long shot with lots of actors running into young Marie while the steady cam and boom are backing up with the action. Then, squiggy jumps right down on the table when he spots his "mark" and goes right into picking up the peanuts - what a pro! I was so proud of him!"

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