Keepers fed him there, but he was free to roam and did, often at night. He was equipped with a VHF tracking device that let his four handlers pinpoint his location provided he stayed within a range of about five miles.
IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. One whale is separated from the rest behind a net and calls to the others outside. This scene was accomplished by editing documentary wildlife footage with scenes staged with animatronic whales. Only animatronic whales were used for interplay between the whaling boats and the Orcas. They kiss, wave, stand on their front flippers, bow, and do a variety of other tricks.
These were trained sea lions that were responding to trainers visual and verbal cues with fish as a reward. Willy circles and swims about the pool during this scene. The whale was responding to his trainers cues and was rewarded with fish. A life-size, 20 foot animatronic whale was used in the sequences with the whale and Jesse interacting in the tank and in all scenes with the whale out of the tank.
For the scene where Jesse falls into the pool, unconscious, a photo-double was used for the actor. The scene was shot in cuts. As the photo-double went to the bottom of the pool, a trainer cued Willy to go to the photo-double. The actor then replaced the double. The whale received a food reward for each of his actions. When Willy is in a net in the pool being examined by the veterinarian, the animatronic whale was used.
For the scene where Jesse feeds Willy by hand and pets Willy and Willy performs for Jesse, the scene was shot in many cuts.
These were all trained behaviors by the real whale and trainers were placed strategically off camera so that they could cue the whale and give him his fish reward. The young actor also cued the whale at strategic times and personally fed the whale. The killer whale, whose real name was Keiko, died in December , at about 26 years old.
Despite efforts to integrate him with wild killer whales in Iceland towards the end of his life, he proved unable to interact with them or find food. Keiko was born into a wild group of killer whales, also called orca , in Icelandic waters.
He was captured in at about two years old and spent over a decade in a small tank in a Mexican amusement park, isolated from others of his species. In , he was fitted with tracking devices, and once again led out to join the wild orcas. This time, his trainers would hide below deck when Keiko approached in an attempt to minimise human contact. By November that year, he had been coaxed by his handlers to travel along to the more remote Taknes fjord, destined to give him a break from the hordes of tourists who would flock to see him off the coast of Norway.
But Keiko was still relying on his human handlers, still being fed his hundreds of pounds of fish by them in order to stay alive. We checked his respiration rate and it was a little irregular. Given Free Willy is showing today on Easter Monday, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to see what Jason James Richter, who plays little boy Jesse, is up to now.
Born 29 January , the child star of Free Willy is now 38 bet that makes some of you feel old, right? In Hawaii, a Japanese casting agency discovered him and he was enlisted for three TV spots before moving to Los Angeles in to pursue a career in acting.
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