‘We stapled thirty-six pigeon wings to his back’

Superman was a huge critical and commercial hit, not least because of the convincing and exciting flying scenes.

But how did they do it?

Many assumed that the previously unknown David Corerswet was some sort of hyper-evolved human with the ability to fly, or perhaps a wizard, but neither theory is entirely true.

“We asked ourselves ‘what can fly?’ The answer, of course, is birds. Birds, and certain species of fish, but they only really jump a bit. It’s birds. Birds was the answer,” explained special effects designer Stewart James

“How do birds fly? With wings. Wings and a can-do attitude. We had the attitude, we needed the wings.

“Initially, we tried to make our own wings. Two sticks with some tarpaulin attached looked pretty wing-ish. Thing is, it didn’t work, you can’t improve on nature. As soon as David had got out of hospital, we knew we needed to try something different. We needed wings that had been created naturally.

“So, we got a pigeon, hacked it’s wings off and stapled them to David’s back.

The results were encouraging.

“David hovered above the ground for about a minute. It worked. Bird wings were the way to go. But how to go from brief hovering to soaring majestically through the skies? It was simple maths, if one pair of wings made him hover, then the more wings we got, the better he’d fly.

“We got a load more pigeons and cut their wings off and stapled them to David’s back and thirty six was the magic number. Thirty six pigeon wings, and David could soar through the sky like a pigeon that hasn’t had its wings cut off for a film.”

The team then used CGI to remove the wings in post production so you don’t see the wings in the actual film.

“We’re pleased with the effect, and David? He’s kept the wings and now he just flies everywhere. He’s starting up a spy agency and has become a keen voyeur.”