Morning Edition, February 22, 2008 ·

by Susan Stamberg

In the film Evan Almighty, a congressman becomes a modern-day Noah. We know what happens to Noah: God tells him to get every species of animal — two of each — onto an ark.

But how do you do that in a movie and make it look real? Special effects can go only so far.

The job fell to Mark Forbes, Evan Almighty's animal coordinator. He says that when it comes to loading animals onto an ark, God had it easier than Hollywood.

Forbes enlisted close to 100 species — the largest number in movie history, he says. Of course he had to film many of them separately as they paraded onto the ark in order to avoid predator-prey issues. He didn't want the wolves going after the sheep or the foxes chasing the chickens.