The Birder is a comedy that is six years in the making and looks to be a lot of fun.
Starring a hilarious cast that includes Tom Cavanagh, Mark Rendall, Cassidy Renee, Jamie Spilchuk, Graham Greene, and Fred Willard (among others) this looks to be a great film to if not attract new birders, at least provide a good laugh at ourselves as birders.
"THE BIRDER is an intelligent and witty comedy about a mild-mannered high school teacher and avid birder who plots revenge against a younger, hipper rival, after losing the Head of Ornithology position at the local park."
I don't know too many details beyond this but there is a Kickstarter fund started to get the film completed. It has been filmed and is in post production.
I hope this becomes a finished product!
Produced by Gerry Lattmann of Toronto, Canada.
I'm very interested in what will become of this movie. I wonder if a "revenge" movie about birders will portray birders as petty and squabbling over ridiculous things. I hope not. I also am troubled that a movie with such a cast would even need a kickstarter fundraiser for post production. Seems like they should already have the financial backing they need. Makes me nervous about the quality of movie it might be. I'm in email contact with the producer and I hope to learn more so I can feel good about standing behind this movie.
ReplyDeleteOthers share your concern for how they will portray birders. Hopefully they portray birding acurately as well as have accurate footage of birds they show. The trailer comes out tomorrow so stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the clip I have no doubt that it will be a good movie and I can't wait to see it. The Big Year was a good one too.
ReplyDeleteI too hope this trend is tending in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteWow that sounds great, I can't wait to see it.
ReplyDeleteHey Birder Friends,
ReplyDeleteAs the Producer of the film I am happy there is interest in this project...this movie is very important to us and we want you to know we took measures to ensure we would not disrespect the Birding community, you are a big part of the audience we aim to please. We talked to some life-long Birder's in the Windsor-Essex region near Point Pelee before filming. Tom Cavanagh, Mark Rendall and Cassidy Renee our three top actors joined together for a Birding 101 session with Sarah Rupert and Paul Pratt our resident naturalists.
Why do we need to raise funds? this is a great question...sorry I can't give you a shorter answer...we made this film within the Canadian film funding system where there is a lot of competition for the little money that is available, so we had to find private funders to get us through to where we are now...at our budget level there are many challenges and there is always a lack of funding. Also, Distributors don't want to take risks on Filmmakers who have only made one or two films, they like to mitigate risk...this doesn't mean we are not making a good film, or that we are not good filmmakers, it just means we have to prove that we are worthy of their investment, which means we have to go out and find the money ourselves through any means possible and make our passion project...then once it's done if we are lucky enough to get that far, we hope the film will be received well and make money. To ensure the best chance of making money and a good film, we made the choice to not compromise on the actors; we had to get strong performances, so this is why we have such good names, but they agreed to do the project for much less than they are accustomed to getting, which has everything to do with the caliber of the content (i.e. script, Directer etc.). So as you can see it's a tough industry, but no different than most businesses, up and coming professionals always have to fight tooth and nail to get things done, we're no different, so any help we can get will change our lives in a very positive way.
I hope this dispels any concerns about us and our project. Can't wait to show you the film. Please tell your Birder friends to check out the teaser. And if you'd like to chat directly feel free to call me direct...would be an honour to chat with real Birder's about the film.
Best Regards and Thanks for your interest!
Gerry Lattmann
Producer
647.889.3363
Oh yeah P.S. Thanks to Robert for posting our teaser on his website very cool of you to do this...all the best!!
DeleteHave you heard we are designing a Birder pin just for our Birder fans?? the image of the pin is coming soon on Kickstarter.
best again
Gerry