The Birders Show - A WhereNext Original Series
A YouTube Series For Everyone Who Loves Birds
We’re delighted to launch The Birders Show, WhereNext’s original YouTube series dedicated to the world of birds and birding. The Birders Show is for everyone that loves bird watching, nature, travel, and adventure. Think Top Gear, but for birders!
Our Hosts and Mission
Meet Our Birding Experts
The Birders Show hosts are friends, WhereNext’s content manager and devout birder, Chris Bell, and Colombian birding celebrity, biologist, and star of our feature-length documentary The Birders, Diego Calderon. Chris and Diego explore the birding passion with extraordinary guests worldwide, including top bird guides, scientists, activists, authors, musicians, and artists.
Chris Bell, host of The Birders Show
Diego Calderon, host of The Birders Show
Their Mission
Diego and Chris’s mission is to present a broad range of guests, educate and excite viewers about birding, and celebrate the global bird watching community’s diversity and passion. They accomplish this by blending a talk show studio format with adventurous field expeditions in the world’s most spectacular destinations. The Birders Show is in a position to become the world’s top birding media channel.
How Did the Show Get Started?
It Began With a Global Tourism Campaign
Our Colombian production company team has been passionate about birds since we worked on a global marketing campaign to promote Colombia tourism. The campaign featured a series of five documentaries about birds and birding in Colombia. The internationally screened documentaries raised the profile of Colombia birding to a global audience. In addition to promoting Colombia as the world’s top birding destination, shooting in the field for weeks on end cemented our relationship with the protagonist and now show co-host, Diego Calderon.
Then Birding From Home During COVID Lockdown
During the early stages of global Covid lockdowns, we repurposed these documentaries into digital ‘bird from home’ experiences, complete with downloadable checklists, allowing people to ‘bird’ the films without leaving home.
Turns Out Enthusiasts and the Press Loved It
This “bird The Birders” campaign captured people’s attention and was a huge success: thousands of viewers downloaded the checklists, and our campaign featured in global publications like BBC Wildlife Magazine, AFAR, Sierra Club, and Bird Watcher’s Digest.
And So We Asked Our Team to Create a Show
It was clear that there was a considerable appetite for well-produced and engaging bird-related content. COVID lockdowns dared us to challenge our team creatively and keep them engaged. We asked our eager and available, in-house team of videographers, editors, sound engineers, producers, and animators to produce a show. The Birders Show was born.
Flame-faced tanager (tangara parzudakii)
How Could We Make It Stand Out?
Treat It Like A Film Studio Production
We were keen to differentiate this show from other online birding content that emerged during the lockdown period. The most common COVID pandemic content was video conferences plagued with the usual issues of live virtual conversations: sound glitches, slow internet connections, and people talking over each other. We decided to shoot our interviews in a virtual studio setting and then post-produce each episode. Treating it like a film studio production instead of just a recording would allow us to create the feeling that our protagonists were sitting down together in the studio for a chat. It would also allow us to add supporting video and photo content in post-production.
Employ A Style and Equipment Guide for Guests
To create an intimate and laid-back atmosphere, we chose not to record the typical Zoom-style interview, with all the protagonists looking straight down the camera. Our producer Camilla French created an exhaustive style guide for all of our guests to follow, including detailed instructions on preferred camera angles, recording equipment, and sound recording devices. This way, we created a universal filming style even though none of our protagonists or interviewees could be in the studio together.
And A Thorough Pre-Production Process
We filmed the first two episodes from home. Once we could return to our Bogota office under strict biosecurity protocols, we filmed the next two episodes. We emailed the guests the pre-production document the week before filming. We called guests in advance to review questions, discuss topics, and troubleshoot any video or audio issues. We made many setup adjustments along the way, which we continue to refine with each new episode. We gathered and licensed supporting photographic, video, and audio assets from our guests. This media could be used in-show and for later promotions.
Ornate flycatcher (myiotriccus ornatus)
Post-Production and Content Strategy
Document Episode Content and Source Supporting Materials
The first four episodes feature an exciting mix of guests, including professional birding guides George Armistead and Rich Pagen, founder of The British Bird Fair Tim Appleton, ‘The Human Swan’ Sacha Dench, and DJ and environmentalist Robin Perkins, aka El Buho. After each shoot, our production team put together a detailed post-production document detailing all the birds and locations mentioned. They used this document to source video recordings and images for our editing team.
Repurpose Full-Length Episodes For Social Media Sharing
We edit each episode into a full-length video of 40-60 minutes, which premieres live on our YouTube channel. Our post-production team then cuts the full-length episodes into shorter, social media-friendly segments called “Chirps.” These bite-sized videos are ideal for sharing on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and allow us to highlight talking points from each episode. We also regularly publish shorter behind-the-scenes videos called “Cheeps,” giving our viewers a glimpse into our birding adventures and how we make the show.
Building The Birders Show Brand
Make the Logo Fun and Memorable
We commissioned artist Scott Partridge to design our logo. Scott is a prolific chronicler of bird species, animals, and nature. His whimsical, colorful, and clean mid-century modern graphics are instantly familiar and universally approachable. Our bird with a sound wave for a wing is a stylized representation of the legendary and rare Blue-bearded Helmetcrest hummingbird, a near-mythical Colombian species. Fewer than fifty living people have ever seen the bird. Our hosts, Chris and Diego, are two of them.
Commission A Theme Song
WhereNext team members learned of UK-born music producer Robin Perkins, AKA El Búho (The Owl), because of his renown for deftly mixing birdsong into his music. We discovered that Scott Patridge had designed an album cover for El Búho. This beautiful coincidence was all the inspiration we needed to ask El Búho to compose a brand new song using Diego’s rare sound recordings of the Blue-bearded Helmetcrest. The resulting composition became our show’s intro music.
We Can Help You Produce Your Niche Show
The Birders Show is a testament to our Colombian production company’s ability to create engaging, informative, and highly professional content no matter the circumstances. Our remote studio format offers an effective and efficient way of creating digital content during this new era of travel restrictions and social distancing.
Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel
Learn more about our Colombian production company here, or contact us if you are interested in producing your own YouTube series.
Learn what it takes to successfully execute a birding documentary production, from what to pack to the best gear for filming wild birds in natural conditions.