Bats and Wolves! Updates on 2 work-in-progress feature films.
Exciting updates from the Wild Lens co-produced films, "The Invisible Mammal", and "Children of the Wolves".
I have exciting updates to share about two of the feature length films that the Wild Lens Collective is currently co-producing alongside some of our talented members!
The Invisible Mammal:
First, The Invisible Mammal, a film about bat conservation, women in science, and the spread of infectious disease, has officially entered post-production. We received an incredibly generous $25,000 contribution this past month, allowing our team to begin working with the talented editor, Heidi Zimmerman, on the film’s rough cut. Our team, which includes Wild Lens Collective member Kristin Tieche as director in addition to myself (Matt Podolsky) as producer, is very pleased with the progress that we’ve made so far. At this stage we get to see our story come to life, and it’s incredibly exciting!
There’s still more work to do, however. The $25,000 donation that we received was designed as a matching contribution - we need to raise an additional $25,000 to complete the film’s rough cut. We’re already off to an amazing start with this campaign - in the past few weeks we’ve raised almost $7,000 in matching contributions! We’ll also be hosting a series of events - both online and in-person - this summer, during which we’ll be sharing exclusive sneak-preview clips from the film.
We have two in-person events scheduled already:
June 27th at 6:30pm in Burlingame, CA - featuring Q&A with director Kristin Tieche, and bat expert/researcher (and main character in the film), Dr. Winnifred Frick!
July 31st at 6:30pm in Portland, OR - feature Q&A with director Kristin Tieche, editor Heidi Zimmerman, and producer Windy Borman!
If you don’t live close enough to Portland or Burlingame to attend one of these events, we’ve also got a Virtual Bat Happy Hour coming up on July 9th, which will be hosted via zoom.
July 9th at 5:30pm PT/8:30pm ET via zoom - featuring Q&A with director Kristin Tieche and producers Holly Mosher and me, Matt Podolsky.
Click the links above for more details and to reserve tickets for each event. We are very much looking forward to showing off what we’ve been working on all these years, and hope that you’ll be able to make it out to one of these sneak preview events!
Children of the Wolves:
Our newest co-production here at the Wild Lens Collective is a film called Children of the Wolves. Thanks to the support that many of you provided during our crowdfunding campaign for this film earlier in the year, our crew was able to undertake our most challenging and ambitious shoot yet. We accompanied 8 current and former Timberline High School students to Yellowstone National Park, where they had the opportunity to observe wolves in the wild for the first time!
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I joined the film’s director, Barb Kuensting, and our guide/wildlife cinematographer Brandon Navratil on this heart-warming adventure through Yellowstone Park. These students from Timberline High in Boise have been actively engaged in wolf conservation politics for the past several years, ever since their school’s adopted wolf pack was killed. These students have committed enormous energy towards wolf advocacy, yet many of them had never seen a wolf in the wild.
That changed during this trip. Brandon, who’s been working as a guide and a wildlife cinematographer in Yellowstone for many years, knew exactly where to take the group to give us the best opportunity to see these elusive animals, and luck was on our side. Just a few minutes after setting up scopes on an active wolf den site, several of the pack’s young pups bounded into view. The students were enthralled (and so was the crew!).
While we captured some amazing wildlife footage (courtesy of Brandon!), we also captured the expressions on the student’s faces when they first got eyes on these wild wolves. It was a powerful and emotional moment that I’ll never forget.
We are still fundraising for Children of the Wolves - this project is in the early stages of production and we have a lot more work do to do capture the full story of these amazing young activists. You can submit donations here, or reach out to myself, or director Barb Kuensting if you’re interested in getting involved in the project.
-Matt Podolsky