Flightless Bird Creative’s origins can be attributed to two things: Three high schoolers with a dream of becoming filmmakers, and a fake bird watching club.
Once upon a time, at a small high school in the suburbs of Chicago, a group of students decided to start an ornithology club. These students weren’t biologists or nature lovers, they were kids who wanted to start a club and thought it’d be pretty hilarious if it was a bird club. Thus, the Ornithology Club was born; offering everything from bird walks, to a weekly “Bird of the Week” PowerPoint presentation. The club even sold t-shirts in the style of the famous “I (heart) New York” shirts, instead showing “I (binoculars) Birds”. Needless to say, this club was an instant hit.
One day before lunch, a student and aspiring filmmaker named Kevin Conway approached the then-current president and vice-president of the Ornithology Club, AJ Roskam and Stephen Kipp. Kevin had a vision: A comedic mockumentary web series that followed the Ornithology Club. AJ and Stephen gave the obvious answer.
The Ornithology Club series quickly gained a cult following. Episodes amassed thousands of views, (low thousands, but pretty good for some high schoolers). Meeting attendance flew, packing our little classroom each Thursday morning with eager students ready for comedic relief, and a handful of confused students who thought this was actually a club about birds.
Even after going their separate ways for college, Kevin, AJ, and Stephen always returned over break to shoot original content. Eventually they saw opportunities to bring their talents to clients who needed quality videos. And that’s the story of how our production company began with a fake ornithology club.
As you can probably tell by our name, we still love birds.
