Birds Eye

Bird's Eye introduces us to a skater girl with no formal education who claims her place as one of the top aerial photographers in the world.

This will be a short documentary that captures world class aerial photographer Petra Leary's drive, energy, and incredible talent. We want to journey with her through her incredible perspective on the world - and bring you with us! We are super stoked to be a part of Loading Docs this year - and love the theme of POWER. We can't wait to make a powerful film and you can help empower us to do it.

Petra Leary is absolutely killing it in the lofty world stage of aerial photography. Chronicling an upcoming personal exhibition of her trademark photos of basketball courts, we follow the girl behind this unique and dazzling work as she shoots. We follow her process as a young person trying to make sense of a complex, challenging, and at times cruel world through drone photography.

Having pushed back against a traditional education, Petra has mastered an art that is dangerous, adrenaline filled and highly technical - and often considered a "boy's toys" medium. We get a glimpse of the magical sense of play in her manipulation of her images - something garnered from her dynamic artistic family lineage - and Petra herself is as arresting, puzzling, and striking as the world she sees through her lens.

What will we do with the donations?
For this short documentary we want to really get inside Petra's perspective. It will be up close and personal, but also feature some of her incredible photographs and films. To get the most out of this we will follow Petra on some of her adventures, and film some incredible footage from her drones. Donations will contribute to this, and our incredible crew, as well as permitting and location costs, editing and music.

All donations to this project through Boosted are tax deductible and you'll get a receipt to prove it to your accountant!

Why crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is an awesome way to build our audience from the beginning of the filmmaking process - we can take you on the wild ride that is making a film!

Loading Docs is supported by NZ On Air, with additional support from the New Zealand Film Commission and Te M?ngai P?ho, and more incredible supporters who all want to see this film get made. Loading Docs will provide an additional $5500 but only if we hit our funding goal of $2500.

Where will you be able to see the film?
You will get to see it online, anywhere in the world! And for FREE. We are excited to make this film, and to share it with as many people as possible.

Take in the Bird's Eye view!  Thank you for taking the time to read about our project. And if you can't donate - please share the project and look out for the end result too!

The Team

Morgan Albrecht - Director

Morgan Albrecht attended the first intake of The Actor's Program in Auckland in 2014. A few years spent doing what drama school graduates do in NZ - theatre, TV, short films, features films, lowkey garnering several NZ Film Award nominations, Morgan took the suggestion of a school tutor that she might have an even stronger flair for directing. She's kept a focus on learning the craft from the ground up, assisting directors and producers at iconic Kiwi production company Flying Fish, and particularly falling in love with the world of documentary.

She is most proud of her most recent doco piece Coco for Radio New Zealand's Wireless Docs, about Auckland mother Jo Galvin-Martinengo's daughter Coco receiving a diagnosis of Angelman Syndrome, and their journey attending West Auckland Riding for the Disabled. She has several long form documentary scripts in the pipeline.

Morgan also plays in several Auckland bands, is touring America with a Japanese punk band later in 2019 and plans to film it somehow even if she's got her hands full with a guitar.

Morgan Leigh Stewart - Producer

Morgan has produced over 40 features, short films, commercials, and music videos. Projects include the lauded splatter comedy feature DEATHGASM (SXSW 2015); K Rd Stories- a digital story project, and dark comedy short Stick To Your Gun (Palm Springs ShortFest 2016).

Morgan has worked with local and New Zealand festivals and industry organisations including Melbourne New Zealand Film Festival, The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and Film Auckland. She has been involved in producing the 48Hours Furious Filmmaking competition (including entering one year and reaching the Grand Finals!), the Make My Movie project, and the New Zealand Film Awards.

She has previously participated in the prestigious short documentary program Loading Docs - producing Joe Hitchcock's Blood Sugar, and directing She Speeds. Morgan continues to work with filmmakers around New Zealand on events, films, television and digital projects.