science

The Big Year

The Big Year is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Big Year rather than just read about it. In short: The Big Year is a 2011 American observational comedy film starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, directed by David Frankel and written by Howard Franklin. The film was based on the 2004 non-fiction book The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik.

Key takeaways

The Big Year belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Big Year to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Big Year from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Big Year is a 2011 American observational comedy film starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, directed by David Frankel and written by Howard Franklin. The film was based on the 2004 non-fiction book The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik. The book follows three men on a quest for a Big Year – a competition among birders to see who can spot and identify the greatest number of bird species in North America (north of Mexico) in a calendar year. The three actual birders were Sandy Komito, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller, who were chasing Komito's prior record. The film uses the same premise with fictional characters. Filming for The Big Year took place from May to July 2010. The film was released by 20th Century Fox on October 14, 2011, in the United States. The Big Year received generally mixed reviews, although the three leads' performances were praised. However, it was a box office bomb, only grossing $7.4 million worldwide against a $41 million budget.

Plot There are three seasoned birders who each set out to achieve a Big Year: Brad Harris, a 36-year-old computer programmer based in Baltimore; Stu Preissler, founder and CEO of a New York company bearing his name; and roofing contractor Kenny Bostick, who holds the current Big Year record of 732 birds. Bostick is obsessively possessive of his record, but his third wife Jessica is concerned; this was supposed to be the year they focused on conceiving a child. She also believes that Bostick's birding obsession is what destroyed his two previous marriages. He is so competitive that the others use his name as a kind of expletive: "Bostick!" Brad is a skilled birder who can identify nearly any species solely by sound, and hates his job maintaining the operational software of a nuclear power plant in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Living with his parents after a failed marriage, an aborted career at Dell, and dropping out of grad school, he hopes that doing a Big Year will give him a sense of purpose and possibly even make his father proud of him. Stu is the founder and CEO of an enormous Manhattan-based chemical conglomerate which he built from the ground up, starting in his garage. After decades of corporate success, he is ready to retire to Colorado with his architect wife. Fear of an empty schedule led him to come back from a previous retirement, but now he wants to leave his company in the hands of his two lieutenants. The company is in the middle of complicated negotiations to merge with a competitor, so his two anointed successors keep calling him back to New York for important meetings. To some extent, he is a prisoner of his own success. A Big Year has been his lifelong dream and he's pursuing it with the full support of his wife. The movie portrays various incidents that take place during the Big Year event, while the trio compete with each other and many other birders to achieve the world record of sighting the highest number of birds. Brad and Stu become friends and help each other in the competition, and Brad is attracted to a fellow birder, Ellie. Meanwhile, the highly competitive Bostick resorts to dirty tricks to boost his own count while undermining the others. As the year draws to a close, Stu is happily retired and enjoying his newborn grandson; Brad develops a relationship with Ellie; and Bostick is alone, as his wife has left him. Stu and Brad, now close friends, congratulate each other on "a very big year", after each sighting 700+ bird species that year. When the Big Year results are published, Bostick won the competition with 755, a new record; Brad came in second; Stu was fourth. Brad opines that "he (Bostick) got more birds, but we got more everything," as he looks at Ellie, who has come for a weekend visit. Stu smiles, looking at his wife. The film ends with Brad and Ellie birding together on a rocky coastline, while Brad confesses that birding is no longer the biggest part of his life. Stu is hiking with his toddler grandson (already enamored by birds) in the Rockies. Bostick is on a birding adventure in China, alone and gazing wistfully at a happy couple walking with their newborn child.

Cast

Production Dustin Hoffman was initially attached for the role of Stu. Principal photography was done from May 3 to July 30, 2010, in Vancouver. Additional Attu Island scenes were shot in the Yukon. Jack Black's fall on Attu Island was unscripted.

Reception

Box office The film was a box office failure, despite the established stars like Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson as the leads. Based on a budget of $41 million, it took in just $7.4 million in ticket sales worldwide according to Box Office Mojo.

Critical response The film received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a 41% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 100 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The consensus reads: "Though made with care and affection for its characters, The Big Year plods along, rarely reaching any comedic heights." The Hollywood Reporter described it as a "genial, amusing and somewhat unfathomable" film; the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called it a "gentle, light-hearted comedy" about "people trying to be the best, following their dreams and enjoying the wonder of birds". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

Home media 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD on January 31, 2012, with Fox later releasing it on Blu-ray on June 7, 2016. On March 20, 2019, Rupert Murdoch sold most of 21st Century Fox's film and television assets to The Walt Disney Company, and The Big Year was one of the films included in the deal. It was later made available on Disney's streaming service Disney+.

Songs

Soundtrack references:

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Big Year

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Big Year claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Big Year before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Big Year ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Big Year

In research: The Big Year appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Big Year in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Big Year is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2011 American films, 2011 English-language films, 2011 comedy films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Big Year outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “The Big Year” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study The Big Year in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Big Year means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Big Year out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Big Year in simple terms?

Why does The Big Year matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Big Year?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Big Year.