Brian’s Hollywood film

LOCAL man Brian McCann and one of his famous birds of prey will appear in a top new Hollywood Christmas blockbuster, released in cinemas next week.

Brian, who owns Newgrange Falconry, appears in new Netflix movie The Knight Before Christmas starring Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Whitehouse.

The film will hit the streaming service on November 21st, with Hudgens playing a science teacher who has been disillusioned by love and Whitehouse as the cursed medieval knight she must help return to his time.

Filming for the movie took place in Ontario, Canada but the cast and crew also shot some scenes at Charleville Castle in Tullamore and it was here that Brian and two of his birds of prey were used as the local man had to fly one of the birds off the top of the castle.

Brian said of his experience of filming: ‘It was a fantastic experience, myself and my son Karl went down and we had a great day. It was amazing to see such a big production in action, the amount of people behind the scenes was just amazing. There were hundreds of people involved.

‘We had to go down the week before for the fitting of the costume and then on the day of filming we were up at about 4.30am. They had all the make-up people there doing your face and checking the costumes and everything. There is a parapet in front of the castle that’s about 40ft high and I was flying the birds from that. The knights in the film would then charge out after the hawk and that was the start of the hunt.’

Brian, who was dressed in a medieval outfit for the scenes, said the team filmed three flights with the two birds they had brought down.

‘Everything went really well, Karl was waiting on the ground for the birds and we had boxes to carry them back up each time. They got all the takes they wanted and then we just had to wait to make sure they were happy with what they had,’ he explained.

‘ The director, Monica Mitchell, was lovely. I was talking to her for a while and I invited her to come and do a bit of falconry with us if she’s ever over in Ireland again.’