Cast and Crew of ‘Birdsong’ Sings: What It’s Like Preparing for Something That Has Never Been Done Before?

sam arinto

Oct 22

Written by Sam Arinto

Cast and Crew of ‘Birdsong’ Sings: What It’s Like Preparing for Something That Has Never Been Done Before?

Sam Arinto October 22, 2026, 9:00 PM

*Birdsong cast with director Pam Miras at the table read. / Courtesy from Ilaya Ilaya Studios.*

QUEZON CITY — Cast and crew of the upcoming horror film ‘Birdsong’ gathered for a table read and look test last Oct. 20 at Sikat Studios Inc. days prior to filming. In full attendance were director Pam Miras, lead actress Kaila Estrada, and producer, Antoinette Jadaone, and co-producer, Irene Emma Villamor, fresh from Ilaya Ilaya Studios' launch weeks ago.

Now watching the characters come alive from the page, Direk Pam expressed excitement over the project, “Everyone’s so talented. It’s comforting that we made the right choices… I’m excited to be on set and finally do this.”

Supporting cast members Carlo San Juan, Jel Tarun, Lian Silverio, Allan Forte, Danica Desoyo, Bong Cabrera, Bon Lentejas, and She Ceasico read their lines, marking the first sight of the film’s cast appearance together as a flock.

Birdsong table read group photo. Top left to right: She Ceasico, Bong Cabrera, Danica Desoyo, Pam Miras, Lian Silverio, Bon Lentejas, Allan Forte, Charles Salazar. Bottom left to right: Carlo San Juan, Kaila Estrada, Jel Tarun. / Courtesy of Ilaya Ilaya Studios.

“I hoped that the audience comes in with curiosity more than expectations. I could say this film is both something familiar and something they haven’t seen before on the big screen,” Miras added. Her critically acclaimed works ‘Wag Kang Titingin’ and ‘Reyna ng Kadiliman’ bagged the prestigious Gawad Urian Best Short xFilm in 2011 and 2010, respectively.

Written by ‘Cleaners’ creator Glenn Barit, ‘Birdsong’ stars Kaila Estrada in her first-ever feature as lead – Kata, a former ornithologist going on one of her many expeditions, searching for an endangered bird along with her boyfriend.

Forethinking forests

Estrada, directly handpicked for the role, shared her process in understanding the character and diving into research. The team arranged actual birdwatching sessions for the cast at the La Mesa Ecopark prior to filming.

The young actress mentioned watching a YouTube documentary that expanded her perspective on birdwatching. She also had the opportunity to talk with birdwatching enthusiasts in the country virtually alongside Direk Pam. “When we did the birdwatching workshop with everybody, doon lang namin na-realize na, ‘Oh, there's this whole other side to it’.”

(“When we did the birdwatching workshop with everybody, we realized, ‘Oh, there's this whole other side to it’.”)

*Paco, Kata, Oliver out of the page. Left to right; Carlo San Juan, Kaila Estrada, Jel Tarun. / Courtesy of Ilaya Ilaya Studios.*

Her co-stars, Jel Tarun and Carlo San Juan, were both relatively new to the industry and to the activity of birdwatching as well. Tarun, playing the role of Oliver, auditioned at the same time as Estrada.

San Juan, taking the role of Paco in the film, recalled, “Papunta pa lang kami sa [La Mesa Ecopark], sabi ko, ‘Baduy? Birdwatch? Ano ba yan?’” His perception of birdwatching was immediately shattered after realizing it changed his outlook on the mundane, especially that “we live in a fast-paced world.”

(“When we were going to [La Mesa Ecopark], I thought to myself, ‘What? Birdwatching? This is so lame!”)

Apart from excitement, the actors were looking forward to the challenges of shooting with nature. Kaila reminisced about her earlier encounters with the script, “[It’s] interesting because it tackles the fact that the forest is a different world – para siyang ibang mundo na hindi natin kabisado. And I feel like we take [it] for granted; kailangan natin siyang irespeto.”

(“[It’s] interesting because it tackles the fact that the forest is a different world – it’s a world we know nothing about. And I feel like we take [it] for granted; we have to respect the space.”)

The main and supporting actors collectively acknowledged where the sensibilities of the film are deeply rooted. So besides physical and emotional preparations for their characters, even mental and spiritual preparations also come into play.

With shooting in government-protected areas, they were very much aware of how the environment would inform their acting choices in spaces occupied by natural and the supernatural. Adaptation has to become second nature, which ‘Birdsong’ production designer, Eero Yves Francisco, was also preparing for when actualizing the horror film’s overall look.

*Birdsong on page. / Courtesy of Ilaya Ilaya Studios.*

Prompts from the ground

“Since we are shooting in a forest, generally, people would assume that you're not doing anything for set design,” Francisco shared. Working with nature requires even more work to materialize even bigger and uncontrollable sets.

Drawing on his experience working on Balaraw: Blood Island, an upcoming horror Netflix PH series that deals with horror and mystery shrouded in Philippine folklore, Francisco said, “In this case, ang ginagawa ko for ‘Birdsong’ is to emanate the idea of artificial intelligence (AI).”

During Ilaya Ilaya’s launch, the production designer mentioned “memory, trauma, and AI” as “keywords” that set the collaborative direction between his vision, director Miras’, and writer Barit’s. He added that the Direk Pam wanted to nest AI commentary in the film and make sure that it would visually translate into the film.

Francisco mentioned props and costume design as focal elements central to telling the ornithologists’ journey and how they could communicate the AI allegory within.

“Ang huli ko kasing dinesign na talagang nanggaling sa puso ko is ‘Sunshine’. So, naghahanap ako ng next na, alam mo ‘yun, ‘Eto ‘yung next na [film na] i-design ko na talagang inaaral ko at lalabas ‘yung concept ko for design,” he said.

(“The last project I worked on the production design that I really loved was ‘Sunshine.’ So, I wanted my next project to be, you know, ‘This is the next film I’ll work really on and study, so that my production design concept would really shine.”)

**Confronting the real jumpscare**

Among Ilaya Ilaya’s unveiled projects, ‘Birdsong’ definitely stands out genre-wise. It’s a women-led, women-created, women-centered horror film. It’s reflective of society’s contemporary fears of environmental woes and technological anxieties, mirroring fictional horrors that might as well resemble our current, lived realities.

References to found-footage horror films – in recent memory, at least – come from Hollywood with ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and Kane Parsons’ ‘Backrooms’ released earlier this year. ‘Birdsong’ director Miras initially mentioned that this was a relatively new style in Filipino horror in that sense.

*Pam Miras, director of ‘Birdsong’ on the cast and crew table read. / Courtesy of Ilaya Ilaya Studios.*

“... More than the horror, I hope the film draws attention to the plight of our mountains. What is happening is alarming; it’s all in the news. If the film elicits a “fear” of nature, maybe we’ll finally leave nature alone — no more mining, logging, quarrying, and deforestation by big businesses. Sana umabot sa algorithm ng lahat,” Director Pam said.

(“I hope it reaches everybody, in their feeds and algorithms.”)

Watching movies can feel like birdwatching at times, but without the binoculars. Both are seemingly passive activities that actually require more of an active role from the watcher, encouraging them to think more and engage more proactively with their environment. With what ‘Birdsong’ has to offer and what it has in store, the film aims to compel the Filipinos to confront the horrors of their own doing. And to remind us that the forest remembers.