Jonathan Livingston Seagull (film) his beliefs. Eventually, Jonathan himself ends up becoming a mentor for other seagulls who are suffering the same fates in their own flocks as he once did. Director Hall Bartlett first read the book "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" in a San Fernando Valley barbershop when he impulsively decided to call the publisher, Macmillan, and then author Richard Bach, to buy the film rights. Bartlett suggested that the story needed to be told simply, without animation or actors, and acquired the property for $100,000 and fifty percent of the profits. He granted Bach final approval rights on the film and all advertising
Jonathan Livingston Seagull abilities as he leads a peaceful and happy life. One day, Jonathan meets two gulls who take him to a "higher plane of existence" in which there is no heaven but a better world found through perfection of knowledge. There he meets another seagull who loves to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him "pretty well a one-in-a-million bird." In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous learning, teaching him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to