Talk:The Birds (film)

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Contents 1 Summary 2 Special Effects 3 Character List 4 Sources seriously needed 5 Production section removed for lack of refs 5.1 Production

[edit] Summary

The Birds Summary Nat Hockins lives on the coast of England with his family. (Jack, Jill, and Mary). Together they battle against the birds who are continuously attacking. After the birds kill Nat, Mary takes jack and Jill to Africa, until the birds leave. Little did she know, that they would follow them. They got to Africa and again, had to battle against the birds. Just when they were about to give up, Mary's uncle found them. He was a pilot. He took Mary in his plane, and took a gun with him. he drove the plane, and Mary shot the birds. in the meantime, Jack and Jill were in their hotel room awaiting their mother and uncles safe arrival. Mary soon got back to the hotel, but she didn't seem very pleased. her uncle was killed. his plane had crashed. luckily she had survived. they spent the night at the hotel, and traveled back to england in the morning. when they got there, they found the city destroyed. there were more birds than ever, and nowhere for them to take shelter. that is how the story ended. if you want to know what happens next, read the sequel, THE BIRDS II. both are great books. i highly suggest them.

I'm not sure what this is, exactly; but if it's not a copyvio, I suppose it's useful.. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• Uh...neither of those "sequels" exist,

• If there is one, it definitely wasn't written by Daphne du Maurier. I suspect this sequel is all in the mind of the writer of the above....Martyn Smith 15:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• This is completely inaccurate, but I fixed some spelling errors anyways. -70.20.127.71 01:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Special Effects

It would be interesting to cover the use of special effects in The Birds. This movie has over 300 special effects shot. It is notable for the use of the Disney-developped Sodium Vapor Process. Hitchcock dislike location shooting, so he used this process to shot close-ups of his actors on a sound stage where he could have complete control over the lighting, and then inserted these shots over location-shot backgrounds. He also used rotoscoping (for some of the bird shots), and innovative matte painting use (for instance for the aerial view of the town with the gas station fire). The last shot of the movie (the car slowly leaves the house while birds cover the ground) is a composition of multiple elements shot separately, because the production did not have enough birds. This is very well covered in the documentary All About 'The Birds', included in the Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection DVD set.

[edit] Character List

like other film articles, shouldn't this have a list of characters with their corresponding actor in two columns, or something to that effect? 65.185.191.51 03:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)kickasskat

Random characters that were here since February 2007 have been removed. -70.20.127.71 01:39, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources seriously needed

This article, especially the Production section, needs to be sourced and quickly. The Production section has the appearance of original research, and risks being deleted if verifiable sources can't be found and added.
Jim Dunning | talk 03:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Production section removed for lack of refs

I removed the entire Production section. It was completely without sources and may very well contain a lot of original research. On the chance some of it has some valid material, I'm relocating it to here as research fodder.
Jim Dunning | talk 00:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Production

The film depicts a series of bird attacks on the residents of a Californian seaside village named Bodega Bay. In Daphne du Maurier's story, the birds attacked Britain, not California. The film was shot on location both in Bodega Bay and the nearby village of Bodega, the location of the historic school building used in the production, The Potter School. This was the second of Hitchcock's films to be shot in Sonoma County; the first was Shadow of a Doubt, filmed mostly in Sonoma County's county seat, Santa Rosa. Hitchcock also filmed a few scenes in downtown San Francisco, including his own cameo in which he walked out of the pet store with his own dogs.

Hitchcock was inspired by a report in the 18 August 1961 issue of the Santa Cruz, California Sentinel newspaper ^[1] of birds exhibiting strange and sometimes violent behavior. This event was brought up in the film between the town residents in the Tides diner.

Hedren was informed that mechanical birds would be used for the terrifying and brutal attic scene. Instead, live birds were hurled at her by prop men for a week. When one nearly gouged her eye she became hysterical, collapsed and spent a week haunted by "nightmares filled with flapping birds". After visiting the set Cary Grant praised her as "one very brave lady".

Instead of a typical film soundtrack, Hitchcock had Oskar Sala painstakingly create bird sounds on his trautonium, which were then scored to the movie by Bernard Herrmann. No natural bird sounds were used. There is a very high-pitched soundtrack of electronic noise through the film which subconsciously adds to the tension experienced by the viewer. Just prior to the attack on the school children, as they run from the historic school, they sing an unaccompanied song. No musical score accompanies the film.

Hitchcock insisted that the film be without a final "The End", which further hints at the lyrical nature of the movie (called by Federico Fellini: "an apocalyptical poem"). Hitchcock reportedly did consider a final shot of the Golden Gate Bridge covered with birds, implying that the birds would not stop with their local attacks.

The highly-anticipated film was launched with an elaborate promotional campaign, inaugurated with the Hitchcock-engineered phrase, "The birds is coming!" Hitchcock appeared with birds on his shoulder on the cover of Life magazine. Hedren appeared on the cover of Look magazine with the line "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly."

Hitchcock had also released a five-minute trailer featuring himself making a presentation on his "forthcoming lecture about the birds and their age-long relationship with man", giving numerous sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek examples "in which these noble creatures have added to the beauty of the world" such as cavalier hats, eggs, shotguns, and zoos. Actually footage from the film itself is not shown until the last minute of the trailer.

A 1994 cable television movie sequel The Birds II: Land's End featured Brad Johnson and Chelsea Field. Tippi Hedren also appeared in a supporting role, playing a different character than she did in the original film.