Some Interesting Production Notes On ‘The Birds’ from Alfred Hirchcock
Just for fun, here are some interesting production notes on ‘The Birds’ from Alfred Hitchcok who’s shown here with the stars…the birds. Also shown, Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jesica Tandy and Veronica Cartwright.
To keep the birds from flying around and on the ground, they were fed a heavy grain and whiskey mix.
The use of standard blue screen techniques for doing matte shots of the birds proved to be unacceptable. The rapid movement of the birds, especially their wings, caused excessive blue fringing in the shots. It was determined that the sodium vapor process could be used to do the composites. The only studio in America that was equipped for this process was the Walt Disney studio. Ub Iwerks, who had become the world’s leading expert on the sodium vapor process, was assigned to this production.
In the scene where Tippi Hedren is running and continually attacked, the birds were actually attached to her coat with nylon thread and were flapping to get loose. Very convincing.
There was no musical score for the film except for the sounds created on the Mixtrautonium, an early electronic musical instrument similar to a Moog.
To make the sound of the birds attacks more frighting, reel to reel tapes of the angry birds was played backward in the mix.
Finally, one ending never shot was a scene showing the Golden Gate bridge covered with birds. That would have been powerful!
A New Feature Film is due for release Starring Anthony Hopkins& Helen Mirren as Mr.& Mrs. Hitchcock!
Cool…
remembers that famous anecdote about Hitchcock meeting with some studio executives about the tag line to be used in marketing the film. Hitch suggested “THE BIRDS IS COMING”. One of the younger execs leaned forward and said “Don’t you mean The Birds ARE coming?”
Woo-hoo–this movie scared the @#% outta me as a kid. Went to Bodega Bay while I was in the SFO area just to check out where they filmed “The Birds”. Also, apparently ol’ Alfred put the big moves on Tippi, much to her chagrin…
As I recall, Alfred experimented with using 3D in this film. I’ve seen 3D clips from it. I don’t think it was ever finished and released in 3D, due to the same thing that is happening to 3D now. People grow tired of those novelties. I remember the sodium vapor days. Now with digital editing, everything is so much easier.
This is really interesting!
Cool info.
living in LA and being an actress, the fact that the CREW are all in sportcoats is so impressive!! if only they still looked so dapper….no offense guys, but you’re lucky if most showered nowadays!
Great notes, Val!!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing it
The story I heard was that Hitchcock always wanted the key crew members to wear a tie while on set.
Interesting–especially with the HBO Hitchcock film, ‘The Girl’ airing tomorrow night and the Anthony Hopkins/Helen Mirren ‘Hitchcock’ movie debuting next month. Fascinating technical work on ‘The Birds’, thanks for sharing Bobby!
My wife and I spent a couple of nights last year at the Inn at the Tides, in Bodega Bay. Many of the film’s key scenes were filmed at and around this hotel and seafood restaurant. Tippi Hedren was also a guest at the hotel that weekend. She apparently fell in love with the area during filming and returns often.