WEBVTT

00:01.400 --> 00:03.391
How do you do?

00:03.560 --> 00:05.835
My name is Alfred Hitchcock

00:06.000 --> 00:10.278
and | would like to tell you
about our good friends, the birds.

00:10.439 --> 00:11.428
That's the damnedest thing | ever saw.

00:11.599 --> 00:14.272
{Man) Birds just don't go around
attacking people without reason.

00:14.439 --> 00:17.272
Yes, they attacked the children.
Attacked them.

00:17.439 --> 00:19.714
What's the matter with all the birds?

00:19.879 --> 00:22.996
Birds are not aggressive creatures.
They bring beauty into the world.

00:23.160 --> 00:24.912
Those gulls attacked.

00:25.079 --> 00:27.547
- Impossible.
- (Man) They came down the chimney.

00:27.720 --> 00:30.871
All the windows are broken
in Dan's bedroom.

00:31.039 --> 00:33.269
- Why are they doing this?
- (Crows Cawing)

00:33.440 --> 00:37.115
- It's the end of the world!
- Are the birds going to eat us?

00:37.279 --> 00:39.235
Get yourselves guns and
wipe them off the face of the earth.

00:39.399 --> 00:41.355
(Woman) That would hardly be possible.

00:41.520 --> 00:44.193
- Mitch, don't!
- The five continents of the world

00:44.360 --> 00:46.920
contain more than a hundred billion birds.

00:47.080 --> 00:49.992
All at once, the birds were everywhere!

00:50.160 --> 00:52.469
Why don't you all go home?
Lock your doors and windows?

00:52.640 --> 00:54.392
Did you get the doors
and windows in the attic?

00:54.559 --> 00:56.436
- What if you run out of wood?
- | don't know!

00:56.599 --> 00:59.067
When will you know?
When we're all dead?

00:59.240 --> 01:01.037
(Tyres Squealing)

01:04.119 --> 01:06.508
{Woman Screaming)

01:13.480 --> 01:17.917
(Woman) After my father made Psycho ,
which was such a big success,

01:18.080 --> 01:20.878
he was, as usual,
having his major trouble,

01:21.040 --> 01:23.235
which was looking for a story.

01:23.400 --> 01:26.198
Everybody expected so much, you know.

01:26.639 --> 01:31.429
It was very hard to find stories,
and he finally did find The Birds,

01:31.600 --> 01:34.478
which was from a short story
by Daphne du Maurier,

01:34.640 --> 01:38.519
who wrote Rebecca, which was
his first film in this country.

01:38.680 --> 01:43.037
And at the time, he wasn't sure
if it would make a full-length movie.

01:43.200 --> 01:47.398
{Man) We had just finished working
on North by Northwest,

01:47.559 --> 01:51.154
and | saw Hitchcock
on one of the sound stages.

01:51.320 --> 01:53.311
He stopped me and said,

01:53.479 --> 01:58.428
‘I have a friend, Daphne du Maurier,
who has written a short novella.”

01:58.600 --> 02:03.720
"Would you read it to see if, physically,
it creates too many problems.”

02:03.880 --> 02:08.749
| read it that night, and | was bowled over
by its strength.

02:08.920 --> 02:12.196
But | saw it a little differently -
as a mood piece.

02:12.359 --> 02:14.919
And | didn't see it as a narrative story.

02:15.079 --> 02:19.948
I worked all night on it, and the image
that came to me was Munch's Scream.

02:24.559 --> 02:27.790
| saw that as a kind of icon
for the whole thing.

02:31.679 --> 02:34.432
{O'Connell} My father initially
purchased the rights to The Birds

02:34.600 --> 02:36.397
for his television series.

02:36.559 --> 02:39.915
After he read of real bird attacks
taking place across the country,

02:40.080 --> 02:42.640
he felt the story had cinematic potential,

02:42.799 --> 02:46.269
and he brought in Evan Hunter
to adapt the short story.

02:46.440 --> 02:49.591
(Man)
It was a sort of apocalyptic short story.

02:49.999 --> 02:54.834
It's about these birds
inexplicably attacking this isolated

02:54.999 --> 02:56.432
little farmhouse in Cornwall.

02:56.600 --> 03:01.196
I read it, and | would have given
my right arm to work with Hitchcock.

03:01.359 --> 03:06.069
I then spoke to him on the phone and
he said, "Come out with some ideas.”

03:06.239 --> 03:10.152
"We're throwing away
everything but the title,

03:10.320 --> 03:13.118
and the notion of birds
attacking human beings.”

03:13.280 --> 03:14.918
"So come on out with some ideas.”

03:15.079 --> 03:17.229
| remember Hitch showing me

03:17.400 --> 03:20.995
a lot of newspaper articles
about unexplained bird attacks

03:21.160 --> 03:24.072
as a reminder
that these things do happen,

03:24.239 --> 03:27.197
so we weren't dealing
entirely with fantasy.

03:27.359 --> 03:29.350
So then he said,

03:29.519 --> 03:31.510
"What do you think?

03:31.680 --> 03:35.389
"Can we physically attack this project?”

03:35.560 --> 03:40.156
And | said, "Well, the only thing
is getting the birds into it."

03:40.600 --> 03:45.116
In those days, we used blue screen
for travelling matte backgrounds.

03:45.280 --> 03:50.832
And in those days, the blue screen very
often had a rather disturbing fringing.

03:50.999 --> 03:56.073
I knew that if we were to shoot these
small birds with fast-moving wings,

03:56.240 --> 03:58.435
it would be just a messy blur.

03:58.920 --> 04:03.835
The blue screen process, while it had
been essentially perfected in 1958,

04:04.840 --> 04:09.197
was still not quite to the level
that Hitchcock wanted.

04:09.359 --> 04:14.592
The best example of travelling matte
work in general that Hitchcock had seen

04:14.759 --> 04:17.796
was the sodium
travelling matte shot process

04:17.959 --> 04:20.154
that was used primarily
at the Disney studio.

04:20.319 --> 04:25.029
The sodium process was a method of
combining foregrounds and backgrounds

04:25.200 --> 04:27.714
that were photographed
at different times

04:27.880 --> 04:30.075
in an optical printer in postproduction.

04:30.239 --> 04:33.037
At some point, you have
to create a matte, or a silhouette,

04:33.199 --> 04:35.315
that enables you
to distinguish photographically

04:35.479 --> 04:38.437
between the foreground, which is
usually an actor against a screen,

04:38.600 --> 04:40.397
and the background.

04:40.559 --> 04:44.598
In the sodium process, the background
was illuminated by yellow sodium light.

04:44.759 --> 04:49.116
Of course, the actors in the foreground
were illuminated by white light.

04:49.280 --> 04:53.193
There were two films in a special
camera, an old Technicolor camera.

04:53.360 --> 04:57.353
One film was sensitive only
to the sodium light on the backing.

04:57.519 --> 04:59.510
The second film in the camera

04:59.680 --> 05:03.309
was sensitive only to the white light
falling on the actors.

05:03.479 --> 05:09.031
As a result, there was absolutely no
contamination of the foreground actors

05:09.200 --> 05:12.272
by the lighting from the background.

05:12.440 --> 05:16.672
Typical of blue screen shots
of the period was a sort of blue fire

05:16.840 --> 05:19.070
in hair and on the edges of objects.

05:19.240 --> 05:21.231
With the sodium light,

05:21.399 --> 05:25.915
because there was no light from
the backing on the actors at any time,

05:26.079 --> 05:29.708
the sodium system could produce
a higher-quality composite

05:29.880 --> 05:33.714
that didn't exhibit the sort
of blue flare and blue halos

05:33.880 --> 05:37.953
that were sometimes seen
on blue screen composites of the day.

05:38.120 --> 05:42.671
Disney had brought the sodium process
to a high level of perfection,

05:42.839 --> 05:47.629
and Ub Iwerks, who was the head of
Disney Special Processes Department,

05:47.799 --> 05:49.790
was hired as a consultant,

05:49.959 --> 05:52.553
and the Disney sodium
equipment was used

05:52.720 --> 05:55.917
to create the travelling matte shots
on The Birds.

05:56.079 --> 05:59.389
And it was a wonderful matting situation.

05:59.560 --> 06:02.393
It would even matte smoke.

06:02.560 --> 06:04.755
It's not used now,
because it was very cumbersome.

06:04.919 --> 06:08.355
Now, remember,
we're talking several years ago.

06:08.519 --> 06:12.831
Today, many of these problems
would be solved with a computer.

06:13.599 --> 06:18.992
(O'Connell) I think The Birds was one
of the hardest pictures for him to make

06:19.159 --> 06:23.391
because it was so technical
and he had to be so prepared for it.

06:23.560 --> 06:25.551
Literally, as we know,

06:25.719 --> 06:29.348
when he decided a movie,
he would draw the whole movie.

06:29.520 --> 06:32.592
Well, it took him a long time
to draw all of this.

06:32.759 --> 06:36.752
Because of the
difficult technical problems,

06:36.919 --> 06:41.515
we knew we were going to have
to have continuity sketches.

06:41.680 --> 06:45.355
Well, Hitchcock loved
to work that way anyway.

06:45.520 --> 06:48.592
His main thrust in all of his work
was preparation.

06:48.759 --> 06:51.592
Matter of fact,
he sometimes facetiously said

06:51.759 --> 06:54.592
he was bored with shooting the picture.

06:54.759 --> 06:57.592
The excitement came with the ideas

06:57.759 --> 07:01.468
that were generated
in the preparatory portion

07:01.639 --> 07:03.630
of the filmmaking process.

07:03.800 --> 07:06.598
He liked to have it all clear in his mind

07:06.759 --> 07:10.672
so that before he started to shoot,
he saw the whole movie in his mind.

07:10.840 --> 07:13.832
There are very few people,
directors or otherwise,

07:13.999 --> 07:16.194
that can hold this kind of a concept.

07:16.360 --> 07:21.354
Harold Michelson was the main
production illustrator on The Birds.

07:21.519 --> 07:24.829
He did, 1 think,
almost all of the illustrations.

07:24.999 --> 07:28.389
{Man) 1 was given the script
and, with Bob Boyle,

07:28.560 --> 07:32.633
who was the production designer,
we would discuss the scene.

07:33.039 --> 07:37.829
In fact, when they went up to Bodega
Bay to shoot, the whole company,

07:37.999 --> 07:40.388
| stayed at Universal.

07:40.560 --> 07:43.791
So in many cases, | was on my own

07:43.959 --> 07:47.031
in interpreting the script.

07:47.200 --> 07:51.910
And | did stuff for a few weeks,
and then I got a call to come up there.

07:52.080 --> 07:54.071
And so they sent me up there.

07:54.240 --> 07:56.515
So evidently,
what | was doing was right.

07:56.679 --> 08:01.230
Hitchcock's method of shooting,
moving in on a subject slowly

08:01.400 --> 08:04.392
or objective/subjective way of shooting,

08:04.560 --> 08:06.551
which I hadn't heard before.

08:06.719 --> 08:08.835
I, of course, went along with it,

08:08.999 --> 08:11.797
and learned an awful lot
about how to make a movie.

08:11.960 --> 08:14.599
(Man) His working on The Birds,

08:14.759 --> 08:17.068
I mean,
this was all done in preproduction,

08:17.799 --> 08:22.634
was worked out with Albert Whitlock,
the matte artist, and a crew

08:22.800 --> 08:28.113
that went to San Francisco and sat in
the dumps in San Francisco for months,

08:28.279 --> 08:31.351
shooting birds, background birds.

08:31.519 --> 08:34.511
And so the technical aspects
of the birds were quite difficult.

08:37.160 --> 08:41.278
(Woman) | had been modelling
in New York for a long time,

08:41.440 --> 08:43.510
uh... It was about 11 years -

08:43.679 --> 08:48.150
and my career was sort of waning
in that fashion business.

08:49.000 --> 08:53.790
| had done a number of commercials, and
at one point | had about 12 of them going.

08:53.959 --> 08:58.475
One of them ran on the Today show
every morning for about a month.

08:58.639 --> 09:02.837
And apparently, a producer/director
was watching the show

09:02.999 --> 09:07.595
and decided to find out who the girl
was, where she was and all of that.

09:07.759 --> 09:11.752
So | received a call on
Friday, 13th of October of 1961.

09:11.920 --> 09:15.117
It was, "Are you the girl
in the Sego commercial?”

09:15.280 --> 09:18.078
It was a diet product. And | said, "Yes."

09:18.239 --> 09:21.834
And they said, "Would you come over
to Universal Studios?”

09:21.999 --> 09:23.990
1 did, and 1 met with an executive there.

09:24.160 --> 09:26.799
I asked, "Who is the director?”
and he wouldn't tell me.

09:26.960 --> 09:29.918
And then he asked
if I would leave my photographs

09:30.080 --> 09:32.355
and commercial film over the weekend.

09:32.520 --> 09:35.398
So | said, "Yes, but I will
have to pick them up on Monday.”

09:35.560 --> 09:38.472
So, Monday | was introduced
to a number of other executives.

09:38.639 --> 09:42.393
Nobody would tell me who it was,
who the producer/director was.

09:42.559 --> 09:45.392
They just said, "Would you go
over to MCA tomorrow morning

09:45.559 --> 09:48.312
and meet with Herman Citren?”
who was an agent there.

09:48.480 --> 09:51.790
| went over and met with Mr Citren,
and | sat down and he said,

09:51.959 --> 09:55.634
"| suppose you're a little bit curious
as to who this director is.”

09:55.799 --> 09:57.790
| said, "Yes."

09:57.959 --> 10:01.713
He said, "Alfred Hitchcock wants
to sign you to a contract

10:01.880 --> 10:05.236
if you will agree with the terms.”
| was stunned.

10:05.399 --> 10:07.959
| didn't know whether to laugh or cry,

10:08.119 --> 10:10.713
or run up and down the halls,
or what to do.

10:10.880 --> 10:13.348
And he said,
"If you are in agreeance to this,

10:13.520 --> 10:16.512
we will go over to Paramount Studios
and meet with him."

10:16.679 --> 10:20.069
So, Herman Citren and |
went over to meet with Hitch,

10:20.239 --> 10:23.515
and we didn't talk about
anything other than...

10:23.679 --> 10:27.035
Oh, we talked about food,
we talked about travel,

10:27.200 --> 10:29.191
we talked about wines.

10:29.359 --> 10:32.795
We didn't mention movies at all.
Not at all

10:32.960 --> 10:35.758
| heard that they were doing The Birds,

10:35.920 --> 10:38.912
that Evan Hunter
was working on the script,

10:39.080 --> 10:41.310
and Hitch was working with him on it,

10:41.480 --> 10:45.917
and | thought "That's very interesting,
this is very exciting,” and all that,

10:46.079 --> 10:50.038
but it never occurred to me that
1 would be involved in this movie at all.

10:50.199 --> 10:53.987
I thought | would do the television
shows which he did every week.

10:54.160 --> 10:57.675
They talked about doing a screen test
and they chose

10:57.840 --> 11:01.549
three different roles for me to play
in this screen test:

11:01.720 --> 11:05.793
One from Rebecca, one from Notorious,
and one from Catch a Thief.

11:05.959 --> 11:08.837
Now, these are
three entirely different women.

11:08.999 --> 11:10.990
Hitch was my drama coach

11:11.160 --> 11:14.152
and | would go over
to the Hitchcock home

11:14.319 --> 11:18.153
where Alma and Hitch would both
go over the scenes with me,

11:18.559 --> 11:20.515
which was fantastic.

11:20.679 --> 11:23.989
Alma had a great deal
to do with a lot of his work.

11:24.159 --> 11:26.753
So we eventually did the screen test.

11:26.920 --> 11:30.196
It took three days.
Robert Burks was the DP on it,

11:30.359 --> 11:34.557
and Edith Head did
all of the designs of the clothes.

11:34.720 --> 11:38.156
She did a personal wardrobe for me.
It was an extraordinary time.

11:38.320 --> 11:41.312
(Alfred Hitchcock)
Remind me to tell you a story

11:41.480 --> 11:43.835
about doughnuts and their manufacture,
will you?

11:43.999 --> 11:45.990
Oh, I've heard that!

11:46.720 --> 11:48.711
It's a terrible story!

11:48.880 --> 11:52.839
(Hedren) In order to do the screen test,
we needed a leading man.

11:52.999 --> 11:57.436
And Hitch flew Martin Balsam out
from New York to be my leading man.

11:57.600 --> 11:59.636
He had just come out of Psycho.

11:59.799 --> 12:03.872
Tell me, Mr Balsam,
what exactly do you have in mind?

12:04.679 --> 12:09.355
The screen test was put together
and | guess everybody saw it,

12:09.519 --> 12:13.831
and Mr and Mrs Hitchcock
invited me to dinner at Chasens.

12:13.999 --> 12:17.036
Lou Wasserman was sitting to my left

12:17.200 --> 12:20.431
and Alma and Hitch were to my right,

12:20.600 --> 12:22.397
and...

12:23.080 --> 12:27.870
he placed, Hitch placed a very, very
beautifully wrapped package

12:28.039 --> 12:30.428
from Gumps in San Francisco.

12:30.600 --> 12:33.353
It was one of his favourite shops.

12:33.520 --> 12:37.513
And | opened the box
and there was this beautiful pin

12:37.679 --> 12:41.672
of three birds in flight,
with the seed pearls and gold.

12:41.840 --> 12:44.400
| looked over at Hitch, and he said,

12:44.560 --> 12:48.951
(As Hitchcock) "We want you
to play Melanie in The Birds.”

12:50.239 --> 12:52.230
Well, | started to cry.

12:52.399 --> 12:56.597
These big tears welled up,
because | didn't expect that.

12:56.759 --> 12:58.829
| really didn't expect that.

12:58.999 --> 13:00.990
And | looked at Hitch,

13:01.159 --> 13:04.037
and he was a little watery, and Alma,

13:04.199 --> 13:07.794
and even Lou Wasserman,
this big movie mogul,

13:07.960 --> 13:11.236
he had one little tear coming down here.

13:11.400 --> 13:15.393
It was a very exciting evening.
It was just incredible.

13:15.559 --> 13:17.550
And then the whole...

13:17.720 --> 13:20.234
All of the work really began.

13:20.400 --> 13:24.518
(Man) 1 got this call out of the blue

13:25.319 --> 13:30.188
from (As Hitchcock) "Mr Hitchcock”
and was totally amazed.

13:30.359 --> 13:33.510
And | came out
and, being a brash young brat,

13:33.679 --> 13:38.150
| guess | didn't show any kind
of respect that | was supposed to,

13:38.320 --> 13:42.313
and | think he kind of liked it
and we got on extremely well.

13:42.480 --> 13:46.268
And | did the wrong thing:
I called him Alfred. (Laughing)

13:46.439 --> 13:49.988
| didn't say all the right things.
| remember that.

13:50.160 --> 13:52.879
| said, "I hope the birds and things

13:53.040 --> 13:56.396
"don't kind of totally
outshadow the people.”

13:56.560 --> 13:59.950
Of course, that's the story.
They're supposed to.

14:00.119 --> 14:02.633
So that was number one. Wrong.

14:02.799 --> 14:07.873
But then we really talked about
(As Hitchcock} "making movies”

14:08.040 --> 14:12.238
and how | loved it,
and how | was interested in his work.

14:12.400 --> 14:15.676
| brought that up and said the right thing.

14:15.840 --> 14:19.037
And we just got on extremely well.
That was it.

14:19.199 --> 14:23.670
We didn't get into deep discussions
about the movie itself at all.

14:23.840 --> 14:27.355
No "What do you think
of the character?” None of that.

14:27.520 --> 14:31.957
It was taken for granted that | loved it
and wanted to work with him.

14:32.119 --> 14:34.110
And | was absolutely flattered

14:34.280 --> 14:38.432
and astonished that he wouldn't mind
working with the kid... then.

14:40.359 --> 14:43.556
(O'Connell)
He hated location. Just hated it.

14:43.720 --> 14:48.191
He says, you don't get the right lights,
you've got the noise,

14:48.359 --> 14:51.396
and you have to then come in and redub.

14:53.080 --> 14:56.470
If ever he could get away
without location, he would.

14:56.639 --> 14:58.914
(Boyle) As a matter of fact,

14:59.079 --> 15:02.708
when Tippi crosses the street
and goes by a sign,

15:02.879 --> 15:06.758
she goes behind it,
which we used as a patch match,

15:06.920 --> 15:11.198
and then we picked up
the rest of the thing in the studio.

15:11.359 --> 15:13.077
(Boy Wolf Whistles}

15:13.240 --> 15:16.357
(Green) Mr Hitchcock
saw Tippi in a commercial

15:16.519 --> 15:20.068
where someone whistled at her
and she looked back.

15:20.239 --> 15:24.152
There was something
about that moment when she did that

15:24.320 --> 15:26.390
that caught his attention.

15:26.559 --> 15:29.710
And he loved to put in little subtle jokes.

15:29.879 --> 15:33.667
There's a scene where
she's whistled at and she does turn,

15:33.840 --> 15:35.831
a lot like that commercial.

15:35.999 --> 15:37.990
(Boy Wolf Whistles}

15:44.799 --> 15:49.554
Those dogs that were
in his cameo in The Birds...

15:49.720 --> 15:53.713
Oh, | mean, those dogs ate better
than most people in the world.

15:53.879 --> 15:57.792
| mean, he would go to the store
and get the finest cut of meat

15:57.959 --> 16:00.678
and have them ground it up
for these dogs.

16:00.840 --> 16:04.913
They were wonderful. (Chuckles)
He would bring them to work.

16:05.080 --> 16:08.436
They would be in his office,
and he loved them dearly.

16:08.599 --> 16:10.237
(Birds Chirping)

16:10.399 --> 16:13.072
- | wonder if you could help me.
- What?

16:14.520 --> 16:17.398
| said, | wonder if you could help me.

16:19.440 --> 16:21.476
Yes, what is it you're looking for, sir?

16:21.639 --> 16:26.633
Hunter) We were just trying to find
a hook, a way to get into the movie.

16:26.799 --> 16:30.474
And on the lunch hour,
while | was walking around,

16:30.639 --> 16:33.631
I came up with the notion
of a screwball comedy,

16:33.799 --> 16:36.711
doing a couple who meet cute

16:36.880 --> 16:41.237
and go from there into comedy
until it turns to terror.

16:41.400 --> 16:46.838
And | told him this after lunch that day,
and he said, "That sounds interesting.”

16:46.999 --> 16:51.197
So then we tried to find characters
who would be mismatched,

16:51.359 --> 16:55.272
who would strike sparks
and, we hoped, comic sparks.

16:56.080 --> 16:59.959
And it seemed to me
that a society woman, first of all,

17:00.119 --> 17:04.590
in the old screwball comedies
of the '40s, was your mainstay,

17:04.759 --> 17:08.115
that she always was
a madcap society woman.

17:08.279 --> 17:09.314
(Chirping)

17:09.479 --> 17:14.075
Hunter) And a lawyer is the
very notion of solidity and stolidity.

17:14.240 --> 17:17.550
- There we are.
- Wonderful.

17:17.719 --> 17:20.677
(Hunter) So it seemed that a lawyer
would be a good type also.

17:20.839 --> 17:24.514
Back in your gilded cage,
Melanie Daniels.

17:24.680 --> 17:26.557
What did you say?

17:26.719 --> 17:29.358
{Hedren) We didn't actually do
any pre-rehearsals.

17:29.519 --> 17:32.477
- How did you know my name?
- A little birdie told me.

17:32.639 --> 17:35.949
| didn't meet Rod Taylor
till we were, you know,

17:36.119 --> 17:38.508
till we were really ready to film.

17:38.680 --> 17:40.079
Just thought you might like to know
what it's like

17:40.239 --> 17:41.433
to be on the other end of a gag.

17:41.599 --> 17:44.193
- What do you think of that?
- | think you're a louse.

17:44.359 --> 17:45.348


17:45.520 --> 17:49.752
Immediately, we became the best
of friends, Tippi Hedren and |,

17:49.920 --> 17:53.833
and still are the best of friends,
and so it was very easy.

17:53.999 --> 17:58.436
We'd rehearse together on our own,
and it was extremely easy

17:58.599 --> 18:02.797
because we had a lovely chemistry
without trying for it.

18:04.160 --> 18:07.197
(Hedren) Hitch was not only my director,

18:07.359 --> 18:10.237
he was my drama coach,
which was fantastic.

18:10.400 --> 18:13.039
I couldn't have had a better teacher.

18:13.200 --> 18:18.149
He not only helped me with developing
the character of Melanie Daniels,

18:18.320 --> 18:21.312
he had me sit in on meetings
with Evan Hunter;

18:21.479 --> 18:25.472
with Robert Burks, the DP;
with Bobby Boyle, the set director;

18:25.640 --> 18:29.474
with, of course, Edith Head,
who | worked very closely with

18:29.639 --> 18:33.951
on designing not only the clothes
for The Birds and Marnie,

18:34.119 --> 18:36.110
but my own private wardrobe.

18:36.279 --> 18:39.351
But in every phase
of making that motion picture,

18:39.520 --> 18:41.795
he was sure that | was educated in it.

18:41.959 --> 18:45.110
- Miss, is that for Mitch Brenner?
- Yes.

18:45.280 --> 18:47.316
- He's not home.
- Oh, that's alright.

18:47.479 --> 18:52.792
{Hedren) And it was stunning. It was
an amazing education that | received.

18:52.959 --> 18:55.837
{Man) I don’t think you should
leave them in the hall, do you?

18:56.000 --> 18:57.991
- Well, where did he go?
- Bodega Bay.

18:58.160 --> 19:01.357
- He goes there every weekend.
- Bodega Bay. Where's that?

19:01.519 --> 19:02.554
Up the coast
about 60 miles north of here.

19:06.119 --> 19:11.239
(Boyle) 1 think northern California
always reminded Hitch of England.

19:11.400 --> 19:14.517
There was something about the weather,

19:14.680 --> 19:17.194
which was very unpredictable.

19:17.359 --> 19:20.157
It was fog and rain and then sunshine

19:20.320 --> 19:22.550
and then fog and rain again.

19:22.719 --> 19:25.028
It was a moody, strange area,

19:25.200 --> 19:27.953
both forbidding and foreboding.

19:28.119 --> 19:31.031
I believe that's what intrigued him.

19:31.200 --> 19:33.760
It had a kind of mystical quality.

19:33.919 --> 19:38.356
With The Birds, he shot the first part of it

19:38.520 --> 19:41.318
actually up in Bodega Bay, on location,

19:41.479 --> 19:44.676
and then the rest was shot
here at Universal.

19:44.839 --> 19:48.832
Boyle) We had to get
all of these various pieces

19:44.839 --> 19:49.355
and put them together
to make one small community out of it.

19:53.680 --> 19:57.150
We built a schoolteacher's house
in Bodega,

19:57.320 --> 20:00.278
which was a few miles from Bodega Bay.

20:00.440 --> 20:03.034
But Bodega Bay just was perfect.

20:03.200 --> 20:06.192
It was an almost
completely enclosed bay,

20:06.359 --> 20:09.351
and there was what is called
Bodega Head,

20:09.519 --> 20:11.908
which is where the house was.

20:12.079 --> 20:15.754
There was an old house
that had gone to rack and ruin

20:15.920 --> 20:18.912
so we could only use the foundation.

20:19.079 --> 20:22.071
We rebuilt the house
and we added a barn,

20:22.239 --> 20:25.788
and that could be reached by road

20:25.959 --> 20:29.235
and by... boat,

20:29.399 --> 20:32.072
which suited, uh...
the purpose of the film perfectly.

20:36.760 --> 20:40.355
(Bill Taylor) Albert Whitlock is,
with Peter Ellenshaw,

20:40.520 --> 20:42.829
probably the foremost matte artist

20:43.240 --> 20:48.473
of the middle generation of film.
It's the matte artist's job, traditionally,

20:48.880 --> 20:53.271
to extend existing settings, uh...
with painting.

20:53.959 --> 20:58.669
(Man) One of the stories that Al related
to me was when he showed a test

20:58.839 --> 21:02.149
of one of his background paintings
of Bodega Bay to Hitchcock.

21:02.320 --> 21:05.312
It was a beautiful scene
of Bodega Bay in the background.

21:05.479 --> 21:07.470
Hitch thought it looked very beautiful.

21:07.639 --> 21:10.836
Without Al being there, he showed it
to Peggy Robertson, his assistant.

21:10.999 --> 21:15.993
He said, "What do you think?" and she
said, "Oh, that looks like a painting.”

21:16.160 --> 21:18.116
Hitch stiffened and thought, "Oh."

21:18.280 --> 21:20.271
Then he said,
"You know, of course, it's real.”

21:20.440 --> 21:24.433
And she said, "Oh, | know it's real, but
it's so beautiful it could be a painting.”

21:24.599 --> 21:27.796
And so it was a compliment
to Al's extraordinary painting skills

21:27.959 --> 21:30.757
that it fooled everybody
but was still bigger than life.

21:30.959 --> 21:34.998
We would run in the projection room
silent movies,

21:35.159 --> 21:38.515
quite a few of the classic silent movies.

21:38.680 --> 21:40.671
And Mr Hitchcock always told me

21:40.839 --> 21:44.036
that if you could follow
a movie without any words

21:44.200 --> 21:48.193
and you knew what was happening
and you got the emotion

21:48.359 --> 21:51.078
and the feeling and the suspense,

21:51.239 --> 21:53.628
you're making a great movie.

21:53.799 --> 21:55.790
So, a couple of times,

21:55.959 --> 21:58.951
we wouldn't run sound on sound movies.

21:59.120 --> 22:02.874
And then he'd bring out where
the audience would be lost

22:03.039 --> 22:06.634
or where he felt something
should have happened there

22:06.799 --> 22:09.313
to tell the audience
what was happening.

22:09.479 --> 22:11.834
In Hitchcock films,

22:12.000 --> 22:14.992
he took the audience down this road
with a camera.

22:15.160 --> 22:18.197
The dialogue was there,
but you followed that camera

22:18.359 --> 22:22.352
and that was his great, | think,
genius of making suspense movies.

22:24.599 --> 22:28.831
(Hunter) We searched for the turning
point where it would get ominous.

22:28.999 --> 22:30.398
We recognised immediately

22:30.559 --> 22:35.269
that the audience wasn't going to sit
for two hours waiting for a bird attack.

22:35.440 --> 22:39.718
So we very carefully measured out
the lengths between the bird attacks

22:39.879 --> 22:44.395
so that the audience would sit there.
We'd throw them a crumb, so to speak.

22:44.560 --> 22:48.951
So the first one was when
the gull hits Melanie in the rowboat.

22:49.119 --> 22:52.077
{Hedren) Hitch always felt
that it was very important

22:52.239 --> 22:55.470
for close-ups to be done
under controlled lighting.

22:55.639 --> 23:00.076
He wanted almost all of the close-ups
to be done at the studio, Universal

23:00.240 --> 23:02.549
So they had this elaborate setup.

23:02.719 --> 23:05.597
Up in the rafters, they had a wire

23:05.760 --> 23:08.752
that went from the rafters down to...

23:08.920 --> 23:10.911
almost over my head.

23:11.079 --> 23:15.675
And then they had a fake seagull
which was on top of the rafters.

23:15.839 --> 23:18.831
Now. OK. So then we have a prop man,

23:18.999 --> 23:21.797
and he has a tube and a plunger.

23:21.959 --> 23:25.110
And attached to that was the fake blood.

23:25.279 --> 23:28.237
So they put the tube up through my hair,

23:28.399 --> 23:31.391
and then Virginia Darcy, my hair dresser,

23:31.560 --> 23:36.236
did the French roll and the whole thing,
and she hairsprayed my hair.

23:36.399 --> 23:39.948
It was almost like a wig,
| mean, a real solid helmet,

23:40.119 --> 23:43.714
except for one little lock
of hair that was loose.

23:43.879 --> 23:46.234
They let the bird go down the wire,

23:46.399 --> 23:50.472
and Bobby Boone, who was
the prop man, had the plunger ready,

23:50.640 --> 23:53.108
and he watched the bird coming down,

23:53.279 --> 23:56.316
and when it got to the right place,
he did the plunger,

23:56.479 --> 24:00.916
and the bird went over and the hair
goes forward with the blast of air.

24:01.079 --> 24:03.673
It was incredible. Absolutely incredible.

24:03.839 --> 24:07.195
That's the damnedest thing | ever saw.
It seemed to swoop at you deliberately.

24:07.359 --> 24:09.190
Oh, you're bleeding too.
Let's take care of that.

24:09.360 --> 24:12.591
{Man) It's a movie about the dangers of
complacency, | think is what he said.

24:12.759 --> 24:15.227
We all take things for granted,
and we take birds for granted.

24:15.399 --> 24:19.187
What if they suddenly turned, you
know? This is what would happen.

24:19.639 --> 24:24.508
That's a theme that runs through
a lot of Hitchcock's pictures -

24:24.679 --> 24:28.877
that people take things for granted,
go through their life unthinkingly.

24:29.040 --> 24:31.952
And then something happens
and they have to think.

24:32.120 --> 24:36.796
{Man) The birds represent the eruption
of chaos, of unpredictability,

24:37.079 --> 24:41.869
and which can be taken to be
everything that we don't understand

24:42.040 --> 24:44.429
and can't control about our world,

24:44.599 --> 24:48.433
not only the physical world
but also the world inside us.

24:48.599 --> 24:53.548
Underneath all the protective coverings
that we use to get through life

24:53.719 --> 24:56.870
and which, at the same time,
seal us off from other people.

24:57.039 --> 25:00.793
What would have happened if the seagull
had not attacked Melanie at that time?

25:00.959 --> 25:03.234
It seems very unlikely at that point

25:03.400 --> 25:08.190
that her relationship with Mitch would
have developed beyond what it is,

25:08.359 --> 25:13.797
a sort of mutual... hostility,
mutual provocation, all the time.

25:13.959 --> 25:16.996
Each of them wants to
provoke the other.

25:17.160 --> 25:21.517
- What are you doing up here?
- Didn't you see the lovebirds?

25:21.679 --> 25:24.512
You mean you came all this way
to bring me those birds?

25:24.679 --> 25:28.592
{Bogdanovich) It's the bird
that destroys all that, the gull attack.

25:28.759 --> 25:31.876
And that happens progressively
all the way through the film.

25:32.040 --> 25:35.316
Mother,
I'd like you to meet Melanie Daniels.

25:35.479 --> 25:36.753
How do you do?

25:38.040 --> 25:40.429
How do you do, Miss Daniels?

25:42.200 --> 25:45.158
{O'Connell} My father cast a wonderful
person like Jessica Tandy,

25:45.320 --> 25:47.311
who was one of his favourite actresses.

25:47.479 --> 25:50.676
He had, of course, used her husband,
Hume Cronin, in many of his movies.

25:50.839 --> 25:53.637
Working with Jessica Tandy was...

25:54.280 --> 25:56.271
just celestial.

25:56.440 --> 25:58.590
| mean, a consummate actress.

25:58.759 --> 26:04.197
You know, just watching her working
was just thrilling. Absolutely thrilling.

26:04.359 --> 26:08.147
And what a beautiful person she was,
not just physically

26:08.320 --> 26:11.710
but just, you know,
really considerate and fun.

26:11.880 --> 26:14.713
{Rod Taylor)
Jessica Tandy was magnificent.

26:14.880 --> 26:19.556
She was such a lovely, lovely woman.
Jessica and | got on beautifully.

26:19.719 --> 26:22.233
She was the ultimate wonderful pro.

26:22.400 --> 26:25.756
So gentle and sweet and wonderful
and very, very talented.

26:26.879 --> 26:28.710
Hi.

26:29.920 --> 26:31.717


26:32.560 --> 26:34.755
- Miss Daniels?
- Yes?

26:35.880 --> 26:39.668
Oh, they're beautiful!
They're just what | wanted!

26:39.839 --> 26:44.629
(Woman) | had actually done a couple
of those Alfred Hitchcock shows,

26:44.800 --> 26:47.917
his weekly series,
but | had never met the man.

26:48.079 --> 26:51.071
And he had seen me, | believe,
in The Children's Hour.

26:51.240 --> 26:53.595
So he requested meeting me,
so | went over,

26:53.760 --> 26:56.752
and | must have been
in his office for at least an hour.

26:57.320 --> 27:02.155
He found out that | was born in Bristol,
England, and he goes, "Oh, yes.”

27:02.319 --> 27:05.072
"That's where
the best wine cellars are.”

27:05.240 --> 27:08.471
So he proceeded to tell me
the best wines to buy

27:08.639 --> 27:13.076
and what the best wine cellar was
and distributor and all of this.

27:13.239 --> 27:15.912
And he told me how to cook a steak.

27:16.079 --> 27:20.391
And he says, "You have to
pull it out before it is fully cooked

27:20.559 --> 27:22.948
because it will continue to cook.”

27:23.120 --> 27:26.749
These things, of course,
I've applied in later years,

27:26.919 --> 27:30.355
but at the time, | was 11... or 12.
So | had no idea.

27:30.519 --> 27:33.317
| thought, "What odd conversation.”

27:33.479 --> 27:36.357
But he was very nice to me.
He was great.

27:37.279 --> 27:39.270
- Miss Hayworth?
- Yes.

27:39.440 --> 27:41.431
I'm Melanie Daniels.

27:41.599 --> 27:44.636
(Hunter)
One of the ideas | brought to Hitch

27:44.800 --> 27:47.030
was a schoolteacher coming to a town

27:47.200 --> 27:51.239
and bird attacks start when she comes
to the town to teach there.

27:51.400 --> 27:55.109
And the provincials think
she must have something to do with it.

27:55.279 --> 27:57.839
There's an echo of that
in the scene in the Tides Restaurant.

27:57.999 --> 28:00.069
From the mother:
"You're responsible for this.”

28:00.240 --> 28:02.470
"They tell me this didn't
happen before you got here.”

28:02.640 --> 28:06.633
And the schoolteacher survived
as Annie Hayworth.

28:06.799 --> 28:11.077
Did, uh... you want to see Cathy
about something?

28:11.839 --> 28:13.830
Well, not exactly.

28:15.520 --> 28:17.476


28:18.160 --> 28:20.879
Are you a friend of Mitch's?

28:21.040 --> 28:23.031
Suzanne, she decided that -

28:23.200 --> 28:26.670
| don't know whether it was because
she wanted to play Tippi's part or not,

28:26.839 --> 28:28.830
because her character was always...

28:28.999 --> 28:33.197
That little bit of jealousy went on
because she was in love with Mitch.

28:33.359 --> 28:35.475
So she borrowed a blonde wig

28:35.639 --> 28:40.155
and she came out with a blonde wig on
and she says, "Can't | do the role?”

28:40.320 --> 28:43.357
She came out and played
the whole day like this,

28:43.520 --> 28:46.512
with this blonde wig on.
She was very fun.

28:46.680 --> 28:50.036
She was a good spirit
and a good sense of gung ho.

28:50.200 --> 28:52.191
She's very funny.

28:52.359 --> 28:56.796
I had, which | hadn't expected,
a surprise birthday party.

28:56.959 --> 29:00.634
I had my 13th birthday
while doing The Birds.

29:00.800 --> 29:04.395
All of a sudden,
here was this enormous cake

29:04.560 --> 29:08.394
and everybody sang
and the whole crew stopped

29:08.559 --> 29:13.758
and Jessica gave me a wonderful
sweater, which | still have someplace.

29:13.920 --> 29:16.195
Tippi gave me lovebirds.

29:16.359 --> 29:19.795
And Hitchcock
took out a piece... a board,

29:19.959 --> 29:21.950
and a crayon and wrote:

29:26.800 --> 29:30.998
And then he proceeded to draw
his face and signed his name.

29:31.159 --> 29:33.229
And he handed that to me.

29:33.399 --> 29:35.390
| mean, that's great.

29:35.560 --> 29:39.712
And 1 still have it, and | had it framed,
and so that was my present from him.

29:42.359 --> 29:43.587
(Girl) Look! Look!

29:43.759 --> 29:46.796
- Hey! No touching allowed.
- (Squawks)

29:47.920 --> 29:50.275
- Ohl
- (Girl Shrieking)

29:50.439 --> 29:54.318
(O'Connell) I think that was
one of the most fascinating movies

29:54.480 --> 29:56.471
to go on the set of,

29:56.639 --> 29:59.949
because they had fake birds,

30:00.119 --> 30:04.317
they had real birds,
they had trained birds.

30:04.479 --> 30:07.039
The funniest people
were the bird wranglers

30:07.200 --> 30:09.191
because they were bad-tempered.

30:09.359 --> 30:12.351
They were great guys and
| had drinks with them in the evening,

30:12.519 --> 30:14.669
but you look after a bunch of seagulls

30:14.839 --> 30:18.548
and ravens and crows and pigeons
and God knows what else,

30:18.719 --> 30:20.710
and you get very nervous.

30:21.399 --> 30:25.915
But Ray Berwick -
he was the head bird wrangler

30:26.079 --> 30:29.833
and he was a wonderful guy.
He indeed had patience.

30:30.000 --> 30:33.959
He wasn't as bad tempered as his
buddies. He knew his birds backwards.

30:34.119 --> 30:36.633
He was like a great old cowboy
with horses, you know.

30:36.799 --> 30:40.587
He knew these silly-looking birds,
and he understood them and liked them.

30:40.759 --> 30:44.149
Working with the birds
was very interesting.

30:44.320 --> 30:46.959
| love all animals. | always have.

30:47.119 --> 30:51.032
And it was very exciting for me
to work with the birds.

30:51.200 --> 30:54.192
Ray Berwick, who was the bird trainer,

30:54.359 --> 30:56.350
taught flocks of birds.

30:56.520 --> 31:00.149
He taught them six at a time.
He taught them individually.

31:00.320 --> 31:04.279
The ones that were taught individually
basically could never be released

31:04.440 --> 31:06.715
because they were taught
to do very bad things.

31:06.879 --> 31:09.837
Like, they'd be taught
to divebomb somebody

31:09.999 --> 31:13.036
or peck them or, you know,
really go after people.

31:13.200 --> 31:17.318
All these tricks were pretty horrifying
and pretty exasperating.

31:17.480 --> 31:21.439
That's why these wranglers just were
going through hell as well as us.

31:21.599 --> 31:25.148
We all had our trips to the
nurses' station to get our tetanus shot.

31:25.320 --> 31:26.958
(Gull Screeching)

31:27.119 --> 31:29.314
Help me get the children into the house!

31:29.479 --> 31:31.913
(Rod Taylor) With all these bird attacks,

31:32.079 --> 31:34.388
no computer tricks, nothing like that.

31:34.560 --> 31:37.154
These kids, they'd tie the birds
to the back of their collars

31:37.320 --> 31:40.357
and they'd be flapping and carrying on,
and it was quite terrifying, really.

31:40.519 --> 31:42.510
But how else could you do it?

31:42.680 --> 31:46.593
And there was no CGI
with birds coming into the lens.

31:46.759 --> 31:48.954
You put meat in the lens.

31:49.120 --> 31:53.432
Boyle) We realised that,
if we were working with seagulls,

31:53.599 --> 31:56.318
we could train them to go for food.

31:56.479 --> 31:58.515
They're greedy animals,

31:58.680 --> 32:00.830
and so you could put food

32:00.999 --> 32:04.753
just behind the camera,
or right on top of the camera,

32:04.920 --> 32:07.036
and they'd fly into the lens.

32:07.200 --> 32:09.316
{Screeching)

32:09.479 --> 32:12.755
{0'Connell) My mother and | were
visiting them up in Bodega Bay

32:12.919 --> 32:15.558
when they were shooting
the children's birthday party,

32:15.719 --> 32:19.394
and there was a trained gull
called Charlie who...

32:19.560 --> 32:23.633
They would wire their beaks
so that they wouldn't hurt anybody.

32:23.799 --> 32:25.915
He was on long wires,

32:26.079 --> 32:29.992
and his beak had been bound
with some sort of tape,

32:30.159 --> 32:32.354
and his claws,

32:32.519 --> 32:36.114
so that if he actually
did hit me or anything,

32:36.279 --> 32:41.034
because | think | had seed in my hair
so that he would dive down to me,

32:41.200 --> 32:43.191
then he wouldn't hurt.

32:43.359 --> 32:45.350
But the string broke

32:45.519 --> 32:48.079
and he started going out to the bay.

32:48.239 --> 32:50.628
There were very low tides
at Bodega Bay,

32:50.800 --> 32:53.394
and these sand flats stretched for miles.

32:53.560 --> 32:58.236
And it was nothing to see one of these
poor wranglers running after a seagull

32:58.399 --> 33:01.835
that was flopping along just
six feet ahead of him for miles.

33:01.999 --> 33:04.593
And they couldn't get
Charlie back in again.

33:04.759 --> 33:07.068
And poor Charlie, with the beak wired up.

33:07.240 --> 33:09.834
They're going, "Oh, this poor thing.
What's going to happen?”

33:10.000 --> 33:11.797
But they did. He did come in.

33:12.640 --> 33:14.631
{Squawking)

33:14.800 --> 33:18.588
Boyle) What we also had to be
always concerned about

33:18.760 --> 33:22.435
was the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

33:22.599 --> 33:24.590
The SPCA was on the set a lot.

33:24.759 --> 33:29.674
And the script girl actually started
to be a great protector of these birds.

33:29.839 --> 33:33.036
And they actually built
an aviary onto the set

33:33.200 --> 33:37.876
for birds that had been hurt or injured
and she would take care of them.

33:38.040 --> 33:41.828
- {Birds Chirping)
- {Girl} Just listen to those lovebirds.

33:41.999 --> 33:44.832
(O'Connell) When they did the scene

33:44.999 --> 33:48.036
where all the birds
come down the chimney,

33:48.200 --> 33:50.589
they had to net the whole set.

33:50.760 --> 33:55.197
{Rod Taylor) The inside of the house
was inside yet another canvas house.

33:55.359 --> 33:57.953
So that when
all these damn birds got out,

33:58.119 --> 34:01.748
which they would, of course,
the poor wranglers could catch them.

34:01.920 --> 34:04.593
And then the camera
would poke through a hole

34:04.759 --> 34:07.353
and they had crates
in the back of the chimney

34:07.519 --> 34:09.510
with these, like, pullout things.

34:09.679 --> 34:13.194
And then they would pull them out
and birds would swoop down.

34:13.360 --> 34:16.557
You know, we didn't really rehearse this.

34:16.719 --> 34:21.713
It was just because, using live animals,
we wanted to take it right away.

34:21.880 --> 34:24.269
So everything was lined up

34:24.440 --> 34:28.353
and Ray took the little box
of strawberry finches

34:28.520 --> 34:31.273
and let them go down the chimney,

34:31.439 --> 34:34.476
and we thought
they'd be flying around and...

34:34.800 --> 34:38.998
Well, they sat on the hearth and a few
of them jumped up on the coffee table

34:39.159 --> 34:42.674
and on the arms of the chairs,
and they weren't doing anything.

34:42.840 --> 34:45.274
We're going,
"Um, OK. What do we do now?"

34:45.439 --> 34:49.591
So we thought about it and all
the different things that we could do.

34:49.759 --> 34:53.388
Maybe using a fan would be good,
you know, and then they'd fly around.

34:53.560 --> 34:56.677
Well, so would our hair, you know?
So that wasn't going to work.

34:56.840 --> 34:59.035
And our clothes would fly and everything.

34:59.199 --> 35:03.477
So we finally decided that we would
do the scene without the birds.

35:03.639 --> 35:06.676
So all of us are reacting
to birds that aren't there.

35:06.840 --> 35:10.628
And then the film, once it was edited,
was sent over to Disney.

35:10.800 --> 35:13.553
That's where the sodium came in.

35:13.720 --> 35:17.076
Because we could have travelling mattes

35:17.239 --> 35:20.470
of these sparrows, linnets, small birds.

35:20.639 --> 35:25.235
They were shot against sodium
to print into the final take.

35:26.280 --> 35:28.271
(Birds Screeching}

35:29.199 --> 35:31.394
Cover your faces! Cover your eyes!

35:31.559 --> 35:35.757
(Boyle) I must say,
we tried to use mechanical birds,

35:35.919 --> 35:37.910
and we did use a few,

35:38.079 --> 35:42.277
but mechanical birds that moved
didn't work out too well.

35:42.439 --> 35:44.873
So we finally decided
to work with crows.

35:45.039 --> 35:49.555
The reason we started with crows
is, obviously, they had an intelligence

35:49.720 --> 35:52.996
that most birds don't have.
You could train a crow,

35:53.159 --> 35:57.471
but because they were so intelligent,
they were also hard to capture.

35:57.639 --> 36:01.678
But Ray Berwick... | think Ray
had done Birdman of Alcatraz,

36:01.839 --> 36:04.034
which is only a couple of birds.

36:04.199 --> 36:07.157
And here we were
dealing with thousands.

36:07.319 --> 36:10.470
So we finally had to go with eggs -

36:10.639 --> 36:12.630
growing crows.

36:12.999 --> 36:16.594
That didn't take as long as it sounds,
because they were very young.

36:16.760 --> 36:20.469
| think there are still some of
the original crows flying around here.

36:20.639 --> 36:22.630
They live a long time.

36:22.800 --> 36:25.837
Ray Berwick, who was the main handler,

36:26.000 --> 36:30.152
he had a crow - or a raven,
| believe he was - named Buddy.

36:30.320 --> 36:34.393
And Buddy was trained,
so he was like the leader of the pack.

36:34.559 --> 36:38.757
You could tell him when to peck
your hand and do things like that.

36:38.919 --> 36:43.435
{Hedren) There was one named Buddy,
a very beautiful raven,

36:43.600 --> 36:45.750
who | became friends with.

36:45.919 --> 36:49.309
In fact, he was so nice,
he couldn't even be in the movie.

36:49.479 --> 36:53.870
He was so sweet. He'd come hopping
into my dressing room on the set,

36:54.039 --> 36:56.633
and he'd hop up
on my dressing table, and...

36:56.800 --> 37:01.078
He was just fun. It was just...
They're so smart. They're so smart.

37:01.239 --> 37:03.230
There was another one

37:03.399 --> 37:06.391
that particularly had a reaction
to Rod Taylor.

37:06.559 --> 37:08.231
(Squawk)

37:08.999 --> 37:12.071
And he want after Rod continuously.

37:13.480 --> 37:15.675
It was kind of funny, actually.

37:15.839 --> 37:17.477
This one raven, Archie...

37:17.639 --> 37:22.155
There's a still of me looking terrified
with a bandage on or something,

37:22.320 --> 37:26.632
and I'm looking at this bird.
That's real terror. I hated that bird!

37:26.800 --> 37:30.475
That bird, every morning
if we were on the set together,

37:30.639 --> 37:33.597
would come over and go
"Ungg!” and bite me.

37:33.759 --> 37:35.954
And | hated him, and he hated me.

37:36.120 --> 37:38.509
Even when we
came back to the studio -

37:38.679 --> 37:42.513
and | think that shot on the
veranda was taken in the studio -

37:42.679 --> 37:45.557
I'd walk in and say,
"Is Archie working today?”

37:45.719 --> 37:49.758
And they'd say, "I don't think so, Rod.
| think we're working with seagulls.”

37:49.919 --> 37:53.878
And out of the rafters would come
Archie. (Makes Swooping Sound}

37:54.040 --> 37:56.838
And, you know, hated me
and would lie in wait for me.

37:56.999 --> 37:58.990
And I'm sure that bird's still alive.

38:01.320 --> 38:06.075
(Hunter) There was a scene where,
the way the screenplay was written,

38:06.240 --> 38:09.391
Melanie wakes up in the morning
and we hear Lydia's voice

38:09.559 --> 38:12.153
saying, ‘Mitch, I'm going to
ride over to the Fawcett farm,

38:12.320 --> 38:14.675
see what's happening
with the chickens.” Whatever.

38:14.840 --> 38:17.832
He's doing something in the backyard.
We don't know what.

38:17.999 --> 38:19.990
He's raking up dead birds.

38:20.159 --> 38:22.593
Lydia goes off to the Fawcett farm

38:22.759 --> 38:26.434
and there's a scene that's in the script
that | understand Hitch shot

38:26.600 --> 38:28.591
that is not in the movie.

38:28.759 --> 38:33.833
It's a comic scene in keeping with
their relationship throughout the film.

38:34.000 --> 38:37.310
They start talking about,
"How did this all start?”

38:37.479 --> 38:40.277
And some bird in the hill,
some rebel in the hill

38:40.439 --> 38:42.907
is gathering other birds around him.

38:43.079 --> 38:45.752
"You have nothing to lose
but your feathers.”

38:45.919 --> 38:48.911
“Let's rise up and become supreme,”
and all that.

38:49.080 --> 38:52.789
And they're laughing, and she says,

38:52.960 --> 38:57.033
‘But those birds
came down the chimney in rage.”

38:57.199 --> 38:59.793
"They wanted us dead.”

38:59.960 --> 39:05.512
And she looks at him and she says,
"I'm frightened,” and he holds her.

39:05.800 --> 39:07.472
And then she says,

39:07.639 --> 39:10.312
"Why did you have to walk
into that damned pet shop?”

39:10.480 --> 39:12.471
And kisses him.

39:14.519 --> 39:19.115
{Bogdanovich) I think the scene
where Lydia discovers the body

39:19.279 --> 39:21.270
is typical Hitchcock

39:21.439 --> 39:25.751
in the sense that he shows you
from a distance what's happening,

39:25.919 --> 39:28.911
and then, when it gets
to the key moment, he cuts in

39:29.079 --> 39:33.595
and he does it in an unusual way, with
kind of a triple cut - bop, bop, bop -

39:33.760 --> 39:37.753
Where it gets closer each time,
like somebody doing a triple take.

39:44.080 --> 39:46.150
| asked him about it. He said,

39:46.320 --> 39:49.790
"Well, that's the way you might see it:
look - look - look.”

39:49.959 --> 39:53.793
Kind of unusual,
subjective use of the camera.

39:56.159 --> 40:00.994
Dan Fawcett was played by a stunt
man and the makeup was realised

40:01.159 --> 40:06.074
with blackening out the eye sockets
and a buildup above the cheekbones,

40:06.239 --> 40:09.595
a wax build up to give it
a look of being deep set.

40:06.239 --> 40:08.434
(Michelson) That was also a matte shot.

40:12.120 --> 40:16.033
You won't believe this, but
the two eyes were painted as a matte.

40:16.199 --> 40:19.350
The makeup man would put black
where the eye was,

40:19.519 --> 40:21.749
and then Albert would get the print

40:21.919 --> 40:25.195
and the black part is not processed,
is not developed.

40:25.359 --> 40:29.034
And he would paint whatever
he had to paint for the eyes -

40:29.199 --> 40:32.748
leave holes or whatever it is -
painted them on glass

40:32.919 --> 40:36.514
and then put that together,
and that would be the result.

40:38.360 --> 40:42.399
(Hedren) Hitch's movies
are always very suspenseful.

40:42.560 --> 40:46.189
And one of the ways
that they are so successful

40:46.360 --> 40:48.954
is that Hitch lets the viewer in

40:49.119 --> 40:52.395
on more than the people
in the script know.

40:52.560 --> 40:55.358
As an example, at the schoolhouse,

40:55.519 --> 40:59.228
when Melanie comes
to take Cathy out of school,

40:59.399 --> 41:01.674
she sits down on the bench

41:01.840 --> 41:05.389
and you see the one bird
land on the jungle gym.

41:05.560 --> 41:09.030
And then it cuts back
to Melanie Daniels sitting on the bench,

41:09.200 --> 41:11.794
nervous, and she starts smoking
- | don't smoke anymore -

41:11.960 --> 41:14.633
and then you see two more birds.

41:15.839 --> 41:17.636
(Boyle) And then he said,

41:17.800 --> 41:21.839
‘Now, the audience is aware that birds
are coming into the schoolyard,

41:21.999 --> 41:26.277
and the audience is also aware
that we're getting closer to her.”

41:26.439 --> 41:30.432
He said, "When we get to,
finally, a big head close shot,

41:30.600 --> 41:35.230
we'll hold on it until the audience
can't stand it any more.”

41:36.319 --> 41:38.913
(Children Singing, Faint)

42:03.800 --> 42:07.793
{Hedren) And then you cut back again,
and it's covered with birds.

42:07.959 --> 42:11.315
The audience just gasps.
You know, it's wonderful.

42:11.479 --> 42:14.869
The crows are gathering
behind her on the jungle gym,

42:15.039 --> 42:17.507
and | have the kids singing a song.

42:17.679 --> 42:22.116
And | asked my kids, what's a...
they were about that school age -

42:22.279 --> 42:25.555
and | said, "What's a song
that you sing in school?”

42:25.720 --> 42:28.314
and they gave me "Ristle-tee Rostle-tee".

42:28.479 --> 42:30.947
| looked it up and it was public domain.

42:31.120 --> 42:34.476
You know, it's an old folk tune
that goes back forever.

42:34.639 --> 42:39.110
And | used it. And | gave them 4 or 5
stanzas, whatever, of the actual song.

42:39.279 --> 42:43.591
And | got a call, | think it was from
Peggy Robertson, Hitch's assistant,

42:43.760 --> 42:46.513
and she said,
"We need more lyrics for the song.”

42:46.679 --> 42:50.991
I said, "Why?" She said, It won't
cover the scene on the jungle gym.”

42:51.159 --> 42:53.150
So | wrote...

42:53.319 --> 42:55.913
| don't know how many more stanzas -

42:56.080 --> 43:00.710
enough to cover the whole bird
kingdom arriving on that jungle gym.

43:00.880 --> 43:03.394
And they used whatever they needed,

43:03.560 --> 43:07.758
and the irony of it is that | still
get royalties from ASCAP.

43:07.919 --> 43:11.673
| had to join the American Society
of Composers and...

43:11.840 --> 43:15.150
- whatever it's called -
Publishers, ASCAP,

43:15.320 --> 43:18.790
in order to allow me
to use the lyrics in the film.

43:18.959 --> 43:22.508
And | still get royalties
from ASCAP on The Birds

43:22.679 --> 43:25.477
for the lyrics | wrote for that scene.

43:25.639 --> 43:27.630
(Wings Flapping}

43:30.479 --> 43:32.470
(Birds Screeching}

43:36.959 --> 43:40.076
{Hedren) There weren't, you know,
any birds in the sky.

43:40.239 --> 43:44.676
We again were running and fighting off
birds that weren't there.

43:44.840 --> 43:47.832
So when we got back
into the set at Universal,

43:47.999 --> 43:49.990
a treadmill was brought in

43:50.159 --> 43:53.754
and the kids and | ran on this treadmill.
Boy, we had a workout!

43:53.919 --> 43:57.116
Generally speaking,
a lot of the close shots

43:57.279 --> 44:01.636
| believe were shot on the stage,
in front of the sodium screen.

44:01.800 --> 44:03.791
(Screaming)

44:04.399 --> 44:08.915
Boyle) What we had, we had
the actual movement down the hill.

44:09.080 --> 44:11.071
That was the background.

44:11.239 --> 44:13.389
We had several shots:
a side shot, a back shot.

44:13.560 --> 44:18.509
You know, because you need a lot
of footage with these kinds of scenes,

44:18.679 --> 44:22.797
so that the editing could be fast
and it could be exciting.

44:22.960 --> 44:25.952
(Boyle)
That was carefully choreographed.

44:26.120 --> 44:28.953
That was illustrated
almost frame by frame.

44:29.120 --> 44:31.998
Because all of these...
You couldn't wing it.

44:32.159 --> 44:35.151
You had to know what you were
doing before you started.

44:35.320 --> 44:37.754
{Hedren) And you know,
that's dangerous, to be on a treadmill.

44:37.919 --> 44:39.910
1 fater did that on a horse in Marnie.

44:40.080 --> 44:42.310
But the treadmills can be very dangerous.

44:42.480 --> 44:45.472
Because if anybody falls,
it could be very serious.

44:45.639 --> 44:48.358
(Cartwright) They had these bird puppets

44:48.519 --> 44:50.510
that would swoop down on us.

44:50.679 --> 44:52.795
And when we were on the treadmill,

44:52.960 --> 44:56.475
you were desperate
to stay in the front of the pack.

44:56.639 --> 45:00.632
Because if you were the one to
go down, you were like a bowling pin.

45:00.800 --> 45:03.439
And you're just... Vroom! You were off!

45:03.599 --> 45:06.671
And they had huge mats
set up on the other end.

45:06.840 --> 45:10.594
And they kept getting faster and
faster with this treadmill.

45:10.759 --> 45:12.954
We were running like little maniacs.

45:13.120 --> 45:15.588
| mean, down. Everybody'd be wiped out.

45:16.600 --> 45:18.636
(Screeching)

45:19.360 --> 45:21.920
Cathy! Cathy!

45:23.239 --> 45:26.595
(Boyle)
And then the birds were printed in.

45:26.759 --> 45:29.956
And in some cases,
it was not too difficult

45:30.120 --> 45:33.908
because those were,
for the most part, black crows.

45:36.679 --> 45:40.638
(Hunter) Hitch would say,
"Do you think we should explain it?”

45:40.800 --> 45:43.997
And we decided
that it would be science fiction

45:44.159 --> 45:47.231
if we explained
why the birds were attacking,

45:47.399 --> 45:50.755
and that it would have
a greater meaning if we never knew,

45:50.920 --> 45:53.309
if it were kind of this unsettling thing

45:53.479 --> 45:56.789
that these creatures we see
in the park every minute

45:56.959 --> 45:59.348
can suddenly come at our heads,
you know?

45:59.520 --> 46:03.911
If we're feeding them, they can
suddenly come at us with no reason.

46:04.080 --> 46:06.594
| got a call from Hitch saying,

46:06.759 --> 46:11.116
"| think we need a scene where
we don't explain what's happening,

46:11.279 --> 46:16.399
but where the people involved are
trying to understand what's happening,

46:16.559 --> 46:19.756
so that we can proffer
different things here.”

46:19.919 --> 46:22.638
And this was the spur
for the scene in the Tides Restaurant,

46:22.799 --> 46:25.552
which | thought was
one of the better scenes in the movie.

46:25.720 --> 46:29.156
Are the birds going to eat us, Mommy?

46:29.320 --> 46:32.039
Maybe we're all getting
a little carried away by this.

46:32.199 --> 46:34.793
Admittedly, a few birds did act strange,
but that's no reason -

46:34.960 --> 46:37.758
| keep telling you, this isn't a few birds.

46:37.919 --> 46:39.955
These are gulls, crows, swifts -

46:40.120 --> 46:44.875
| have never known birds
of different species to flock together.

46:45.040 --> 46:48.669
The concept is unimaginable. If that
happened, we wouldn't have a chance.

46:48.840 --> 46:52.549
{Hedren) One of the most interesting
scenes, | think, that we did

46:52.720 --> 46:54.711
was in the Tides Restaurant

46:54.880 --> 46:57.872
and working with Ethel Griffies,
who was in her 80s.

46:58.040 --> 47:02.511
And yet she had all of these
ornithological words

47:02.680 --> 47:06.150
that she had to perform.

47:06.919 --> 47:10.389
And it was stunning to hear her do this.

47:10.559 --> 47:15.633
The crow is Corvus brachyrhynchos, and
the blackbird is Euphagus cyanocephalos.

47:15.760 --> 47:16.988
Thank you.

47:17.159 --> 47:19.719
And then she added
that wonderful little bit

47:19.880 --> 47:22.189
where she starts to light a cigarette.

47:22.360 --> 47:24.476
And she's holding the match

47:24.639 --> 47:28.473
and she starts spouting off
all of these bird names.

47:28.639 --> 47:31.836
And you think,
"Oh! She's going to burn her fingers!”

47:31.999 --> 47:35.787
Which is, of course,
exactly what she wanted.

47:35.959 --> 47:39.315
But she was incredible to work with.

47:39.639 --> 47:42.028
(Hunter) | went out there to Universal

47:42.199 --> 47:45.794
and was on the set
the day they were shooting the exterior

47:45.960 --> 47:49.635
for the bird attack
on the man at the gas station.

47:49.800 --> 47:51.756
- Look!
- (Bird Squawks)

47:51.919 --> 47:53.716
(Squawks)

47:53.880 --> 47:57.077
They had a guy wire
that the fake bird would be on

47:57.239 --> 47:59.389
to hit him on the head and move on.

47:59.560 --> 48:02.199
And they had all the pyrotechnics set

48:02.360 --> 48:04.828
for the gas to get on fire and all that.

48:05.120 --> 48:09.875
{Hedren) George Tomasini was
Hitch's editor on a number of films.

48:10.040 --> 48:12.429
And | was able to watch
a lot of the editing.

48:12.600 --> 48:16.639
Of course, that in itself
is just such a fantastic part of the film.

48:16.800 --> 48:19.553
| mean, it really is everything. Everything.

48:22.999 --> 48:28.198
George would assemble the piece to
what he thought it should be, or close,

48:28.360 --> 48:31.636
and then Hitch would come in
and do the final editing.

48:31.799 --> 48:34.267
And he would edit almost...
He would say,

48:34.439 --> 48:38.990
"Cut one frame out of here.
Cut three frames out of this scene.”

48:39.159 --> 48:42.196
"Cut it at the beginning, three frames.”

48:42.360 --> 48:44.351
It was technically...

48:44.520 --> 48:46.636
He was such a perfectionist.

48:49.280 --> 48:50.952
Look at the gas!
That man's lighting a cigar!

48:51.119 --> 48:54.748
{Hedren) Probably one of
the most indicative scenes

48:54.920 --> 48:58.071
about George Tomasini's
and Hitch's editing

48:58.240 --> 49:02.950
was when the man throws the match
down and everybody screams at him.

49:03.120 --> 49:05.554
And the way they filmed me watching it

49:05.720 --> 49:10.350
was in separate, almost like still
photographs, the way they edited it.

49:10.520 --> 49:12.909
It was incredibly effective.

49:15.120 --> 49:17.315
(Boyle) Hitchcock said,

49:17.479 --> 49:21.631
"What we need is a shot which shows
everything all in one shot,

49:21.799 --> 49:24.154
so that we reorient the audience.”

49:24.320 --> 49:26.959
He was always thinking of the audience.

49:27.120 --> 49:30.078
So what we had to do now
was to get a high shot.

49:27.120 --> 49:30.351
Some people call it
the birds’ point-of-view,

49:33.639 --> 49:37.951
but 1 think Hitchcock was right:
he called it God's point-of-view,

49:38.120 --> 49:40.509
because it was an objective shot,

49:40.679 --> 49:44.831
so objective that it wouldn't be
anybody's point-of-view.

49:44.999 --> 49:49.948
The perspective of the gas station shot
was laid out by Harold Michelson,

49:50.119 --> 49:54.112
who was a master of architectural
and camera perspective,

49:54.280 --> 49:56.271
geometric perspective.

49:56.440 --> 49:58.954
So the whole shot was
laid out very carefully

49:59.120 --> 50:01.759
for the camera position
that was available.

50:01.920 --> 50:06.072
We were on the top of the mountain,

50:06.240 --> 50:10.313
where the Universal theme park is now.

50:10.480 --> 50:13.631
We were up there, and we had set up

50:13.800 --> 50:17.873
a big glass plate.

50:18.039 --> 50:22.191
Albert Whitlock was the matte artist
who was in charge of this.

50:22.359 --> 50:24.953
And we shot
from the top of this mountain

50:25.120 --> 50:29.193
down towards the parking lot
and we marked off with white paint

50:29.360 --> 50:32.796
areas where people could run,
where firemen could run.

50:32.960 --> 50:36.635
And he proceeded to paint on the glass
the black areas,

50:36.800 --> 50:40.475
so all the stuff that went on
with the fire and everything

50:40.640 --> 50:42.835
we had to keep in certain areas.

50:42.999 --> 50:45.513
And he painted in the whole town.

50:45.680 --> 50:49.673
(Dutton) You have to also realise
that, with a matte painting,

50:49.840 --> 50:52.912
Al's technique was done
on original negative.

50:53.079 --> 50:56.708
That means that the original negative
is preserved to the very end.

50:56.880 --> 50:59.792
It's not developed.
So it's film that's never developed.

50:59.959 --> 51:02.075
So you only have
one chance to make it right.

51:02.239 --> 51:06.710
Not like you can go back and do it over
again like we do today in the computer.

51:06.880 --> 51:08.871
You have one chance. Two, sometimes.

51:09.040 --> 51:12.794
Because we'd have two or three
takes in reserve in the freezer.

51:12.959 --> 51:16.235
We'd take the film out,
put it back into a camera,

51:16.399 --> 51:19.948
and add an additional exposure,
which was a painting.

51:20.119 --> 51:23.429
And if something went wrong,
that was it.

51:23.999 --> 51:27.628
(Boyle) But if we were going
to shoot a high shot down,

51:27.799 --> 51:30.233
we had to get birds underneath us.

51:30.399 --> 51:35.075
Dutton) They went to Anacapa Island
to shoot the seagull part.

51:35.239 --> 51:39.027
And so the camera was set up
on the cliff, looking down at the water.

51:39.200 --> 51:41.191
And they would chum the birds.

51:41.360 --> 51:44.079
Chum means you would throw food out
for the seagulls.

51:44.239 --> 51:46.673
And the seagulls
would dive towards the food

51:46.839 --> 51:49.433
and that's how he got
the movement of the birds

51:49.600 --> 51:51.989
seemingly flying down to the gas station.

51:52.159 --> 51:55.993
So we get a down shot on birds,
and then rotoscope,

51:56.159 --> 51:59.071
that is, make a hand-painted matte,

51:59.239 --> 52:03.278
for all these birds
for each frame that they're in.

52:03.520 --> 52:06.273
{Bill Taylor)
Rotoscoping is a method of tracing

52:06.440 --> 52:11.070
the outline of an object that you want
to isolate from its background.

52:11.239 --> 52:14.788
(Bill Taylor) The rotoscope person
was Millie Weinbrenner.

52:14.959 --> 52:19.430
And Millie, frame-for-frame, did mattes
and isolated those seagulls.

52:20.199 --> 52:22.190
(Squawking}

52:24.159 --> 52:28.152
(Hedren) The birds had
just done a massive attack.

52:28.320 --> 52:31.869
Horses were running
and cars were crashing

52:32.039 --> 52:34.428
and | was in the phone booth.

52:35.760 --> 52:39.594
And that's another one where we went
into the sound stage to do this scene.

52:39.759 --> 52:43.274
The phone booth, again,
is a travelling matte foreground.

52:43.440 --> 52:47.718
Sometimes, outside the windows
of the phone booth, you see live action

52:47.880 --> 52:50.917
and the other angle
is a full painting by Al Whitlock

52:51.079 --> 52:55.869
that has no action built into it, per se.
It was just designed as a background.

52:56.039 --> 52:59.509
{Hedren) They had, supposedly,
shatterproof glass in there.

52:59.680 --> 53:03.195
And the seagull comes
and hits the phone booth.

53:03.440 --> 53:07.274
They had the seagull on the wire,
and it was a fake bird, of course.

53:07.439 --> 53:09.634
And the bird comes down, hits the glass,

53:09.799 --> 53:12.393
and the glass shattered
and got all over my face.

53:12.560 --> 53:14.551
It was pretty scary.

53:14.720 --> 53:19.111
And we spent the afternoon
taking little tiny bits of glass

53:19.280 --> 53:21.510
away from my skin.

53:21.880 --> 53:24.030
(Birds Squawking}

53:24.200 --> 53:29.593
But after that, Rod Taylor comes and
gets me and we go into the restaurant.

53:29.760 --> 53:31.318
We don't even see anybody.

53:31.479 --> 53:35.518
And then we look around
and there they are, all huddled,

53:35.680 --> 53:38.752
you know, almost into the kitchen.
And silent.

53:38.919 --> 53:43.276
And one of the characters,
the mother of the two children,

53:43.440 --> 53:45.908
looks at me, and she's crazed.

53:46.080 --> 53:49.868
And she comes after me,
accusing me of being the cause of this.

53:50.039 --> 53:52.030
And she becomes hysterical.

53:52.200 --> 53:56.318
They said when you got here,
the whole thing started.

53:58.119 --> 54:02.670
Who are you? What are you?
Where did you come from?

54:04.440 --> 54:08.069
And |, who have never
slapped anybody in my life,

54:08.239 --> 54:10.912
| was told, you know, in the script

54:11.079 --> 54:13.513
that she slaps this woman.

54:13.679 --> 54:16.716
And | said to the actress,

54:16.880 --> 54:21.795
"Let's practise this, you know,
do one of those fake things.”

54:21.959 --> 54:26.271
She said, "No. | want you to hit me.”
| said, "I can't do that.”

54:26.439 --> 54:29.272
She said,
"No, you must. You must hit me.”

54:29.439 --> 54:33.398
"| want you to, because then
the reaction will be right.”

54:33.559 --> 54:36.153
So | really had to slap her
and | could hardly handle it.

54:36.320 --> 54:39.198
| think you're the cause of all this.

54:39.760 --> 54:42.069
| think you're evil. Evil!

54:46.080 --> 54:49.390
(Boyle) I'll never forget. 1... (Chuckles)

54:49.559 --> 54:52.756
We were on the roof
of the schoolhouse at Bodega,

54:52.919 --> 54:57.834
and | had this marvellous idea;
brilliant idea, was,

54:57.999 --> 55:03.357
that if | had little magnets which
| could attach to the feet of the birds,

55:03.519 --> 55:07.068
and put the birds on the gutter,
which was metal,

55:07.239 --> 55:09.389
they couldn't fly off.

55:09.559 --> 55:11.993
We'd have them kept there.

55:12.159 --> 55:15.151
So we did this,
and | was up on the roof.

55:15.319 --> 55:18.197
So | went over the ridge of the roof,

55:18.359 --> 55:22.477
and | heard Hitchcock call for action,
and then, Cut.”

55:22.639 --> 55:26.075
| went over,
and all the birds had tried to fly off,

55:26.240 --> 55:29.755
and they all fell
and were hanging upside down.

55:29.920 --> 55:31.911
| didn't try that again!

55:32.080 --> 55:35.868
(Cartwright) A lot of those birds
were cardboard cutouts

55:36.039 --> 55:38.837
and sort of stuffed birds
that were put on the wires,

55:38.999 --> 55:43.072
and they just kept adding to them
and adding to them.

55:43.239 --> 55:47.198
And | asked him -
ever the curious child, | asked him.

55:47.360 --> 55:50.909
| said, "Well, isn't it
going to look fake on camera?”

55:51.079 --> 55:55.709
And he says, "No." Because
he interspersed real birds with them.

55:55.879 --> 55:58.473
And he says,
"Your eye... It's the illusion.”

55:58.639 --> 56:01.711
"You see movement from one,
you assume they're all moving.”

56:01.879 --> 56:05.792
And it's absolutely true.
You sit there and you watch that movie,

56:05.959 --> 56:08.234
and you could swear
that they're all moving

56:08.399 --> 56:11.152
just by interspersing
live ones here and there.

56:11.319 --> 56:14.709
I mean, he had so many things.
I just kept asking questions,

56:14.880 --> 56:17.838
and he never seemed to mind
answering them either.

56:22.359 --> 56:24.509
(Birds Shrieking}

56:27.199 --> 56:30.430
{Rod Taylor)
In the first attack on the house,

56:30.599 --> 56:33.591
you don't see the birds, you hear them.

56:33.760 --> 56:36.638
So we had to react to that,
as any actor does

56:36.800 --> 56:39.997
when a monster's coming
and there's no monster.

56:40.160 --> 56:44.631
We had to react to the birds
in this terrifying attack on the house,

56:44.800 --> 56:48.395
when we know
that they're going to kill us.

56:49.200 --> 56:53.830
{Hedren) In order to help us all
have the same degree of emotion,

56:54.000 --> 56:56.514
Hitch had a drummer come in.

56:56.680 --> 56:59.956
And he started a drumroll,
very, very softly,

57:00.119 --> 57:03.077
you know, that we would,
that we would hear.

57:03.239 --> 57:06.470
And then it got louder
and louder and louder.

57:06.639 --> 57:10.917
In fact, all of us were almost saying,
"Stop it, stop it,” you know,

57:11.079 --> 57:14.674
just hearing the drumroll,
which was very effective.

57:14.839 --> 57:18.593
So, he sort of built up anxiety levels
a bit, you know.

57:18.759 --> 57:23.150
And he would just show you
the blocking of where you would be

57:23.319 --> 57:26.629
and then just took
the reactions as they came.

57:26.800 --> 57:29.189
(Birds Shrieking, Glass Shatters)

57:29.600 --> 57:33.309
They had hammerheads
with birds’ heads on them,

57:33.479 --> 57:36.630
and they would have these,
like, hand puppets,

57:36.800 --> 57:40.588
and all sorts of things
that had bird heads on them

57:40.759 --> 57:42.954
so they could control them.

57:43.519 --> 57:45.271
(Birds Shrieking, Pounding)

57:45.439 --> 57:49.830
And those were heads on hammers,
and they just had the prop people

57:49.999 --> 57:52.638
standing behind, just beating the door,

57:52.800 --> 57:56.395
so it would actually look
like it was ripping through.

57:56.559 --> 57:59.949
Otherwise, it wouldn't have looked,
| think, like wood splitting.

58:02.599 --> 58:03.918
(Shrieking, Pounding Continue)

58:04.080 --> 58:07.789
{Hedren) When you're doing a movie,
you know you're doing a movie.

58:07.959 --> 58:10.154
It's a movie,”
as Hitchcock would always say.

58:10.320 --> 58:12.515
And people so often say,
"Were you frightened

58:12.680 --> 58:15.752
when you were doing that movie?”
Well, you know what's going on.

58:15.920 --> 58:19.469
However, there are times
when you're making films

58:19.639 --> 58:21.834
that it can become dangerous,

58:22.000 --> 58:24.833
it can become exhausting, unexpected.

58:24.999 --> 58:28.548
And the scene where | go up
into the bedroom upstairs

58:28.720 --> 58:30.711
is one of those scenes.

58:31.280 --> 58:35.478
They told me, Hitch always told me
for the entire filming,

58:35.640 --> 58:39.519
that we were going to use
mechanical birds for that scene.

58:39.680 --> 58:42.877
I said, "Fine.
Don't have anything to worry about.”

58:43.040 --> 58:46.828
It was on a Monday morning
that we were going to start the scene,

58:46.999 --> 58:51.868
and Jim Brown, the assistant director,
came into my dressing room on the set.

58:52.039 --> 58:55.475
We'd known each other for a long time.
And he couldn't look at me.

58:55.639 --> 58:59.268
He looked at the floor, he looked
at the walls, he looked at the ceiling.

58:59.440 --> 59:02.352
| said, "What's the matter with you?”
And he said,

59:02.519 --> 59:05.511
"We can't use the mechanical birds.
They don't work.”

59:05.680 --> 59:07.716
And out the door he went.

59:07.879 --> 59:11.952
And | just blanched white
because | had seen the bird trainers

59:12.120 --> 59:15.556
with their leather gauntlets
up to their shoulders,

59:15.719 --> 59:18.631
and scratches that they had
from the birds.

59:18.800 --> 59:20.870
And | walked out onto the set,

59:21.040 --> 59:25.113
and there was never an intention
of using mechanical birds.

59:25.959 --> 59:28.757
They had a cage built around the set

59:28.920 --> 59:34.119
so the birds wouldn't be up in the
rafters for the remainder of the shoot

59:35.120 --> 59:39.830
And there were three boxes, great
big cartons, of ravens and seagulls.

59:40.880 --> 59:43.952
And prop men,
with their leather gauntlets,

59:44.120 --> 59:46.839
hurled birds at me for five days.

59:48.120 --> 59:49.838
I'll tell you, the... the...

59:50.000 --> 59:53.913
The most effective were
the real birds being held.

59:54.960 --> 59:56.996
You didn't see off camera,

59:57.160 --> 01:00:00.550
but there were birds
being held by their legs.

01:00:00.719 --> 01:00:04.075
| don't know.
Maybe | put myself in sort of a Zen state

01:00:04.240 --> 01:00:06.834
because it was so... it was really grisly.

01:00:06.999 --> 01:00:09.354
| literally had to fight them off.

01:00:09.520 --> 01:00:12.751
And they didn't attack -
birds don't do that.

01:00:12.920 --> 01:00:15.070
It was just them coming at me

01:00:15.239 --> 01:00:18.151
that | would have to,
you know, get away from.

01:00:19.999 --> 01:00:21.637
(Whimpering}

01:00:22.119 --> 01:00:25.509
(Boyle)
Now, this was a system of fast editing

01:00:25.680 --> 01:00:30.196
that Hitchcock had been involved with
for a long time

01:00:30.360 --> 01:00:32.351
in many other films,

01:00:32.519 --> 01:00:37.639
but that type of editing was at its
height in Psycho, in the shower scene.

01:00:37.799 --> 01:00:41.553
(Stabbing, Screaming, Moaning}

01:00:46.999 --> 01:00:50.514
He did the same thing
in The Birds with fast cuts,

01:00:46.999 --> 01:00:49.832
so that you had an impression of more,

01:00:53.680 --> 01:00:56.069
almost more than was really happening.

01:00:56.240 --> 01:00:59.516
| did all sorts of angles of his sketches.

01:00:59.680 --> 01:01:02.752
He, Hitchcock, had them photographed.

01:01:02.920 --> 01:01:05.354
And we sat in the screening room.

01:01:05.520 --> 01:01:08.114
When one would come on, he'd say,

01:01:08.279 --> 01:01:11.191
"Two feet 28 frames. Three frames.”

01:01:11.360 --> 01:01:15.797
He would just knock them off
like he was timing it in his head.

01:01:15.959 --> 01:01:19.838
And this was amazing to me,
because |'d never been involved

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:23.470
with that kind of knowledge before,
or sense of film.

01:01:23.639 --> 01:01:27.109
{Hedren) That Wednesday, Cary Grant
came on to the set to see Hitch,

01:01:27.280 --> 01:01:29.748
and he walked over to me
and he said, (Imitating Cary Grant)

01:01:29.920 --> 01:01:33.151
"| think you're the bravest lady
I've ever met.” And | said,

01:01:33.320 --> 01:01:37.518
"Well, | don't know if that's the word
for it.” But it was pretty horrific.

01:01:37.680 --> 01:01:40.114
By Friday they had me on the floor

01:01:40.279 --> 01:01:43.510
because I'd just crumpled
from sheer exhaustion

01:01:43.680 --> 01:01:45.716
as the character is being hurt.

01:01:45.879 --> 01:01:49.838
And Rita Riggs, who was my dresser,
who became a wonderful designer,

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:53.993
she had put cloth bands
around my body with little elastics,

01:01:54.159 --> 01:01:57.356
two little elastics,
sticking out everywhere.

01:01:57.520 --> 01:02:01.069
Then we put the dress on,
and with the holes in the dress,

01:02:01.239 --> 01:02:03.594
she would pull the elastics through,

01:02:03.759 --> 01:02:07.354
and then they would tie the foot
of the bird to me, and...

01:02:07.519 --> 01:02:09.714
Friday, | was that way all day,

01:02:09.879 --> 01:02:14.236
and one of the birds decided to move
from my shoulder up on to my...

01:02:14.399 --> 01:02:17.948
It just jumped, and scratched me
very close to my eye,

01:02:18.119 --> 01:02:21.748
and | said, "That's enough!”
And | got them all off of me.

01:02:21.919 --> 01:02:25.434
And | just sat in the middle
of the stage and cried.

01:02:25.599 --> 01:02:28.033
| mean, | was just totally exhausted.

01:02:28.199 --> 01:02:31.669
And everybody left, (Laughs)
sort of left me there.

01:02:33.120 --> 01:02:35.554
| don't remember the weekend,

01:02:35.719 --> 01:02:40.474
and | don't remember driving
to the studio the following Monday.

01:02:40.639 --> 01:02:44.632
I got into my dressing room
- beautiful dressing room -

01:02:44.799 --> 01:02:46.790
and lay down on the couch,

01:02:46.959 --> 01:02:49.234
and my makeup man, Howard Smit,

01:02:49.399 --> 01:02:52.197
came to get me, you know, for makeup?

01:02:52.359 --> 01:02:54.350
And he couldn't wake me.

01:02:54.519 --> 01:02:56.510
| was just out.

01:02:56.679 --> 01:02:59.671
| mean, just out. Just totally exhausted.

01:02:59.840 --> 01:03:04.550
I was under doctor's care for a week,
which made it very, very difficult,

01:03:04.719 --> 01:03:07.677
because there were
no other scenes to film.

01:03:07.839 --> 01:03:10.751
It was sort of at the ending of the shoot.

01:03:12.479 --> 01:03:14.470
Oh, poor thing!

01:03:14.639 --> 01:03:19.349
(Cartwright) So the scene, actually,
when he brings her down the stairs,

01:03:19.519 --> 01:03:23.956
that was a double because Tippi
was in the hospital from exhaustion.

01:03:24.119 --> 01:03:27.111
So he carries this
other lady down the stairs.

01:03:27.999 --> 01:03:32.754
And then I'm sure he went back later
and did insert shots of her face.

01:03:34.400 --> 01:03:38.473
{Hedren) After that scene, you know,
| was really a bloody mess.

01:03:38.639 --> 01:03:42.871
And of course they're...
the makeup people, are so good at that.

01:03:43.760 --> 01:03:46.957
And Howard Smit
had put scars all over me.

01:03:48.120 --> 01:03:52.716
(Smit) I'll never forget,
Tippi had her head back in the chair,

01:03:52.880 --> 01:03:57.112
and | was making her up and
putting all these peck marks on her

01:03:57.279 --> 01:04:01.591
and all of the blood for the ultimate,
for the bad, bad, bad one.

01:04:01.759 --> 01:04:06.753
When | got through, she got her head
up into the mirror and took a look at it.

01:04:06.919 --> 01:04:10.958
She says, "Pardon me, Howard,”
and went outside and threw up,

01:04:11.120 --> 01:04:14.317
she was so taken aback
by what she looked like.

01:04:14.479 --> 01:04:16.868
- We've got to get her to a hospital.
- We can't, Mitch.

01:04:17.040 --> 01:04:19.156
- There's no place we can go.
- There's San Francisco.

01:04:19.319 --> 01:04:21.594
- We'd never make it.
- We have to try.

01:04:21.760 --> 01:04:26.788
(Hedren) But it was so much fun to do,
you know, where you're kind of...

01:04:26.959 --> 01:04:29.712
Everything is scary and,
you know, it's fun.

01:04:29.879 --> 01:04:31.870
It's great fun to do it.

01:04:32.440 --> 01:04:36.228
{Rod Taylor) Opening a door
when there's no door -

01:04:36.400 --> 01:04:38.868
This was so typical of Hitch

01:04:39.040 --> 01:04:41.156
because, uh... this is film.

01:04:42.240 --> 01:04:45.755
This is the...
the illusion of movie making.

01:04:47.719 --> 01:04:51.155
| had to reach off camera
and open a door that wasn't there.

01:04:51.319 --> 01:04:53.833
So when | opened the door,
the light came on

01:04:53.999 --> 01:04:56.388
as if the daylight
were streaming in the door.

01:04:56.560 --> 01:04:59.552
And nobody in the world can say
there wasn't a door there.

01:04:59.719 --> 01:05:03.951
| said, "Well, aren't you going to know
that there's no door there?”

01:05:04.120 --> 01:05:07.192
And he says,
"But how would | be able to see you?"

01:05:07.360 --> 01:05:09.999
And he said that it's all done with light.

01:05:10.160 --> 01:05:13.311
And it's true.
| mean, Rod Taylor goes like this...

01:05:13.479 --> 01:05:15.788
and he pulls it and the shadow hits,

01:05:15.959 --> 01:05:18.519
and nobody knows
there is not a door there.

01:05:18.679 --> 01:05:21.477
And he said to me,
"That's the magic of movies.”

01:05:21.640 --> 01:05:26.077
And | mean, it's like, that was exciting.
And I've never forgotten that.

01:05:26.240 --> 01:05:29.152
Because it is. Movies are magic.

01:05:29.320 --> 01:05:32.949
And | think that's what made
Hitchcock so special.

01:05:33.799 --> 01:05:35.471
(Wind Whistling}

01:05:35.639 --> 01:05:37.516
(Engine Revs}

01:05:38.120 --> 01:05:41.874
{Bogdanovich) Wasn't there
something you said to me

01:05:42.039 --> 01:05:46.112
about there was, you know,
300 trick shots? What was that?

01:05:46.279 --> 01:05:49.749
(Hitchcock)
Yes. There were 371 trick shots.

01:05:49.920 --> 01:05:53.037
{Bogdanovich) Which would you think
was the most difficult shot?

01:05:53.200 --> 01:05:55.668
- The last shot.
- The last shot?

01:05:55.840 --> 01:05:58.035
(Hitchcock) That's 32 pieces of film.

01:05:58.200 --> 01:06:02.034
First of all, we had
a limited number of gulls allowed.

01:06:02.200 --> 01:06:06.751
Therefore, the foreground
was shot in three-panel sections,

01:06:06.920 --> 01:06:10.071
left to right, up to the birds on the rail.

01:06:10.240 --> 01:06:13.198
The few gulls we had
were in the first third,

01:06:13.360 --> 01:06:16.591
and we reshot it
for the middle third, same gulls,

01:06:16.759 --> 01:06:19.671
and the right-hand third, gulls again.

01:06:19.840 --> 01:06:23.071
Then, just above the heads of the crows

01:06:23.239 --> 01:06:26.675
was a long, slender middle section

01:06:26.839 --> 01:06:29.751
where the gulls were spread again.

01:06:29.920 --> 01:06:32.992
Then the car going down the driveway,

01:06:33.159 --> 01:06:36.629
the car only,
with the birds each side of it

01:06:36.800 --> 01:06:39.314
was another piece of film.

01:06:39.479 --> 01:06:43.757
Then there was the sky,
and that was another piece of film.

01:06:44.440 --> 01:06:48.638
Boyle) That was done mostly
with Al Whitlock's painting.

01:06:48.800 --> 01:06:52.588
It was a moody shot.
It was also a very important shot,

01:06:52.759 --> 01:06:56.434
because there really
wasn't any ending to the movie.

01:06:56.599 --> 01:07:00.387
It had to be the sort of ending
that led you to believe

01:07:00.560 --> 01:07:06.032
there may be something going on again,
you know, or beyond the film.

01:07:06.320 --> 01:07:08.311
So that it was, in a sense,

01:07:08.480 --> 01:07:12.268
the last shot
was a sort of penultimate moment,

01:07:12.440 --> 01:07:15.830
not a climax,
but the time before the climax,

01:07:16.000 --> 01:07:20.915
which | think is sometimes very
satisfactory as part of an art form.

01:07:21.079 --> 01:07:25.072
Hitchcock, of course, was always
looking for a promotion to do,

01:07:25.239 --> 01:07:29.357
you know, that would bring public
awareness to what he was doing.

01:07:29.520 --> 01:07:31.511
Very publicity minded.

01:07:31.680 --> 01:07:35.673
So he decided that, in order
to get a little more publicity,

01:07:35.840 --> 01:07:37.831
he would have us swear

01:07:38.000 --> 01:07:41.629
that we would never
tell the ending of the movie

01:07:41.800 --> 01:07:45.554
until it was ready to come out
into the theatres.

01:07:45.719 --> 01:07:49.189
It was kind of amusing, too, because
at the point where we did that,

01:07:49.360 --> 01:07:52.158
he didn't really know
what the ending was going to be.

01:07:52.320 --> 01:07:55.835
In fact, one night we all sat around
and talked about...

01:07:56.000 --> 01:07:59.151
he talked about different endings
to the movie.

01:07:59.320 --> 01:08:02.073
It was fascinating listening to him.

01:08:02.240 --> 01:08:05.596
All the different versions
of what it could be.

01:08:05.760 --> 01:08:09.719
(Hitchcock) | toyed with the idea
at one time of lap-dissolving.

01:08:09.880 --> 01:08:11.871
They're in the car and they look,

01:08:12.040 --> 01:08:14.838
and there's the Golden Gate Bridge,
covered in birds.

01:08:14.999 --> 01:08:17.388
{Bogdanovich, Laughing)
That's marvellous!

01:08:17.560 --> 01:08:20.632
(Hitchcock) Covered!
Now, San Francisco: Oh, my God!

01:08:20.800 --> 01:08:24.156
{Bogdanovich) And that would be
the end? That's beautiful.

01:08:24.320 --> 01:08:26.356
(Hitchcock) Yes, that's a belly laugh.

01:08:26.519 --> 01:08:30.671
That was a surprise for me,
when | saw the end of the film

01:08:30.839 --> 01:08:35.833
at the Museum of Modern Art,
at this special invitational opening.

01:08:36.000 --> 01:08:38.912
| was really enormously surprised.

01:08:39.079 --> 01:08:43.038
| was surprised when some
scenes were not in the film,

01:08:43.200 --> 01:08:46.192
but when | saw the ending,
| was shocked

01:08:46.359 --> 01:08:49.749
because the way | had the film end,

01:08:49.920 --> 01:08:53.196
they come out of the house
and they get in the car

01:08:53.360 --> 01:08:56.318
and they start driving
away from the house.

01:08:56.480 --> 01:08:58.710
And we see them coming
through town, now,

01:08:58.880 --> 01:09:02.031
and we the see the havoc
that has been wreaked in the town,

01:09:02.200 --> 01:09:06.159
so it becomes not just a personal thing
that's directed against Melanie,

01:09:06.319 --> 01:09:09.152
that wherever she is,
the birds are attacking.

01:09:09.320 --> 01:09:11.834
We now see
that this is a universal thing,

01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:14.798
where we see disaster
all through the town.

01:09:14.960 --> 01:09:16.951
We see an overturned school bus.

01:09:17.119 --> 01:09:21.556
We see a farmer with a shotgun,
lying across a front porch.

01:09:21.720 --> 01:09:25.918
We see windows shattered
all over town. Dead birds on the road.

01:09:26.079 --> 01:09:29.355
Police patrol cars, uh... in flames.

01:09:29.920 --> 01:09:34.994
It's almost as if a war has been waged
against the town by the birds.

01:09:35.159 --> 01:09:39.710
Michelson) We did it physically.
We started messing up the place.

01:09:39.879 --> 01:09:43.872
I think the prop man went
to some butcher place or something,

01:09:44.039 --> 01:09:47.509
and got a whole bunch of
chickens, dead chickens,

01:09:44.039 --> 01:09:46.553
and we laid them all over the road.

01:09:50.359 --> 01:09:54.034
We had a lot of ketchup,
and we would dip rags in the ketchup

01:09:54.200 --> 01:09:57.954
and throw them against a building,
and get a lot of blood.

01:09:58.119 --> 01:10:02.874
We had a lot of this mess which
the car was going to drive through

01:10:03.039 --> 01:10:05.917
and head down towards San Francisco.

01:10:06.439 --> 01:10:10.990
(Hunter) And they come to a roadblock
in the road covered with birds

01:10:11.159 --> 01:10:15.596
and they manage to get through that,
they creep along through that,

01:10:15.760 --> 01:10:18.877
and they start gradually
accelerating the car

01:10:19.039 --> 01:10:22.918
and moving away, and the birds...
(Imitates Birds In Flight)

01:10:23.079 --> 01:10:25.547
all go up in the air and come at the car.

01:10:25.719 --> 01:10:29.473
And now they're going out of town
on that same winding road,

01:10:29.640 --> 01:10:33.349
and the birds, now, are coming
on a straight line for the car.

01:10:33.519 --> 01:10:35.510
And the birds descend on the car.

01:10:35.680 --> 01:10:40.117
And the convertible was also set up
at the very beginning of the film.

01:10:40.280 --> 01:10:42.669
It's a convertible with a canvas top.

01:10:42.839 --> 01:10:46.354
And now the birds... (imitates Birds}
land on the top of the car,

01:10:46.559 --> 01:10:50.438
and they're in the car,
and we see... (Imitates Birds)

01:10:52.799 --> 01:10:56.587
the top starting to shred, and...
(Imitates Strong Gust)

01:10:56.759 --> 01:11:00.468
It goes back suddenly and
all the birds are hovering over the car.

01:11:00.639 --> 01:11:03.631
And we go back and we see
that the road, now, is...

01:11:03.800 --> 01:11:08.191
The curves are ending, and he hits
the gas, and... (Imitates Engine)

01:11:08.359 --> 01:11:11.032
The car goes ahead
and the birds fall back.

01:11:11.199 --> 01:11:14.589
We see the birds falling back.
And they're in the clear.

01:11:14.760 --> 01:11:16.716
And that was the end of the movie.

01:11:16.880 --> 01:11:19.678
Certainly the car chase survived

01:11:19.840 --> 01:11:23.594
to whatever draft
was in the production script.

01:11:23.759 --> 01:11:25.750
And it was gone, and, uh...

01:11:25.920 --> 01:11:28.480
| think... | don't know what happened.

01:11:28.639 --> 01:11:31.278
| know that... | know for sure

01:11:31.440 --> 01:11:35.672
that that sequence would have
taken them a month to shoot.

01:11:35.839 --> 01:11:39.548
Overhead shots, special effects
with the birds over,

01:11:39.719 --> 01:11:42.597
the roof getting... well, the roof
was easy, but all the rest...

01:11:42.760 --> 01:11:46.070
Cutting away from the winding road
to helicopter shots...

01:11:46.239 --> 01:11:50.630
All this stuff would have been just
impossible to shoot. Just impossible.

01:11:50.799 --> 01:11:54.917
And | think maybe he figured
he had the same effect

01:11:55.079 --> 01:11:59.197
by showing the birds
having taken over the screen

01:11:59.359 --> 01:12:02.032
and, by association, the world.

01:12:02.919 --> 01:12:05.228
(Birds Shrieking}

01:12:06.280 --> 01:12:09.670
We had a long discussion
about music and a score.

01:12:09.840 --> 01:12:11.831
Using a score, you know?

01:12:12.000 --> 01:12:16.152
And | felt that it would really
make the movie almost unbearable

01:12:16.320 --> 01:12:19.995
if we had music in it,
you know, underscoring the terror

01:12:20.160 --> 01:12:22.674
and adding to the screaming of the birds.

01:12:22.839 --> 01:12:26.434
| think the audience would have
jumped out of their seats.

01:12:26.599 --> 01:12:29.238
And he said no, he felt it would
be more effective the other way.

01:12:31.879 --> 01:12:35.792
It would appear that Hitchcock first
became interested in using electronic sounds

01:12:35.960 --> 01:12:38.997
in place of a score for The Birds
in April of 1962,

01:12:39.160 --> 01:12:43.711
when he received a letter from a man
in Germany named Remi Gassmann.

01:12:43.879 --> 01:12:48.555
Gassmann was the co-designer of
something called the studio tratonium.

01:12:48.720 --> 01:12:51.439
This was a device
created by another man,

01:12:51.600 --> 01:12:54.592
I believe his name
was Dr Frederick Trautwein.

01:12:54.759 --> 01:12:59.230
And it basically was the forerunner
of many modern keyboard instruments,

01:12:59.399 --> 01:13:03.233
in that it was able to take sounds,
commonplace, ordinary sounds,

01:13:03.399 --> 01:13:06.516
and by playing the keyboard,
or playing the instrument,

01:13:06.679 --> 01:13:08.670
you could manipulate the sounds.

01:13:08.839 --> 01:13:10.830
Gassmann contacted Hitchcock

01:13:10.999 --> 01:13:13.388
and alerted him to the fact
that there was this creation.

01:13:13.559 --> 01:13:16.119
It had been used
by the New York City Ballet,

01:13:16.279 --> 01:13:19.271
and it would allow Hitchcock
to manipulate sounds

01:13:19.440 --> 01:13:22.273
in a way that could be
very musical in effect.

01:13:22.439 --> 01:13:24.430
This was intriguing to Hitchcock,

01:13:24.599 --> 01:13:27.067
and he brought it
to Bernard Herrmann's attention.

01:13:27.240 --> 01:13:29.913
One might think that
Bernard Herrmann would be angry

01:13:30.079 --> 01:13:32.274
that he would not be
writing music for the film,

01:13:32.439 --> 01:13:34.873
but Herrmann was intrigued
by this invention

01:13:35.039 --> 01:13:37.030
and its application on The Birds .

01:13:37.200 --> 01:13:42.228
So Hitchcock and Herrmann travelled
together in 1962 to West Berlin

01:13:42.399 --> 01:13:44.390
to meet Remi Gassmann

01:13:44.559 --> 01:13:48.393
and to explore the possibility of
using the studio tratonium in the film.

01:13:48.559 --> 01:13:50.550
It was a very happy trip,

01:13:50.720 --> 01:13:54.554
and later Herrmann regarded it
as one of the most pleasant times

01:13:54.719 --> 01:13:58.507
that he ever spent with Alfred
Hitchcock. They got along very well,

01:13:58.679 --> 01:14:02.433
and they were both very impressed
by the results of this machine.

01:14:02.600 --> 01:14:06.513
So from that point on, Herrmann became
basically an advisor on the film,

01:14:06.679 --> 01:14:09.512
a consultant, to work with
both Hitchcock and Remi Gassmann

01:14:09.680 --> 01:14:11.955
and decide where they
wanted to use this effect

01:14:12.119 --> 01:14:15.395
in the place of where they would
have used a conventional score.

01:14:15.560 --> 01:14:17.357
(Screaming)

01:14:18.759 --> 01:14:22.752
Throughout The Birds,
during the various attack sequences,

01:14:22.919 --> 01:14:25.114
sound plays a very important part.

01:14:25.280 --> 01:14:28.477
(Children Screaming, Birds Shrieking}

01:14:29.840 --> 01:14:34.755
The sequence that probably employed
the most subjective use of sound

01:14:34.919 --> 01:14:37.433
is the attack on the Brenner house.

01:14:37.599 --> 01:14:41.478
First, of course, the characters
are inside, just waiting.

01:14:41.639 --> 01:14:45.029
And very gradually,
you begin to hear the sounds,

01:14:45.200 --> 01:14:48.875
the various sounds,
from the fluttering to the chirping

01:14:49.039 --> 01:14:53.954
and then the cawing, until, of course,
it turned into a full-blown attack.

01:14:54.760 --> 01:14:57.115
(Birds Shrieking)

01:14:58.239 --> 01:15:02.027
Hitchcock, wherever possible,
eliminated dialogue from his films,

01:15:02.199 --> 01:15:05.032
and the attack on
the Brenner house is a sequence

01:15:05.200 --> 01:15:09.352
that could virtually be a silent movie
with the exception of the fact

01:15:09.519 --> 01:15:13.148
that he uses the bird sounds
so brilliantly and dramatically,

01:15:13.320 --> 01:15:15.311
so that you have these bursts of sound

01:15:15.479 --> 01:15:18.755
with visual shocks, like
the darkness that they're engulfed in.

01:15:19.320 --> 01:15:21.754
(Shrieking Continues)

01:15:23.599 --> 01:15:25.590
(Wings Fluttering)

01:15:26.079 --> 01:15:28.070
Throughout The Birds,

01:15:28.240 --> 01:15:31.949
Alfred Hitchcock experiments
very interestingly with silence.

01:15:32.119 --> 01:15:35.998
There is the sequence in which
Tippi Hedren is attacked in the attic.

01:15:36.159 --> 01:15:38.957
Hitchcock said that he wanted
to create a silent murder.

01:15:39.119 --> 01:15:40.950
In the shower sequence in Psycho,

01:15:41.120 --> 01:15:44.317
he originally wanted to just have
the sound of the water running

01:15:44.480 --> 01:15:47.278
and Janet Leigh's screams
and the sounds of the knife.

01:15:47.440 --> 01:15:50.318
They ultimately decided
music would be more effective.

01:15:50.480 --> 01:15:52.471
But in The Birds,

01:15:52.639 --> 01:15:56.427
Hitchcock creates a very sinister sound
of flapping bird wings

01:15:56.600 --> 01:15:59.478
and creates one of the most intense
sequences of violence,

01:15:59.639 --> 01:16:01.630
but without any music.

01:16:02.519 --> 01:16:04.669
(Wings Flapping}

01:16:06.640 --> 01:16:08.631
(Wind Whistling)

01:16:11.479 --> 01:16:14.312
Hitchcock wanted
to communicate the sense

01:16:14.480 --> 01:16:17.870
that the birds were thinking
at the end of the movie

01:16:18.039 --> 01:16:21.395
when everybody is leaving
the Brenner house.

01:16:21.559 --> 01:16:24.756
They created this tremendously
unsettling effect

01:16:24.919 --> 01:16:28.832
that is very quiet
but does give these creatures

01:16:28.999 --> 01:16:33.151
much more of a personality
of a far more sinister quality.

01:16:35.199 --> 01:16:36.314
(Screeches}

01:16:36.800 --> 01:16:39.360
Secondly, he creates

01:16:39.519 --> 01:16:42.158
a, uh... a kind of almost final note

01:16:42.320 --> 01:16:46.518
by increasing the sound
of those birds under the final shot,

01:16:46.680 --> 01:16:48.671
and it's very ambiguous

01:16:48.839 --> 01:16:52.388
as to whether they're on the verge
of another major attack,

01:16:52.559 --> 01:16:56.438
or if this is just a sort of, you know,
almost psychological effect.

01:16:56.599 --> 01:16:59.511
So this very experimental
technique that they used

01:16:59.680 --> 01:17:01.671
did turn out to be very successful,

01:17:01.840 --> 01:17:05.833
and Hitchcock and Herrmann were
both very pleased with the result.

01:17:06.000 --> 01:17:07.399
(Shrieking, Cawing}

01:17:07.879 --> 01:17:11.030
(Cartwright)
Because birds are so common,

01:17:11.199 --> 01:17:13.235
| mean, you see them all the time,

01:17:13.399 --> 01:17:16.311
you think of them
as basically being your friends.

01:17:16.480 --> 01:17:20.917
But after doing The Birds, you did start
looking at birds a lot differently.

01:17:21.079 --> 01:17:24.469
I've never seen so many crows
on our front yard. (Laughing)

01:17:24.639 --> 01:17:28.757
| never knew there were that many
of them until after doing this movie.

01:17:28.919 --> 01:17:32.150
You started looking
at them a lot differently.

01:17:32.319 --> 01:17:36.028
{Rod Taylor) | was overwhelmed.
| thought it was wonderful.

01:17:36.199 --> 01:17:39.908
Not necessarily with me,
not at all, but with the st-

01:17:40.079 --> 01:17:44.630
| was captivated by the story.
You know, | just lost me altogether.

01:17:44.799 --> 01:17:48.508
But | thought it was just
a magnificent piece of film genius.

01:17:48.680 --> 01:17:53.117
And he took from every technical facet
of our industry to make it work.

01:17:53.280 --> 01:17:55.510
| was thrilled about it.

01:17:55.679 --> 01:17:58.273
| was totally amazed about it.

01:17:59.239 --> 01:18:03.073
Of course,
there was a master who was directing.

01:18:04.720 --> 01:18:07.154
And it is a kind of judgment day film.

01:18:07.320 --> 01:18:09.311
It also basically says

01:18:09.479 --> 01:18:13.518
that it's all going to go back
to mother Earth. She will prevail.

01:18:13.679 --> 01:18:15.351
It's the end of the world!

01:18:15.519 --> 01:18:19.068
(O'Connell) When | first saw
the movie, I loved the movie.

01:18:19.240 --> 01:18:23.392
1 still do. It's still one of...
It's one of my favourites to watch.

01:18:23.560 --> 01:18:26.950
It scared me when | saw it,
and I'd been on the set

01:18:27.119 --> 01:18:31.510
and | knew all the different things.
But it was a great movie.

01:18:31.679 --> 01:18:33.874
1 think it's one of his best.

01:18:34.480 --> 01:18:36.869
{Wind Whistling,
Birds Cawing, Screeching)

01:18:38.359 --> 01:18:41.874
(Children)
# | asked my wife to wash the floor

01:18:42.039 --> 01:18:45.156
# Ristle-tee, rostle-tee
Now, now, now

01:18:45.319 --> 01:18:47.913
# She gave me my hat
and she showed me the door

01:18:45.319 --> 01:18:48.072
# Ristle-tee, rostle-tee
Hey donnie-dostle-tee

01:18:51.000 --> 01:18:54.788
# Knickety-knackety, rustical quality

01:18:54.960 --> 01:18:56.598
# Now, now, now

01:18:56.760 --> 01:18:59.832
# | married my wife
in the month of June

01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:02.912
# Ristle-tee, rostle-tee
Now, now, now

01:19:03.160 --> 01:19:06.357
# | brought her home
by the light of the moon °

01:19:06.520 --> 01:19:09.717
# Ristle-tee, rostle-tee
Hey donnie-dostle-tee °

01:19:09.879 --> 01:19:12.837
# Knickety-knackety, rustical quality

01:19:12.999 --> 01:19:16.389
# Willow-tee, wallow-tee
Now, now, now °

01:19:16.719 --> 01:19:20.394
# She combed her hair
but once a year

01:19:20.559 --> 01:19:23.596
# Ristle-tee, rostle-tee
Hey donnie-dostle-tee

01:19:23.760 --> 01:19:26.593
# Knickety-knackety, rustical quality

01:19:26.759 --> 01:19:30.388
# Willow-tee, wallow-tee
Now, now, now #