The Birds Were Drugged and Spread Lice Amongst the Crew
Co-star Rod Taylor claimed in a 1998 interview with Hello Magazine that the trainers fed the gulls wheat mixed with whiskey to make them more docile. “The only reason those birds stayed still was because they were drunk!” he exclaimed. “They couldnt get away with it now.” The crew indeed admitted to tranquilizing the gulls perched on top of the house in the final scene and tying them in place to ensure they didnt take off, but this resulted in the birds frequently falling off the roof and being left dangling by the legs, forcing stagehands to climb the sides of the house to retrieve and reposition them. To make matters even worse, many of the birds carried lice, and it wasnt long before the parasites spread to cast and crew members.
And inevitably, some of the birds escaped, both outside and in the sound stage. Associate editor Bud Hoffman claimed that a large flock of crows made a home in a tree on the grounds of Hitchcocks residence at Universal and began constantly defecating on the directors car. They proved immune to every attempt to remove them, eventually forcing the maintenance crew to cut off the trees branches to convince the crows to roost elsewhere.
Cast edit Trailer for
At the start of the movie, Alfred Hitchcock makes his iconic appearance as a man walking dogs out of the pet store. Geoffrey and Stanley were two of his own Sealyham Terriers. [5].
Special effects edit
Following their assembly by the film’s editor, George Tomasini, the crow attack and attic scenes were forwarded to the special effects division for further refinement. [31] Hitchcock enlisted the assistance of multiple studios to provide the film’s numerous special effects. Using the sodium vapor process (also known as “yellow screen”), which he had assisted in developing, animator/technician Ub Iwerks finished the special effects shots of the attacking birds at Walt Disney Studios. SV involves filming the subject in front of a screen that is illuminated by narrow-spectrum sodium vapor lights. In contrast to most compositing techniques, SVP uses a beam-splitter to record two distinct parts of the footage at the same time. One reel uses ordinary film stock, and the other uses film stock that has an emulsion that is only wavelength-sensitive for sodium vapor. This produces much more accurate matte shots than blue screen special effects, which are required because of the birds’ fast wing flapping “fringing.” Iwerks worked on the children’s party scene, Melanie’s drive to Bodega Bay, and the first two cuts of the crow attack sequence while he was employed at Disney [32][33]. [34] The scene where several sparrows fly in through the family home’s chimney was one of Iwerks’ toughest obstacles. His superposition of a flock of tiny birds flying inside a glass enclosure allowed him to multiply the birds in the living room by using an optical printer. The majority of Disney’s special effects work was finished in the Process Lab using printer 10, which was created using Iwerks’ original design. [34].
Bob Hoag was assigned to oversee the optical effects at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the scene in which Melanie hides inside a phone booth while the birds attack it. Hitchcock had insisted that Hoag cut out any scenes in which Melanie appeared still, preferring her to be constantly moving. Hoag collaborated with a group of thirty people on the sodium matte shots and the blue backdrop. [34] Film Effects of Hollywood founder Linwood Dunn was hired to work on the attic scene. A rough cut of the sequence was requested from him prior to Hitchcock’s departure for Berlin in December 1962. [35] The optical effects for the crow attack sequence were under Bill Abbott’s control at Fox and would take six weeks to complete. Abbott set up two teams to work on the sequence concurrently, each working eleven hours a day. Abbott’s largest problem was the size ratio because he had to make the birds appear as though they were attacking the kids. He accomplished this by cropping in on the birds to make them the right size in relation to the kids and positioning them within the frame. [35] Associate editor Ross Hoffman and matte artist Albert Whitlock collaborated at Universal Pictures to create the town’s backdrop, which featured birds perched in trees and a picturesque river scene as Melanie’s car pulled into Bodega Bay. [35] There were 370 effects shots in The Birds, with a composite of 32 different elements in the final shot.
FAQ
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