THE MAKING OF HITCHCOCK'S THE BIRDS

50 years after the original film and still regarded as a masterpiece by film viewers, just as the original film has been updated for Blu-ray, Tony Lee Moral brings the film to life by writing about how the it was made with such detailed information, you know almost as much about The Birds as Alfred Hitchcock, himself.

So what's it all about?
From the publisher's website:
In his most innovative and technically challenging film,The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock follows the success of Psycho with a modernist, avant garde horror-thriller, which has spawned many imitators and triggered the cycle for disaster and man versus nature films. Now to mark The Birds 50th anniversary in 2013 and the digitally restored Blu-Ray release, The Making of Hitchcock's The Birds is the first book-length treatment on the production of this modernist masterpiece.
The Making Of Hitchcock's The Birds (from Kamera Books) takes you through the film from before Hitchcock decided to make the film by providing detailed information about how Daphne du Maurier wrote her short story which Hitchcock purchased as his inspiration for the film. Most experiences of film adaptations from a novel usually see the story changed dramatically and The Birds is no exception.
Where this book excels is how it explains the complete process of purchasing the rights to the short story to employing the writer and how Hitchcock controls the process as it's turned into a screenplay which the audience will watch, but only after a number of other people have interjected their influence on the script.
The writer, Evan Hunter, was himself a novelist before trying his hand at adapting into a screenplay writer and during this process you get to really feel how he devoted his life to writing the story and felt pulled apart by Hitchcock and the team, particularly with how they changed the writer's view of how the film would end.
You'll get to meet and feel that you know all of the cast and the crew as you read this book. It's interesting to note that everyone has only good words to say about Hitchcock, but you still understand that he was a demanding individual who ruled over his films. Recent films about Hitchcock have suggested that his character stepped too far over the line at times, but that's not the impression he receives in this compilation of non-fiction memories.
Understanding how preproduction worked back in the early 1960′s is vastly different to the facilities of any modern producer and CGI enthusiast. This book details how matte paintings were used as a backdrop to many of the scenes in the film, but you'll be hard pushed to spot these in the final print, so good were the skilled people used during this production.
There are many scenes in the film which look extremely realistic, but it is only after you have read this book will you know which of the birds were real, which were mechanical and those that were being helped after being trained to perform certain activities and roles.
Any modern film-maker will be pleased to understand how the location and the sound-stages were used to great effect so that what you saw wasn't necessarily real in the town that was used.
If you thought the Kraftwerk invented electronic music, you'll be greatly surprised by the chapter that discusses how electronic sounds and natural sounds were mixed to provide the backdrop to this film.
The post-production and editing part of the process of making The Birds shows how a great team help produce the realistic effects of birds attacking the town and its people and understanding the special effects that were used, and you wouldn't know were there unless you were told about them.
One of the largest aspects of making a film today, as it was then, is all about the how film is marketed so that the right people can spread the word to get people into the cinema at the earliest possible time. Hitchcock controlled everything including how his leading lady would dress and form her hair on each occasion she was out in public, because she was always promoting the film wherever she went.
It's a pity that all film-makers can't take the time to write such a full background to a great film that helps express it in so many aspects which are not all related to what you're seeing on the big screen. The background and thought process used by Hitchcock can only be deemed as exceptional and with great vision, even for the minor points that a viewer will never miss.
This book is so good, you'll want to rush out and rent a copy of The Birds to see which parts of the film are discussed in the book in specific detail and see if you can spot all of the tricks that Hitchcock used to make this film just a scary today, as it was 50 years ago.