Homework #4: Filming Locations-Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’

School house in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" 1963
School house in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” 1963

In Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), a beautiful socialite Melanie Daniels (played by Tippi Hedren in her first film role) takes a trip from San Francisco to Bodega Bay in pursuit of Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). Although Hitchcock preferred to film on a studio set, there are numerous location shots that highlight his love for San Francisco and the surrounding area. As a hobby, the California architect HervĂ© Attia produced a film short that revisits many of Hitchcock’s locations for The Birds. Watch Attia’s short film and a clip of the gas station scene. What do you think of “fan” movies like Attia’s that deconstruct films and revisit locations?

Watch Attia’s film location video here.

Watch the gas station sequence here.

Homework #4 is DUE by Tuesday, May 10 May 19th by midnight.‹ Please Submit a Post and Comment on a classmate’s post.

4 thoughts on “Homework #4: Filming Locations-Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’”

  1. The funniest thing about reading this homework is the filming locations, because today some man in the store next to my apartment in east new york commented on how the store used to be a restaurant in the 1960s, and the store across was a barber shop, and next to the store was another restaurant. And he said that the neighborhood also used to be predominately white neighborhood. When he said how he remembered everything I almost tried to picture it and for some reason I pictured a southern town because of the 60s. I guess for filming locations it was a good segway. To see Alfred Hitchcock’s “The birds”, filming locations now, and how it looked then, was exciting. But the gas station looked more commercial in the movie, well everything did. I don’t know if that’s how it was for the movie, the color or if it was just that time period. Aside from that I think it’s amazing how some of those buildings are still there, and thankful that they are. I think fans movies like these are also amazing and take a lot of dedication.

  2. After watching Attia’s film and then rewatching Alfred Hitchcocks the birds( 1963), I learned how passionate the film production was towards the film. Also you can tell that Hitchcock wanted to use a natural setting because of all the shots taken of the outdoors of the location
    The fans movie was pretty good but by watching this film it tells me that he was a huge fan of the film, Hitchcock mus have really motivated this fan to make such a short.

  3. I believe that people its a great thing that people revisit places in movies and create there own films because its always small stories with movies or Easter eggs that could dug up through the history of the locations within the movies. Ultimately, people could learn from and produce there own stories through and under other individual’s light.

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