How does the director Alfred Hitchcock use filmic techniques to build suspense and build tension for the audience in the film "The Birds"?

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How does the director Alfred Hitchcock use filmic techniques to build suspense and build tension for the audience in the film "The Birds"?

The film "The Birds", released in 1963, is an Alfred Hitchcock film. Alfred Hitchcock was known as the 'master of suspense' and is well known for making films such as "Psycho", "Vertigo", "Frenzy", "Blackmail", "Rear Window" and "Strangers on a Train". He based this film on the popular novella by Daphne Du Maurier, although it is only loosely based around the story. In essence "The Birds" is a story about bird attacks. A wealthy San Francisco playgirl pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town which slowly takes a turn when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there.

The title sequence of a film is there to introduce the film and prepare the audience for the film. It is there to make the audience curious and to draw them in. Therefore a title sequence in "The Birds" does this. It is simple, just a plain white background with the shapes of black birds flying through the shot. The white could represent pureness, good, clouds, innocence, the black the evil of the birds and the blue title names could show the sea, sky or coldness. At the beginning there are a few birds. As each name comes up, more and more birds fly through, from all angles. The aim is to make the audience feel uneasy. The simple black malevolence of the birds as they flutter past achieves this. Alfred Hitchcock is very clever in the way that he doesn't use any music. He only uses the diegetic sound of the birds flapping past. The sound gets louder and louder throughout the title sequence. This gets the audience alerted to the sound and makes them feel uneasy as the sound gets louder. It is repetitive and annoying. Later the audience will come to link this to a bird attack. It almost sets the theme right at the start, so the audience know whenever they hear that flapping sound the birds are coming. Also, the way each name comes on has some relevance. It looks like birds are pecking away at the name, or like they are being bird pooed in, they appear in big splats.

The first main attack is on Bodega Bay. The gulls swoop in over the gas station, the men race outside to help a man being attacked, while the ladies stay inside. Some petrol spills out and towards a man lighting a cigarette. The petrol explodes in a ball of fire, killing the man. Then the people in the diner flee as the birds attack. Melanie Daniels goes to a call box, where she gets trapped as the birds try and get in. Just as her situation is getting desperate, as the gulls are breaking the glass of the callbox, Mitch rescues her. He pulls her into the safety of the diner. During the attack, Hitchcock uses almost every camera shot. He uses wide-shots, (w/s) to establish surroundings, particularly when the gulls begin to attack, and at the beginning of the scene. He often uses mid-shots (m/s) to focus on a couple of people, for example there are quite a few shots of the people watching the attack in the diner. He uses point of view (p.o.v) very well too. Used to show how the characters see it. Throughout the attack you get the idea that there has been a roll reversal. Usually it is birds that are caged, but now the humans are the ones that are trapped. This is ironic and clever. It means the audience feels sorry for the people, and we start the beginnings of a relationship with the characters. We begin to feel closer to them and this is important as we can relate to them more easily. I particularly like the bit when he does a close up (c/u) of the petrol spilling, this focuses the audience's attention on this, so they realise the danger. He then goes on to use a mid-shot of the petrol to slowly show the danger. There are people very close to the petrol. Then an extreme close-up (e.c.u) of the petrol as it reaches a car, then to our horror, a wide-shot to establish there is a man standing by the car with the petrol, and he has a lit match! We have not until this moment realised the danger, then suddenly it hits you with the transfer from e.c.u to w/s. After the car has exploded, there is a series of four jump cuts between Melanie Daniels' reaction and the chaos that is engulfing the town. She starts off looking one way, and after each jump cut, she turns her head. They are c/u of her face and w/s of the chaos, to focus in on her reactions and the general chaos outside. Jump cuts are designed to almost simulate the situation. They are usually used in a chaotic situation, or situation of high emotion. The speed of the cuts, hence the name, are there to make the audience feel disorientated and confused. There is then an aerial shot of the whole bay. The shot flies along with the birds, and I think it makes the people look tiny and the birds bigger and more sinister. When Melanie Daniels gets trapped in the callbox, Alfred Hitchcock cleverly uses a high angle shot, which is often used to make people look smaller and less significant. It achieves this while making it look like she is in a coffin, as the callbox is small. The shots focus in on her panic with a close-up. She looks trapped and confined into a cage. Melanie cannot get out because the birds are attacking. A bloodied man is shown outside the callbox to bring home the danger to Melanie and us. Then as the situation couldn't get much worse two gulls dive and smash the glass in the callbox. This is foreshadowing the next major attack which is in the Brenner house, although we do not realise this. As an audience we cannot see how she should get out of the circumstances, until Mitch her night in shining armour arrives and drags her into the safety of the diner. I certainly felt though that they probably weren't going to be safe for long, given the ferocity of the attack.
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We form the biggest bond with Melanie. She is intended to be the main character and we can tell this because she is the centre of the story, we only see what happens to her in the story. It's all about Melanie's reactions and experiences. I noticed that the camera would focus on her often so we get to know more about her than anyone else. We first meet Melanie right at the start, when she goes into a pet shop. She meets Mitch Brenner who is buying love birds. This becomes an important theme throughout the film. ...

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