The Birds: Matte paintings like this one, painted by Albert Whitlock, were part of the visual effects industry before the computer age. They were often used to piece together components of a scene that were filmed in different locations, or to add special effects to a location where they could not be filmed. In this case, the explosion in the midst of Bodega Bay was filmed in a different location and the matte stood in for the town. In reality, although parts of the film were actually shot in Bodega Bay, it never existed exactly as it appears in this matte painting, which was altered to suit director Alfred Hitchcock’s desired vision.
