The Gaudiosos decided to film The Ghost and the Whale in Bodega Bay, the California coastal town north of San Francisco that was the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
That assured them the casting of Tippi Hedren, who played Melanie Daniels in the classic, and has a role as “Tippi” in their film.
“She wore the same ring and the necklace as in the movie,” James Gaudioso related. “She’s come back to the town every year for the last 50 years.”
“They loved it. They still carry a torch for the movie,” Gaudioso said. “It was the biggest thing that ever came through. You walk into a store and a fake bird comes down at you.”
Still standing are the house where the Rod Taylor character lived with Jessica Tandy and the schoolhouse where Suzanne Pleshette taught.
“The people in Bodega Bay welcomed us,” Gaudioso said.
The brothers had been warned that a fog bank would roll in off the shore for four hours every day.
“We planned for pea soup, the Wuthering Heights look—that was going to be the aesthetic,” Gaudioso related.
In the 21 days of February shooting, the fog never appeared, leading Gaudioso to remark, “A lot of indie film is, ‘This is not what we planned for. How do we make it work?’ ”
Gaudioso praised their cinematographer, Jason Crawford (Chicago Fire) as “remarkably talented and adept at creating a visual [style]. You try to achieve as much in the camera as you can.”
He noted that editing and post-production on The Ghost and The Whale took more than a year.
Another thing was unplanned for: during filming one day, goats came down off the hillside and hung out near the shooting location.
Just another topsy-turvy moment in the world of indie filmmaking.
