Editing Alfred Hitchcock (section)

===Writing, storyboards and production===
Hitchcock planned his scripts in detail with his writers. In ''Writing with Hitchcock'' (2001), Steven DeRosa noted that Hitchcock supervised them through every draft, asking that they tell the story visually.<ref>{{harvnb|DeRosa|2001|p=xi}}</ref> Hitchcock told Roger Ebert in 1969:

{{blockquote|Once the screenplay is finished, I'd just as soon not make the film at all. All the fun is over. I have a strongly visual mind. I visualize a picture right down to the final cuts. I write all this out in the greatest detail in the script, and then I don't look at the script while I'm shooting. I know it off by heart, just as an orchestra conductor needs not look at the score. It's melancholy to shoot a picture. When you finish the script, the film is perfect. But in shooting it you lose perhaps 40 per cent of your original conception.<ref>{{cite news |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hitchcock-never-mess-about-with-a-dead-body-you-may-be-one |title=Hitchcock: "Never mess about with a dead body—you may be one&nbsp;.... |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=14 December 1969|access-date=11 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171212084523/https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hitchcock-never-mess-about-with-a-dead-body-you-may-be-one|archive-date=12 December 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Hitchcock's films were extensively [[storyboard]]ed to the finest detail. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the [[viewfinder]], since he did not need to, although in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternative takes to consider.<ref>Krohn, Bill, ''Hitchcock at Work'' (London: Phaidon, 2000), p. 9. cited in {{cite book |last1=Pallant |first1=Chris |title=Hitchcock and Storyboarding |year=2015  |pages=112|editor-last=Pallant|editor-first=Chris |series=Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |doi=10.1057/9781137027603_6 |isbn=978-1-137-02760-3 |last2=Price |first2=Steven|editor2-last=Price|editor2-first=Steven}}</ref>

[[File:Alfred Hitchcock on the set of North By Northwest.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt= Image of Hitchcock pictured under Mount Rushmore during the filming of North by Northwest|Hitchcock at [[Mount Rushmore]] filming ''[[North by Northwest]]'' (1959)]]
This view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of French film magazine ''[[Cahiers du Cinéma]]'', in his book ''Hitchcock at Work''. After investigating script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock, and other production material, Krohn observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned.<ref name= "krohn1–7">{{harvnb|Krohn|2000|pp=1–7}}</ref> He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his films, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. For example, the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of ''North by Northwest'' was not storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film, and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.<ref name="Raymond Bellour 2000 p. 217">{{harvnb|Bellour|Penley|2000|p=217}}</ref>{{verify source|date=December 2017}}

Even when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like ''Notorious'' reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of ''The Man Who Knew Too Much,'' whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including ''[[Strangers on a Train (film)|Strangers on a Train]]'' and ''[[Topaz (1969 film)|Topaz]]''. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his films, he was fully cognisant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best-laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines used during many other film productions.<ref name="Raymond Bellour 2000 p. 217"/>{{verify source|date=December 2017}}

[[File:Alfred Hitchcock Extended Interview.ogv|thumb|alt= Close-up of Hitchcock for a media clip of a 1966 interview|Hitchcock interview, {{circa|1966}}]]
Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternative takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how they chose (often under the producer's aegis).<ref name="Heritage02-28-07">{{cite web |last=Lehman |first=David |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2007/2/2007_2_28.shtml |title=Alfred Hitchcock's America |work=American Heritage |date=April–May 2007|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711184905/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2007/2/2007_2_28.shtml |archive-date=11 July 2007}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=December 2017}} Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency to give himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work.

According to Krohn, this and a great deal of other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock. Both his fastidiousness and attention to detail also found their way into each [[film poster]] for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as [[Bill Gold]]<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Poster Master With a Cool Hand |first=Mekado |last=Murphy |date=3 December 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/movies/05posters.html|access-date=5 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161223132525/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/movies/05posters.html|archive-date=23 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Saul Bass]]—who would produce posters that accurately represented his films.<ref name="Raymond Bellour 2000 p. 217"/>