Hi Tony Edward,

I agree with you, all these things exists,
… but not in a conventional way, and this is also the reason why Alfred Hitchcock’s logline is not conventional, I think:
Acting in concert, birds start attacking people for no apparent reason?

– The Hero is Melanie, but her hero’s journey jumps straight from the ordinary world to the ordeal, then stops starting the road back without any elixir to take back
– Her flaw is fear and helplessness…as for everyone around her
– The conventional quest, conflict, antagonist (mother of the protagonist?s love) and stake seems to be very incidental into the movie compared to what happens.

To clarify what I mean, I would like to make a comparison between THE BIRDS and JAWS, which has a strong conventional characterization:

The general settings are very similar (people on a beach are attacked by dangerous animals)

Here is JAWS logline:
A police chief, with a phobia for open water, battles a gigantic shark to protect a small beach front community, in spite of its greedy town council who demands that the beach stay open?

Who is the hero? The sheriff Brody
What is the quest? Protect the community
What is the hero flaw? He is aquaphobe (afraid by open water)
Where is the conflict? With the mayor Vaughan
What?s at stake? His job, his life
Who is the antagonist? The mayor, then the shark (which is a natural force so we cannot match any “conflict” with it)

Basically : The birds is the same as JAWS without the Sheriff Brody and the Mayor Vaughan.