Joseph Humphreys Film Techniques

Harold & Maude 

Harold is 18 years old and his mother is a smothering mother who controls his life. Harold discovers his mom only shows him emotion during a chemistry lab when there was a bad explosion and she cried because she thought he died. Since then harold has now started to commit fake suicides. Maude teaches him that life has meaning and its more than this. In the scene they put a window in the background where harold attempts to commit suicide. The furniture is very formal and dark dull colors to help the background stand out more. The background is very light out with an explosion of bright light which is fire. The angle of the camera is shooting up so you have the actors view. They also set up Harold and his mom in a position that displays their emotion on how the young girl reacts to Harolds fake of suicide. The actors acknowledge the audience by the way they look at camera and the way they gaze off into the “crowd” and each other. The mother also gives off a look of disapproval towards the son regardless of her seeing what he did or not. Harold brings us into the conspiracy by smirking at the audience.  The mother of Harold also begins to “size” him up while he is looking away and looks back at his mother with confidence that he has gained from the audience. They began the scene with blooming plants and as soon as she says “change” the camera then changes over to the blooming plants. Ties the view and the same concept of the flowers being alike to military graves in San Francisco but in reality they are all different but look alike on the outside.

Northfork 

The scene shows the mother crying and her looking in the back seat at the son asleep with his toy. Another shot has the mountains, cattle, and open terrain in the background of a church service that has no back wall to the church. This depicts the earth as heavenly rather than stain glass and crosses as heavenly.  The mountains and elements behind the church are witnessing the church service. When they are talking about death the house is foggy and dark and makes weird noises to exemplify death as a scary thing. The actors are then scared to go upstairs in the house because of the unknown and don’t want to face “death”. The boy in the buffalo scene is connected to the buffalo because they constantly move around and the buffalos are nomadic. Instead of luggage on top the car the coffin is on top of the car and in this scene it is majority grey and black and has muted tones. 

Paris Texas 

 The beginning scene begins with a man in the middle of the desert, the scene is very bright but dull and doesn’t have a wide variety of colors  because the desert is dry but also has terrain. The colors are very similar shade but at the same time beautiful with the cool shapes of the rocks and mountains in the background. The man is well dressed but very dirty looking and also has a bright red hat on that stands out. The grass is very green looking in the desert, its very drastic. What also helps is how blue the sky is to help make the green stand out. As the scenes go on the rocks/ mountains become more rigid and detailed looking. The airplanes are about communication traveling, the binoculars helps support this idea of traveling as well. The freeway seems very long and replicates the idea of a long journey. As he travels on the bridge he hears a voice that is standing midway between the north and south interstates. They stop on the side of the freeway underneath all these over passes and have a moment of alienation and communication with his son. The husband goes to visit his wife in a brothel and talks to his wife through an anonymous wall. His wife has no idea it is the husband. The wall is unfinished and the room is very small, creating a sense of unfinished business in a way. The glass and phone mediates their conversation. 

Bunny 

In the scenes of the bunny you start off with a pestering bug that is attracted to light. This begins to frustrate the bunny. The reason you know it begins to frustrate the bunny is because of the facial expressions and the bunnies tendency to look at the bunny in a aggravated way. The symbol of the bug is her loved one passing away as the bunny picks up the picture frame where her significant other was on the picture. The scenes were animated and created in a way that attracts a younger audience but has a complex meaning that attracts older people. The oven was the gateway to her husband and the light was the symbol of taking you to the other side. 

Pink floyd- The Wall 

The film is very dark, representing war and how dark it was. The colors of red represent death along with the crosses. White is mainly the symbol of death with the crosses. Overall you see in a scene where a soldier is standing in no mans land as a skeleton and falls to the ground and turns into a cross. You can think of the drain where the blood is being poured into as innocent lives were lost and wasted because of the war.  The facial expressions of the professor and his wife represent how their relationship is. The wife controls the professor and then takes this anger out on the kids. The students are thought of as objects that are in repetition to come out all the same and are trained to be the exact same. These kids then break free of this factory learning style that they are put through.  The classrooms are very bland and just have white walls and black boards. Education has been taken over by a system that isn’t teaching the kids but is brain washing, this is the overall message of the scene.