Adam Paquette - Exploring Film Technique

Bunny

In this short skit, the bunny got annoyed with a moth hitting her light inside, so she kicked it out of the house. It finds its way back in and as she kills it falls into the cake batter and she bakes it in the oven. We then see the oven shaking and a mysterious light shines out from it, all indicating something powerful. As we approach the oven, the camera tilts up and down to view the oven from different angles. The bunny goes into the oven, which is seen as the doorway to heaven. Just as an oven transforms batter into cake, it transformed the bunny into a moth/angel going towards the light, as what the moth was doing the entire time. As we witnessed the bunny transform and fly to the light, the camera tilts up and the light overfloods the screen from the exposure. The moth in the skit could be seen as the angel of death because it stopped at nothing, no matter what the bunny did to stop it, and it will lead and take her to the afterlife. 

Harold and Maude

In this movie we see a mother and her son talk about what flower he would want to be and the son says “one of these.” As he said this, the camera shows a long shot of all of the flowers, where one would say all the flowers are alike. He said those flowers because they are all the same. But when his mom said they are actually all unique and different from each other, the camera does a close-up where the audience can see the true uniqueness of each flower. 

In another scene, we see a close-up of Harold and his mom so we can see their facial reactions. This scene had to be one of the funniest scenes because just as Harold thinks he got away with something bad, his mom puts him in his place without saying a word. Here we can see Harold look at the camera (to us) and he gives us a little smirk and holds himself higher because he was proud of what he did. As this was happening, his mom was sizing him up (looking him up and down) to read him. As he is turning to his mom proudly, she is staring coldly at him, which caused him to instantly deflate and look down, and his mom follows his head down to put him in his place. This close-up makes it appear that Harold is the big guy but in actuality, his mom is the puppeteer controlling him.

Northfork

The church scene was interesting because the camera shared two point of view shots. The first was from where the priest was looking out to the congregation. The next was from the congregation’s point of view, which showed the priest and the scenery behind him because there was no wall. It showed the mountains in the background looking at the people moving their town, which we discussed the mountains were like God because they stay put and watch the world change. Next, we saw buffalo and from the buffalos’ perspective we saw the kid running behind them, and during this time the buffalo were all dying in that area. Another great cinematic feature was the split house. The camera was on one side with the son showing the separation of the house with snow falling in the split of the house. The son tells his dad to jump and as he lands it is like he crosses a threshold and sees the angels.

Paris Texas

This movie had a lot of imagery of communication. The camera shows Travis walking in the desert where he is following the phone, cattle guard, and fence. All of these are lines of communication such as the fence communicating the end of one’s property and the cattle guard communicating that cows cannot pass (only humans and cars can). Another scene shows Travis following the railroad track, another line of communication (people traveling from one place to another). As we followed the leading line of the track it shows us the openness of the desert and no life ahead. In the last scene where Travis is on one side of the mirror talking to his wife, we see that his room is finished and the other side of the room appears to be finished but we see an unfinished wall. In addition, it is a two-way mirror but only the customer, Travis, could see the girl, his wife, on the other side of the mirror. Another interesting feature was the customer uses a phone to talk to the person on the other side and the other person just has a speaker to listen and respond back to (another communication symbol). In addition, Travis talked to his wife with his back turned (because he saw her) and later she did the same thing when she could see him. The camera showed an angle of Travis facing the mirror and we saw his wife’s face (reflection) where his face would be and vice versa. This was symbolic in that in marriage it states that “two shall become one flesh.” The way the movie was filmed allowed for deeper meanings to be surfaced. 

Pink Floyd- The Wall 

This film was very creative in that it gave the song lyrics deeper meaning because it had very powerful animations. The movie brought more life to the lyrics in that the animations told another story, almost like one big trip. For example, the movie shows the teacher being bossed by his wife (treating him like a child) and then it shows the teacher taking out his pain on the students. In addition, while the no education song was playing the animation showed students in line on a conveyer belt getting their identities and uniqueness stripped away from them showing that the school system indoctrinates students and produces products. As it goes on, it shows the students falling into a meat grinder and shaping them into teachers who are all the same, just as another brick in the wall. Now as I listen to the song, I hear and view it differently, which shows how powerful film techniques are. As the Pink Floyd songs were playing I found myself captivated by the animations playing on the screen. Some animations were making fun of characters, like the judge, and portrayed him as fat, ugly, and with long legs. Another aspect was the color contrast of the red blood flooding down the cross onto the black ground as so to make the color red pop.