Visible crew/equipment: When Brian's mother tells him that his father was a Roman, you can see the shadow of the boom mic on the wall behind Brian. (00:17:20)
Visible crew/equipment: When the spaceship is being attacked, the alien bumps up a bit, and if you look closely you can see a face under the right hand alien. (00:43:28)
Visible crew/equipment: After Brian had his speech and the people pursue him asking him to complete his sentence, there is a frontal shot of Brian and the people where they push a blind man to the ground. You can see the shadow of the camera man on the crowd as they are walking. (00:55:15)
Visible crew/equipment: A man appears from behind the second to last cross in a black waistcoat/jacket and white pants, the van he came in (presumably) is there too, and appears again later in the song, only for a short few seconds though. (01:30:20)
Visible crew/equipment: In the last scene while Brian and the others are singing you can see a tourist walking in the background. (01:30:30)
Visible crew/equipment: You can clearly see overhead wiring during the manger scene near the beginning.
Answer: Actually, no, the primary goal of "Life of Brian" was not to parody biblical films. Terry Gilliam has stated that the "important" objective of the movie was "to offend a lot of people," particularly "Jews and Christians, because they're easy to push around." Gilliam further said that, at the same time, they were "very cautious not to offend Muslims, because they're the dangerous ones." Both Gilliam and John Cleese have also said that, while the Pythons took care to avoid blasphemy (not directly mocking Jesus of Nazareth, with whom the Pythons had no quarrel), they fully intended that the film be heretical (in defiance of Catholic Church doctrine and dogma). Make no mistake, "Life of Brian" is not supposed to be a lighthearted parody of biblical films; it's supposed to be a sharp stick in the eye to the Roman Catholic Church.
Charles Austin Miller