Non-Diegetic Sound: I chose my example of non-diegetic sound to be at 15:30 and going through the scene until 18:00. I chose this selection because it starts right after a long period of diegetic sound (she gets out of bed, brushes her teeth, opens a door) and this causes the non-diegetic music to really stand out. The music is non-diegetic because the characters in the show cannot hear it. The music that is playing in the background builds up intensity as everyone realizes they no longer can talk. The way the music slowly increases in rhythm and noise helps emphasize the lack of diegetic sound and the breach of normality. This breach of normality gives the viewer a sense of unease. Furthermore, the intensity of the music with little to know diegetic sound causes the direness of the situation to be realized.
Diegetic Sound: A good example of diegetic sound during this episode of Buffy would be at: 28:20. There is no non-diegetic sound going on which is one of the reasons I picked the scene. The scene has two primary sounds. The sound of the music and the sound of the main guy flipping around his presentation slides. The music correlates to the story going on with the slides, which gives the whole scene a more dramatic and resounding effect. The lack of non-diegetic sound allows all of the in-scene sounds to stand out. The grabbing of a book and the walking of footsteps as they are leaving the presentation all gain emphasis from the lack of other noise.
Mise-en-scene: Mise-en-scene is everything you can see within the frame of a scene. I chose to look at the mise-en-scene starting at 22:48. The scene starts out with a sharp angle down so you can only see the floating feet of the creatures. This immediately shows that they are levitating which is important to show the abnormality them. It shifts to a long shot that shows the procession of creatures headed into town. This is important to show how many there are and what they’re doing. All of the main monsters are wearing suits with baldheads and crooked smiles. The “minions” all have bent backs and are wearing straight jackets. The lighting is dark to give the appearance of nighttime although some light shines on the creatures to emphasize their features. The slow motion of the creatures seems methodical and adds to the eeriness of the whole scene. I picked this scene because it used primarily to establish the creatures as the villains.
After reading your blog post I had many similar depictions of examples from the Buffy episode. Our mise-en-scene interpretations were very similar in the fact that we both picked a scene that makes the monsters appear scarier. I picked a scene where the camera angle is low, to make it look as if the monsters are bigger and take up more of the screen. This definitely helps set the mood of the scene and contributes to the overall aesthetic of horror.
One topic I am interested to hear your opinion on is the non-diegetic sound. I feel that without this sound the genre of horror would not be the same. The outside, “mood” music, really enhances the horror of the scene and makes us fear what is going to happen next. Do you think that the genre of horror would be as scary if they didn’t include non-diegetic sound?
One idea that Carroll brings up from the reading this week, titled Why Horror?, is how “our gratification is not the monster as such but the whole narrative structure in which the presentation of the monster is staged” (278). This shows how she feels that mise-en-scene is very important to setting the stage for the aesthetics of horror. I would also argue that non-diegetic and diegetic sound are included in what she refers to as narrative structure. Do you agree with her opinion?
I chose different examples but very similar with your examples in the Buffy episode. I want to share my story of finding the non-diegetic sound. For your example of non-diegetic sound, I also identified the non-diegetic sound around 17:00 in the Buffy episode. The reason why I did not choose those sounds is the because the example I finally chose produce more feeling of horror for me. I agree with you that those increasing rhythm and noise helps to build a horror atmosphere. But I think those non-diegetic sound coming from natural environment which will scare people in the real life have better ability to create feeling of horror for the audiences. I chose the example of wind sounds, I believe the wind sounds in the dark night will create a feeling that people know something will happen and they have curiosity to know what happen. This point is actually reflected in the article from Carroll that curiosities sometimes will result in horror things. (Carroll, 280) I think the non-diegetic sound will generate curiosities from people to enhance their feelings of horror.