Mis en scene
The definition of mis en scene kind of confused me, but for my example I want to use the moment when Buffy lays down on the table before the class. The room is full of students, has typical fluorescent lighting, and there is a sense of peacefulness. The viewing audience is both the students in the room, but also myself as the viewer. Each of these things existed before the camera started filming. When they scene changes after Buffys kiss, the students disappear and the entire atmosphere of the setting changes to something cold and eerie. I chose this because I like how they worked the scene change. Clearly they did not have the special effects we have today, but they did a good job of having the scene flow seamlessly with the background sort of fading into a more scary setting. Buffys voice also acts as diegetic sound and the little girl singing what sounds like a creepy death song is the non-diegetic sound. I would not say that Buffy’s voice added much, she’s just the main character. The little girl’s singing though made the scene a bit scarier. I’ve always hated children sing in horror shows or movies because it’s just so creepy to me.
Non-Diegetic sound
I hope this example works, but there is a scene about 15 min into the episode where everyone tries to speak but no one can and people start panicking thinking they are just deaf. I thought this example kind of fit with the example given on non-diegetic sound because there is music going but no one is speaking. You can feel the emotion through the sounds but none of the sounds are actually coming from what we can see on the screen; they are all coming from outside the camera. This definitely has an interesting effect on the aesthetic of horror. Having loud music with no human voice adds a certain psychological effect, may like “what will happens next?” It would also be scary for this phenomenon to happen because it also shows what life would be like without vocal human communication. This definitely was a great scene to have in the episode.
Diegetic sound
About 33 min into the episode, Buffy is fighting off these…things (not quite sure what to call them but they’re white and have the crazy arms). She was hiding behind a tree watching one of the floating creatures when these jumped out at her. The diegetic sound I’m focusing on are the sounds of her punching and kicking these monsters. You can hear her hit their bodies and crack their necks. There is no speaking but the visuals as well as the fight sounds are effective. I like to think that diegetic sounds are what the characters on the screen hear while we as the audience hear the background music of the non-diegetic sounds. Buffy fighting the monsters can’t hear the instruments intensifying the fight but she can hear herself punching the crap out of the monsters attacking her.
Emily, I really appreciated your blog post. I think your post is very interesting and specific. You explained your understanding about each concept, and illustrated specific examples to prove your explanation. I like your examples very much, especially the example for the Mis en scene, because I used this example as well. I really agree with your opinion that the scene of classroom is typical. For me, I think it is horror that a strange little is singing in front of the door. Even this is a dreaming, the song from the little implies the development of the plot.
I like how you mentioned about the example of diegetic sound stood out to you and contributed to the aesthetic of horror since you could see they are coming and the girl in the scene could not. One of the most amazing thing about horror is the depiction of ‘something you cannot see’ or ‘you have not realized but it is coming’ , Diegetic sound usually appears before the actual graphic image, which makes the whole scene more horrifying and brings up a psychological shock. People love those horrors and the more discrete, secretary the hint is, the more exciting we get.
Thank you guys for your feedback. I was actually a bit confused by why the girl was singing. As I was watching the episode I didn’t quite connect the little girl’s song to the rest of the episode but maybe I just missed it. Horror is one of my favorite genres and I even watch horror movies alone sometimes! Diegetic sound definitely has a prominent effect on horror and I never actually considered how different it is without the characters speaking; it’s a whole different vibe. I can’t imagine what silent movies would be like but I don’t think I would enjoy them much. Overall, I thought this Buffy episode was very unique.