RSS Feed

Buffy Discussion

1

February 12, 2014 by Tom Ford

 

There is a scene in the episode where it shows various characters sleeping and as they breathe there is white smoke-like air coming from their mouths as they exhale. The scene starts with a ghoulish looking character setting down a box, which is collecting these breaths. There is an example of non-digetic sound that contributes to the dramatic effect of these breaths being collected. As the camera shifts from character to character the music builds with suspense and adds to the horror. The closing of the scene ends with the vampire closing the box and the music closes perfectly with a shot of the scary looking character smiling with bad intentions in mind. The non-diegetic sound that is played shifts the mood to add suspense and gives the viewer a sense of impending trouble for these characters. I chose this scene because it adds to the aesthetic of horror for the video. It is a mysterious scene that ends with a scary character.  This scene contributes to the horror of the following scene, which shows that Buffy and the other characters cannot speak. The music in the background while these characters are struggling to talk reveals the horror they are going through. Mise-en-scence is present in the scene where Buffy and friends wake up to find their voices missing. You can sense the panic in the characters as they are attempting to make a sound, but to no avail. Their performances show panic and confusion.  The performance of Buffy as she finds she cannot speak adds to the aesthetic of the horror of the episode. You can clearly see her trying to yell, “Can you hear me?!” with intense body language. She does not make a sound and the worry in her face is clearly shown. I liked the performance of the characters during this specific scene because they did a good job of acting out their fear of losing the ability to speak.

There is a scene where Buffy is daydreaming during class. The dream reveals a make out session followed by a little girl singing a creepy song. Buffy is then touched on the shoulder by her fellow make out friend and as she turns to look he has turned in a “Freddy” looking horror character. The music is very suspenseful and when the hand touches her shoulder the music climaxes and reveals the scary character. The music stops and the voice of the teacher awaken Buffy. “So I’ll see you all Monday for a final review session”. I liked this scene because it is something that many people can relate to. The voice of the teacher that is ending the current class session and those final words before everyone leaves. This digetic sound did not contribute to the aesthetic horror of the film. However, it was a nice transition from a scene that was aesthetically horrific to snap back into a milder scene. This is an example of digetic sound because of the voice of a character in the episode.


1 comment »

  1. Marie says:

    In your last paragraph you comment on the scene when Buffy is daydreaming and how there is a scene that does add to the aesthetic horror of the film followed directly by a scene that does not contribute to the aesthetic horror. I think this was a very good move for the episode because the scary part really set you up for what was about to happen in the episode whether you knew it was going to be scary or not. And then the not scary scene allows you the time to relax form the scary part and contemplate what just happened before they continue in with more scary stuff later. I think having this quick horrific scene followed by a semi-calming scene really allows the viewer to get prepared for what is about to happen, which I enjoyed. On page 279 of Carroll’s article it is stated that, “the horror story is driven explicitly by curiosity. It engages its audience by being involved in processes of disclosure, discovery, proof, explanation, hypothesis, and confirmation.” I believe that these scenes you mention allow the viewer to have time to be curious about the film and set some hypothesis’ up on what they believe is about to happen, if it was just scary the whole time it would be harder to relax and actually think about what is going to happen.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar