Before discussing and providing examples of mise-en-scene, diegetic sound, and non-diegetic sound, I would like to go over the definitions of them to understand more clearly about the examples from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Mise-en-scene is defined as “an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means “visual them” or “telling a story” – both in visually artful way through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction.” (Wikipedia) There was a scene that people lose their voice. In the video, their voice was visualized to show design aspects of the film. The voice was visualized as smoke, and the smoke are gathered into a little box. I think this is an example of mise-en-scene. This scene made us to preassume that there would be something bad to happen because of that.
Diegetic sound is the sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film. In the video, there was a scene that the main character and his friend got stuck into the elevator. At that time, they could not speak even a word out loud. The elevator was asking them to verify their identification with their own voice. The voice of elevator is, I think, an example of the diegetic sound. With the sound of voice from the elevator, the scene became more dynamic because the two could not do anything because they lost their voices. In addition, there was some poisonous smoke coming out due to failure of the verification.
Non-diegetic sound is the sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action. In the video, there was a scene that the evils from fairy tales chased a person, and the person fled away from them. During the scene, there was a mysterious background music playing, which made the scene more dynamic. I think the music was one of the examples of non-diegetic sound.
Thanks for sharing your perspectives. I appreciate the way you start the discussion with the introduction of definition of “mise-en-scene”, “diegetic sound” and “nondiegetic sound”. I think such brief introduction of definition allows audience (either people in AAD250 or those interested from internet) more efficiently understand/recall the primary concepts in your discussion and build a link between those terminologies and in-text examples. Your quote of definition from Wikipedia would be more convinced and professional if putting an reference at the end of discussion. I agree with you that the sound of elevator is a diegetic sound as it is the sound made by objects in story. In other word, the sound of elevator is the sound presented as originated from source within the film’s world, as well as it is on screen. Meanwhile, I criticize the affect of sound of elevator on increasing sense of horror because I think it is not a sound from living species (i.e human, animals). Just as what Tae (2014) saying, “With the sound of voice from the elevator, the scene became more dynamic because the two could not do anything because they lost their voices”, in all, a sound from not-living species enhances the dynamic and horror phenomenon.
Your understanding about mise-en-scene is very interesting. You use the explanation from Wikipedia and give an example. You mentions the scene that people lose their voice. You think the voice shows the design aspects of the film. The vampire take some people’s voice and put them into a small box. During this process, we can see the smoke. So you points out that the voice can be visualized as smoke and this is an example of mise-en-scene. You are the first person that I find explain this factor. This evoke my curiosity and I want to know more. I really hope you can write more about this factor.