Bookend Imagery in BtVS
Hailing from a background in painting and commercial art, I think I tend to pay a lot of extra attention to the composition of shots in films and TV shows. I don't think the attention is either undue or completely subjective - I've worked with art directors, and have a good sense of the kinds of conversations that lead to visual decisions - but I ( Read more... )
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I'm going to dig through my DVDs and try to catch more of these.
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Isn't it, though? Along with what you have called that "Mona Lisa smile", it is one of the most beautifully composed shots I've seen in any film or video.
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The composition here is Knowledge, Faith and Love. If there is a better image on which to end a tale about heroes, I haven't seen it yet.
SO LOVELY!!
When it comes to opening and closing images the one that I ALWAYS immediately go to (probably because of it's obviousness) is in "Surprise"
The first image has Buffy walking through a dream/nightmare, and the end of the episode has Angel waking up to an actual nightmare of becoming Angelus. The visual storytelling of that episode is remarkable!
I know there are more. I'll have to look for them and come back to you.
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When it comes to opening and closing images the one that I ALWAYS immediately go to (probably because of it's obviousness) is in "Surprise"
The first image has Buffy walking through a dream/nightmare, and the end of the episode has Angel waking up to an actual nightmare of becoming Angelus. The visual storytelling of that episode is remarkable!
Oh yeah! The roundness of that episode was really great, and there is this internal roundness to so many episodes that makes the story feel like less of a "TV show" and more like a great book.
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I love this--and I love that you come from a visual arts background because I'm the exact opposite--I come from lit, and it's taken me a while to start seeing these types of visual patterns and motifs. And when I DO see them? My mind just is blown. It's so exciting to me (after spending however long concentrating on words on a page) to see that same attention to artfulness that I look for in literature in a visual medium--especially in a pop culture medium.
Anyway. This is wonderful.
Doors are metaphors for the (sometimes guarded) pathways to hearts, and Buffy has left her heart open for Dawn.
Oooh. I love that.
She has become a symbol of Buffy's faith; it's the same faith that allowed her to save Spike by loving him, to save Dawn by loving her, and to save the world by loving herself.
Gah! YES. The beauty of this sentence is making me sniffle.
The composition here is Knowledge, ( ... )
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I don't know why, but thanks for dropping me a note!
It's so exciting to me (after spending however long concentrating on words on a page) to see that same attention to artfulness that I look for in literature in a visual medium-especially in a pop culture medium.
An interesting thing to me is how literate the show sometimes was, despite all the pop semiotics being flaunted. Jean Baudrillaud might have said that the show really doesn't contain the meaningful references I think it does, because there are no referents to connect to, and that these meanings and symbols are illusions produced by my own subjective interrelation to the forms. But fuck that guy. Seriously. If he tried to lay that structuralist jazz on me, I'd bust out some crazy Laser Shit on him, like when Buffy slaughtered Adam.
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I'm watching through the series with my kids (18 and 21 -- it's taking a LONG time). Can't wait til I can share this meta with them after we've seen Chosen.
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