Joss Commentary

[butterfly]

Welcome to the Hellmouth
Hey, jic, he uses 'guy' the same way as you.

And we wanted to introduce Cordelia as someone you thought might be nice, a little catty maybe, but kind of endearing and then turn it around and have her just lay into someone, into Willow, so that you realize, "Oh, she's not exactly what I thought she was either." and set up our sympathy for Willow and for Buffy when Buffy gravitates toward Willow, clearly, because she's upset that Willow has been attacked.

By the way, I noticed in that last scene, Cordelia says that she's always wanted to live in L.A. and the fact is, she did move to L.A. four seasons later for the spin-off, so as you can see, this is all one brilliant master plan. Nothing happens by chance.

There goes Alyson. Alyson, King of Pain. When anyone attacks her, we learned early on, it just opens up your heart. It's a terrible thing. She's so good at playing that vulnerability, so, that look for example.

Oh look, they're back in the same hall that they were just in. Because we just had the one hall. So, that's really kinda sad, actually.

We're about to take Buffy into the library. Um, this is the meeting place, the 'bat cave', it's a very important visual part of the show and in the script she wanders through the stacks for a while, um, and it's dark and it's scary and it's a sort of labyrinth. As you can see here, on the day, the 'wandering through the labyrinth' became the 'walking into the big, brightly lit room where there is no labyrinth because we didn't have time and it's really hard to light a labyrinth'. Um, so she just sort of stands there instead.

Tony Head, playing Giles. Tony Head was one of the few people that we saw and instantly knew right away there was going to be no one else who could play that part. He is... you know, he embodied it perfectly. Most of the people who came in to read for Giles the Watcher would read him as so old and stuffy that he was only there to be Boring Exposition Guy, to be just the one thing. Tony brought this undercurrent of... kinda youth and sexiness and great acting chops to the role, so it was clear this is a guy still trying to figure out his own life, uh, while the kids are as well, and that really works for us, 'cause it gives us places to go with Giles and we end up going a lot of strange ways with him.

You'll hear in this scene a lot of, really, sort of wacky California speak. We toned that down as people didn't respond to it and didn't know what we were talking about. We still speak in a very strange patten but it's more based on the way I and the writers speak than anything we think teenagers might say.

Now we come to the scene where Buffy really latches onto Willow and we see that friendship begin to form. The character of Willow was a sort of real difficult one for the network and for us to cast. We were having a big confusion about who to put in there. I was determined that we wouldn't have the 'supermodel in horn-rims' that you usually see on a television show. I wanted somebody who really had their own sort of shy quirkiness and while the network and I were looking for people, Alyson Hannigan sort of slipped under our rader. She came in and we really didn't know she was going to be the guy and when she read for the network, we were just completely blown away. She, uh, brings so much light and so much tenderness to the role, it's kinda extraordinary. It's still... once we'd cast her, it's difficult for the network to figure out what was right about her. The incredibly nerdy clothes that she's wearing, you'll see her wearing for exactly one episode because they kept sending us memos. 'You must make her more hip.' 'Make her more cool.' 'You must make her more... like Buffy.' which confused me 'cause I wanted to do an ensemble show and ensemble means that people are different. Besides, I think that outfit's really cute. But the character just, I think, threw them because she isn't the sort of TV-glow, big hair star that they would usually expect and I very much kept saying, "I don't think you understand this character. This actress is going to have a fan-base that is more rabid than anybody else's because she brings so much to it and that's the character that people think 'that's somebody that I might have know. That's somebody that I might have gotten along with.' but at the same time, she's the ideal of that." And I knew that they were going to respond to her on a level that they couldn't even respond to Buffy because Buffy has an unattainableness, she's such a hero.

All I can think about when I look at this scene is how orange Eric and Charisma are, because it took so long to shoot and the sun went down and we had to take the last bit of sunset and bounce it all over the place and put it on them for the last shot. Doesn't really look natural with the rest of it. Hopefully, you're not noticing that and you didn't hear me just say that.

And coming up to the scene where Buffy breaks into the gym to find the dead body. As scripted, this was a scene of her jumping up and through a second story window, a really elaborate stunt. Another lesson in what you can do in TV. That's what we had the time and the budget for, a little door action there. A lot of my expectations had to be brought down, usually to the benefit of the show, because the less elaborate it could be, the more I had to just make things matter, so that I couldn't hide things with a dog-and-pony-show, I couldn't afford the pony, I could only have the dog.

Comments

[cicelian.livejournal.com]

Whee! Joss commentary!

I really love you for doing those transcripts.

Re:

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

*grins*

Thank you. And there's only, you know, about three-four parts after this.

[jic]

I love you transcribing the commentary, too.

and

Eeeee!

She came in and we really didn't know she was going to be the guy and when she read for the network, we were just completely blown away.

Go Joss!

Re:

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

*grins*

Thanks. I thought you'd like that.