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Spaced: season 2 episode 5

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Spaced is a British television sitcom starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson who also created and wrote it. Spaced is directed by Edgar Write. The first episode premiered in the UK on 24th September 1999. Throughout the episode there are a number of non- diegetic sounds that are funny and add a comedic effect to what would otherwise be an ordinary scene for example the swiping sounds whenever the time or location changes, e.g. when on the phone to Sophie (3:20) or the heavenly sound which plays when its morning after he spent the whole night playing video games (5:02). However there are two main areas of non-diegetic sound which caught my attention for opposite reasons. The background music which is sometimes exaggerated but always matches the situation or circumstances in the different areas of the story but doesn’t match the characters actions and expressions which I feel adds a lot to the humour. This gives the characters an element of stupidity and obliviousness to the real world as their dialogue and reactions are either under exaggerated or over exaggerated to the situation, adding another layer of comedic effects. The second area of non-diegetic sound are the sound effects of the guns when they have the shoot off with the gang of boys. Because it was a joke at the start of the episode it already has comedic value being contained again but the sound effects are extremely over exaggerated and also shows how seriously the characters are taking it. In terms of diegetic sound there are again a few comical elements for example the voice break when he is on the phone to Sophie and the first shootout the kitchen but the most obvious one is the strange way some of the characters talk, for example Duane. Duane talks in a very breathy and exaggerated tough voice. This in itself isn’t to funny but the rest of the characters in the series take him seriously and don’t seem to notice his ridiculous voice. Some other examples of this are Brian and the gang of boys who have strange or exaggerated way of talking and acting. Throughout the episode there was a good editing and rhythmic relationship and the tempo of the scenes was controlled well to add extra comedy. The thing that stood out to me the most about the editing was the jump cuts which were used to show time passing in different situations, for example in the bar showing different positions after drinks in the same location (9:10). These jump cuts were made up of short takes and gave periods of the episode a fast pace.

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