It is very important to note that the supradiegetic insert is separated from the central diegesis both by music and, more interestingly, by a switch in visual style apparent in the mise-en-scene (bright colors and patterns, retro clothing and hairstyles), camera work and editing (crane shots, dissolves, and jump cuts ), and the artificial ageing of the image surface. The quick return to the aesthetics of the non-musical diegesis briefly indicates and emphasizes the boundaries between these two moments in the text. The camera cuts back to the two waitresses, still in drab 2007 garb, right before a similar graphic-match jump cut. Jemain begins singing “Foux de Fa Fa”-a nonsensical French song that would have made Ionesco proud-as people in berets and voluminous 1960s coiffures walk behind him.
In addition, the surface of the image has been altered to indicate artificially aged film stock. Music begins followed by what might best be described as a graphic-match jump cut wherein an initial medium shot of Bret and Jemain in the café is followed by a shot of the pair in identical positions but wearing different clothes in the now vibrantly decorated café. Directly before the insert, Jemaine and Bret enter a pastry shop and Jemain orders a croissant. “Girlfriends,” quite possibly my favorite episode of FOC, features two inserts, the first of which begins 1:44 minutes into the episode and ends approximately 2 minutes 25 seconds later (please see above clip).
To this end, I will begin by looking at a salient example of a supradiegetic insert in each show. The object of this column is to outline the formal characteristics of these inserts as well as influences on their structure, and to explore how they function for both the shows’ producers and their audiences.
Furthermore, I am calling these moments “inserts” simply to note the clear delineation between these moments in the text and the central diegesis. Thus, when I use “supradiegetic” in this column, I’m referring to moments in the text, registered both visibly and audibly, which are neither wholly diegetic nor extradiegetic, but which confuse the distinction between the two. 1 While Altman uses “supradiegetic” primarily to discuss sound in terms of its relationship to diegesis, I would like to employ the term more broadly, to refer not only to sound, but also to moving images that accompany it. So why compare apples with kiwis?īoth Allison Dubois’ psychic visions and the musical sequences in FOC operate as what I would tentatively label supradiegetic inserts, to borrow a term from Rick Altman’s discussion of the Hollywood musical. Not only do both shows air on very different channels and engage different generic conventions and television formats, the central subjects and themes of the programs have few, if any, ties between them. The hour-long show, itself a hybrid combining the police procedural, fantasy, and domestic drama, also closely follows Allison’s home life and her role as a wife and mother.
Medium, on the other hand, concerns itself with Allison DuBois, a psychic woman who uses her “gifts” to solve crimes, first as a consultant for the Phoenix, Arizona D.A.’s office and then as an investigator for a firm called AmeriTips. A thirty-minute sit-com-musical hybrid, Flight of the Conchords ( FOC) follows two New Zealand digi-folk musicians, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, as they seek rock and roll fame (and girlfriends) in New York City. Flight of the Conchords members Bret and Jemaine do the “Robo Boogie” in one of the show’s supradiegetic inserts.Īdmittedly, HBO’s Flight of the Conchords and NBC’s Medium have little in common.
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