Joss' Video comments:

Tape 1

General
I've always been a huge fan of horror movies. And I saw so many horror movies where there was that blonde girl who would always get herself killed, I started feeling bad for her. I thought, you know, it's time she had the chance to take back the night. So the idea of Buffy came from the very simple thought of: "A beautiful blonde girl walks into an alley, a monster attacks her, and she's not only ready for him, she trounces him".

Casting Buffy was extremely difficult. Sarah came in to read for the part of Cordelia and actually got the part. It was the network who said, Well she's wonderful why don't we see if she can do Buffy? And the moment she read for it, it was clear that we'd found her.

Welcome to the Hellmouth

Welcome to the Hellmouth was the first episode we wrote, and it involves her moving to Sunnydale not knowing that it's on a Hellmouth. The Hellmouth came from my friend Tommy and me sitting around and saying we need a reason why every monster in history would come to Sunnydale. So the Hellmouth became sort of the central concept for us because it allows us to get away with anything.

Sunnydale High is based on every high school in America because so many kids feel like their school is on the Hellmouth.

What makes the show popular is the central myth of high school as horrific. The humiliation, the alienation, the confusion of high school is taken to such great proportions that it becomes demonic. People out of high school respond to what's going on in the show because I don't think you ever get over high school.

Angel was sort of the X factor. We wanted someone in Buffy's life who wasn't, you know, stable, but inevitably someone that she could become attracted to.

The Harvest

The Harvest is the 2nd half of our 2-part pilot. It really shows the Master and what his plan is. And it puts Buffy up against some really terrible people, and sort of shows her what the stakes are here in Sunnydale.

We see the group cohere for the first time as sort of a fighting unit.

When Buffy opens that chest, on the first we see, you know, all the stuff a girl is expected to have. Underneath that is stakes, crosses, holy water, garlic... all the things that a Slayer would use that aren't found in most teenage girls trunks. I think.

One of our trickiest shots was that we actually took a cymbal and attached it to a Steadi-Cam and then followed it along so that we had what we called Cymbal-cam. Sarah did almost behead the cameraman with the cymbal. She didn't mean to.

Tape 2

Most of the characters have a piece of me in them. Obviously Xander is fairly close to my high school experience. There's also some of Giles in me. I did go to an English boarding school. And I do have a bit of that in me.

I wanted Giles in the show because you want that British character who's sort of a classic horror movie staple. Someone who says [affected British accent] "The vampires are coming and the Book of Thoth will tell us how to fight them."

I love writing these characters. And when you're writing it's just you and the characters, and it's a great place to be.

The Witch

The Witch episode was the first non-vampire story that we wrote, and so it was kind of a statement of principle: there's going to be other monsters and other villains.

And we got a lot of flak from witches and from people claiming to be witches, but what's really going on here is a story about mothers and daughters. There are certain things about Buffy that her mother, Joyce, just doesn't understand and Joyce is sort of coming to terms with that idea.

Cheerleaders are the great icon of popularity. That's why Buffy was one in the movie and that's why she wanted to be one again in school. But Buffy, I think, finds it's a little more complicated being a cheerleader in Sunnydale than it is anywhere else.

The episode was very important to me because David Greenwalt, my co-exec, and I co-wrote the story together.

Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

Never Kill a Boy on the First Date was an important early show for us because it was about Buffy trying to have a normal life.

And when she gets asked out by one of the cuter boys in school and has to juxtapose that experience with trying to save the world, again, from vampires, it becomes very complicated for her.

Xander has a terrible crush on Buffy. You know, this is the episode where he really admits it and tries to see if she's interested in dating him. What happens is sort of typical of what happens to Xander in his life.

Tape 3

The logo was devised because our head of post came to me and said "You need a logo, and we have 20 minutes. So I drew a little man and I had them make him go across the screen and then I recorded him saying Grr Argh!

I've always been interested in vampires I think because of the isolation they feel. They're in the world but not of it. As a child I always felt the same way and Buffy feels with that kind of alienation.

Every vampire story I've ever seen has it's own mythology and we tried develop our own. Sometimes an older vampire might crumble into dust but we have them all explode in to dust even if they're freshly dead. The vampires explode into dust because it's practically useful. For one thing it shows that they're monsters. I didn't really want to have a high school girl killing people every week. For another reason, you don't have to clean up bodies for 20 minutes at the end of every show. And it also.... looks really cool!

Angel

This episode is the one where we finally get to find out what it is about Angel's past that he's been hiding from Buffy. He's 100% the wrong guy for Buffy, so naturally she can't get enough of him.

Buffy and Angel do actually kiss in this episode for the first time. Basically Sarah and David had a "breath off." They both ate as many horrible things as they could before they kissed... just to be fun.

Puppet Show

We knew very early on that we wanted to do the classic evil ventriloquist/dummy show, but we also wanted to put a spin on it.

Fighting with a dummy, again, is difficult. There were occasions where we used a little person in a mask for some shots. We had Sarah pinned down so that it was a fair fight.

In this episode, the kids are forced to be in the talent show. And we learn that none of them have ... any talent. We shot a closing credit sequence that is their performance of a dramatic scene in the talent show. We were only allowed to air it once.

It took us longer to film than anything we've ever done because nobody could stop laughing. They were just so good at acting bad.

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