Whew! So this is the start of a huge project that I've been working on. It was initially started to test the oft-repeated claim that "Spike took over the show". However, to do so, it was necessary to establish the dynamics of character screentime before Spike's arrival. This meant that the project expanded and became something, well, a little more interesting.

Now it's a series-wide count of line and scene counts to determine whose show this really is. :)

The juicy part will be when I finally have all seven seasons finished. For now, though, let's look at S1. I'm gonna show the graphs and then provide the raw data so fellow numbers geeks can ooh and ahh over them. First, though!



Methodology:

The method used for this project came about as a result of the intended goal: to compare characters' screentime and line count to see what trends arise throughout the seasons.

The characters involved include all characters who ever had a spot in the opening credit plus Faith. This means that characters who guest star before or after their regular stint still have their lines counted.

I used the transcripts and shooting scripts available on BuffyWorld.

For the line counts:

I first manually went through each transcript, tallying down both the number of lines, total, and the number of lines for each characters. Given that relative numbers are more important than actual numbers, I needed to be able to figure out what percentage of lines each character had in an episode. For this, I needed the total number of lines, even those spoken by incidental characters. The percentage is then simply calculated relative to the amount of lines in the episode (This includes lines by minor characters who are not under assessment).

All numbers were double-checked by opening the transcript in Notepad++ and doing an automated count of the number of times "CHARACTERNAME:" shows up. The manual read-through was necessary to catch any transcription errors or off formatting, while the automated check, obviously, checked my numbers.

For the scene counts:

Counting scenes was slightly more complicated. I ended up using the shooting script when possible. Each new INT or EXT shot counted as a new scene, except establishing shots (stock footage). Also, if the screenwriter labeled a scene as "CONTINUOUS", I didn't count it as a new scene. For scenes that are interrupted by an act break, I counted it as continuous so long as there's no significant time gap. Given that the important factor was figuring out a character's number of scenes relative to each episode (as opposed to comparing total number of scenes on an episode-by-episode basis), I decided that this method, while not perfect, would give satisfactory data.

In some cases in S1, a final shooting script was not available (only a writer's draft). In those cases, I attempted to use the transcript to gather the same information.

In all cases, I made sure to check with the transcript to ensure that I wasn't counting any deleted scenes (or missing any scenes that had been added in). At times, it was necessary to check screenshots to see whether a character was shown in a scene or not.

For the references:

I was able to keep track of the references while doing the line counts. The idea behind this count is to see which characters are often discussed by other characters. This would suggest that the character under discussion is of importance to the plot and to the show.

For a discussion to count, it had to take place while the subject character is not in the scene (or the characters discussing him/her are not aware of his/her presence). My general rule of thumb is that there needed to be three consecutive lines back-and-forth about the other character. Discussions among non-major characters also counted. If a discussion of a character stops and then begins again after a topic change, it's counted as two references. This is the only count that consisted of raw numbers rather than percentages, for obvious reasons.

Though I did track references for S1, I'm waiting until all seasons are completed to crunch those numbers and graph them because this aspect is more relevant in a comparative sense.

Drawbacks:

Using transcripts necessarily means being dependent on the transcribers' formatting. They may divide up a character's line by inserting an action descriptor, for instance. This would be counted as two lines for the character rather than one. However, since I'm looking at percentages relative to counts from the same monologue, it is hoped that internal consistency within the transcript will assuage this.

Also, there's no way to differentiate between short lines and long monologues. As such, this should only serve as a rough guide, and further counts with different methodologies (especially ones incorporating actual time) will be useful.





Here they are, exactly as I tallied them:

1.01:

Scenes: 21

Cordelia: 5 24%
Xander: 4 19%
Willow: 6 29%
Buffy: 14 67%
Angel: 1 5%
Giles: 3 14%

Lines: 425

Buffy: 145 34%
Xander: 36 8%
Willow: 44 10%
Cordelia: 32 8%
Giles: 50 12%
Angel: 10 2%

References:

Buffy: 2
Giles: 1
Cordelia: 1
Xander: 1

1.02:

Scenes 2: 22

Cordelia: 8 36%
Buffy: 17 77%
Willow: 10 45%
Xander: 14 63%
Angel: 2 9%
Giles: 8 36%

Lines: 393

Buffy: 100 25%
Willow: 47 12%
Xander: 70 18%
Giles: 45 11%
Angel: 12 3%
Cordelia: 24 6%

References:

Buffy: 2

1.03:

Scenes: 34

Cordelia: 10 29%
Xander: 13 38%
Willow: 14 41%
Buffy: 26 76%
Giles: 9 26%

Lines: 432

Giles: 60 14%
Buffy: 119 28%
Willow: 57 13%
Xander: 58 13%
Cordelia: 13 3%

References:

Buffy: 1

1.04:

Scenes: 31

Xander: 18 58%
Buffy: 23 74%
Giles: 12 39%
Willow: 15 48%
Cordelia: 2 6%
Angel: 2 6%

Lines: 445

Xander: 93 21%
Buffy: 135 30%
Angel: 12 3%
Giles: 56 13%
Willow: 36 8%
Cordelia: 5 1%

References:

Angel: 1
Xander: 1

1.05:

Scenes: 29

Cordelia: 4 14%
Willow: 14 48%
Xander: 14 48%
Buffy: 21 72%
Giles: 13 45%
Angel: 1 3%

Lines: 464

Buffy: 167 36%
Giles: 83 18%
Willow: 40 9%
Xander: 40 9%
Cordelia: 13 3%
Angel: 9 2%

References:

Cordelia: 1
Buffy: 2
Giles: 1

1.06:

Scenes: 28

Buffy: 18 64%
Willow: 14 50%
Xander: 17 61%
Giles: 8 29%

Lines: 393

Buffy: 101 26%
Willow: 79 20%
Xander: 62 16%
Giles: 43 11%

References:

Xander: 4
Angel: 1
Buffy: 1

1.07:

Scenes: 34

Cordelia: 2 6%
Willow: 12 35%
Xander: 11 32%
Giles: 11 32%
Buffy: 22 65%
Angel: 14 41%

Lines: 367

Buffy: 110 30%
Angel: 54 15%
Willow: 37 10%
Giles: 31 8%
Xander: 34 9%
Cordelia: 6 2%

References:

Angel: 8
Xander: 1
Buffy: 3

1.08:

Scenes: 30

Xander: 10 33%
Willow: 11 37%
Giles: 10 33%
Buffy: 20 67%

Lines: 439

Buffy: 123 28%
Giles: 78 18%
Willow: 59 13%
Xander: 60 14%

References:

Willow: 2
Buffy: 1

1.09:

Scenes: 30

Cordelia: 4 13%
Willow: 12 40%
Xander: 12 40%
Giles: 12 40%
Buffy: 19 63%

Lines: 439

Cordelia: 15 3%
Giles: 70 16%
Buffy: 118 27%
Xander: 51 12%
Willow: 43 10%

References:

Buffy: 1

1.10:

Scenes: 31

Cordelia: 6 19%
Xander: 12 39%
Willow: 13 42%
Buffy: 20 65%
Giles: 7 23%

Lines: 427

Buffy: 128 30%
Willow: 52 12%
Cordelia: 12 3%
Xander: 58 14%
Giles: 52 12%

References:

Cordelia: 1
Buffy: 1

1.11:

Scenes: 38

Cordelia: 20 53%
Xander: 17 45%
Willow: 17 45%
Buffy: 21 55%
Giles: 13 34%
Angel: 2 5%

Lines: 432

Cordelia: 91 21%
Willow: 39 9%
Buffy: 88 20%
Giles: 46 11%
Angel: 14 3%
Xander: 50 12%

References:

Cordelia: 2

1.12:

Scenes: 34

Cordelia: 6 18%
Xander: 11 32%
Willow: 13 38%
Giles: 10 29%
Angel: 6 18%
Buffy: 18 53%

Lines: 404

Xander: 66 16%
Willow: 52 13%
Buffy: 89 22%
Giles: 61 15%
Angel: 26 6%
Cordelia: 26 6%

References:

Buffy: 3





Clicking on the pictures will take you to a larger version.









- For kicks, I took a look to see which characters talked more in the scenes they had. This was done by simply dividing a character's total lines spoken by the number of scenes they had been in. Results as follows:

Buffy: 1423 lines in 239 scenes. 5.95 lines per scene.

Xander: 678 lines in 153 scenes. 4.43 lines per scene.

Willow: 585 lines in 151 scenes. 3.87 lines per scene.

Giles: 675 lines in 116 scenes. 5.82 lines per scene.

Cordelia: 237 lines in 68 scenes. 3.49 lines per scene.

Angel: 137 lines in 28 scenes. 4.89 lines per scene.

What does this mean? Well, it means that Buffy and Giles talk the most when they're actually in scenes. Cordelia and Willow talk the least. And, surprisingly, Angel talks more than Xander when he's actually on screen. Fun, right?



So what's next? I'm well past the halfway point in S2, and I'm also moving forward with the other seasons. I'll post individual overviews of each season, and then there'll be a final post that compares the seasons to note different trends.