DZ-105: Establishing Tone through Big Print

Listen if you want to use an unusual tone in your screenplay.

Chas and Stu finally start their long-mooted exploration of tone with a series that examines films and shows with unusual tones and dives into how the writers establish those tones in the first 5 pages.

How does your script want your reader to experience violence in your story? Humour? Sex? Prejudice?

To answer these questions, this episode look at how films with “darker” or “sadder” tones teach the reader what they can laugh at, namely: THE NICE GUYS, THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN and the pilot for YELLOWJACKETS.

Together they learn how to better talk about tone, how to frame tone for a scene or sequence, and what levers writers can use on the page to compensate for cinematic tools like music, performance, composition, lighting, design, editing, etc etc etc.

Future episodes plan to explore establishing lighter or quirkier tones, as well as tools in shifting or changing tone on the page.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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→ Read the transcript for this episode.

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"He is writing our experience as the audience to us as we're reading it." — Chas Fisher @ 00:40:40

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CHAPTERS

00:00:00 – Cold Open

00:00:32 – What is tone?

00:05:36 – › Tone defined through the rhetorical triangle

00:09:27 – › Teaching the audience the rules of tone

00:16:36 – › Word and narrative choices as tonal tools

00:25:00 – THE NICE GUYS

00:31:48 – › How Shane Black's prose style establishes tone on the page

00:39:39 – › Complicity, strangeness, and tonal shift within the opening scene

00:49:49 – › How repetition and rhythm sell comedy in action lines

00:55:07 – Sponsor: Arc Studio Pro

00:57:23 – THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

01:00:17 – › Surrealism, sparseness, and McDonagh's tonal commitment

01:05:43 – › How script mood is built through environment and repetition humour

01:21:42 – › What the opening pages teach us about tonal contracts with the audience

01:25:06 – YELLOWJACKETS

01:28:07 – › Establishing three tones across three timelines in a pilot

01:34:49 – › How big print language and POV shifts create horror dread

01:43:06 – › Tonal transitions between scenes using comedy and environment

01:50:16 – › Writing style shifts that signal tone within action lines

01:53:30 – Key Learnings & Wrap Up

01:57:23 – › Being bolder with tone in Australian screenwriting

02:00:14 – › Signalling authorial judgment in satirical writing

02:04:40 – Many thanks to our Patreons!

FILMS

THE NICE GUYS (2016) — (w) Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi (d) Shane Black

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (2022) — (w) Martin Mcdonagh

SHOWS

YELLOWJACKETS 1x1 "Pilot" — Karyn Kusama (d), Bart Nickerson, Ashley Lyle (w)

SCRIPTS

Study the script: THE NICE GUYS (2016) — Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi

Study the script: THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (2022) — Martin Mcdonagh

EPISODES IN THE ESTABLISHING TONE SERIES

DZ-105: Establishing Tone through Big Print

DZ-107: Establishing Tone through Character

RELATED EPISODES

DZ-60: Unfilmables 1 - Engaging imagination

DZ-61: Unfilmables 2 - Moments of Awe

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We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2023/dz-105/