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. LIKE THIS EPISODE? Watch and comment on YouTube. Send us feedback. Thanks to our Patrons, especially Lily, Alexandre, Malay, Casimir, Jennifer, Thomas, Randy, Jesse, Sandra, Theis and Khrob. → Read the transcript for this episode. ——— "He is writing our experience as the audience to us as we're reading it." — Chas Fisher @ 00:40:40 ——— 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 ——— More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser. 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/