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/