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.

He is writing our experience as the audience to us as we're reading it.

— chas

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→ Read the transcript for this episode.

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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

RELATED EPISODES

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

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