About Tone/Eating Too Much

Post 1454:

Tone is one of the hardest parts of making stories. You have to keep a close eye on it or else your final creation will feel all over the place. Establishing tone can be accomplished myriad ways. The voice or the narrator can provide a consistent feel or voice. The nature of the conflict can do the job. For instance, if the nat problem is fantastical, I can stretch the tonal boundaries. If the story is about a woman who is trying to find justice for her dead husband, it’s likely that you’re going to want to stay grounded.

Have you ever been watching an intense drama and then laughed out loud suddenly out of nowhere? I love this. Little comic relief moments are great because they signal that the rest of the story has been more or less tonally consistent. The levity is a stark contrast and therefore lands with even more definition than it otherwise would have.

After work I watched (or tried) to watch a movie called Reptile. It had a good cast. It’s my kind of story. Dark. Mysterious. Well lit, lots of people sitting in rooms trying to figure out what the hell is going on—that type of deal.

I’m not sure what happened here. They lost the plot and the tone. I almost forgot what the mystery was. There are scenes that don’t relate enough to the story to be included. It feels like we’re supposed to feel things for people that aren’t important to care about. I like Justin Timberlake but he’s struggling to pull something out of this one.

Tonally, as soon as it got serious, a scene would come along to take it another direction. I think they wanted to make a brooding, Seven type of film. There’s only like six of those. Your tone has to be smooth and the story airtight. Otherwise it’s just a heavy bag of mixed feelings and then everyone goes home sad and eats too much because great, another disappointment.

But you know, it was okay. Ups and downs and so forth. Cheers and see you after.