5.5 Visual style and tone

Visual style and tone are crucial elements in crafting a compelling television pilot. They set the mood, guide viewer emotions, and bring the story to life visually. Understanding how to use cinematography, color, lighting, and camera angles effectively can elevate your pilot's impact.

Establishing a unique visual style helps your show stand out and reinforces its themes. By thoughtfully integrating style with story elements, you create a cohesive viewing experience that resonates with audiences. Collaborating with key crew members to execute your vision is essential for achieving a distinctive look.

Elements of visual style

• Visual style encompasses the key creative choices that shape the look and feel of a television show
• Thoughtful selection of cinematography techniques, color palettes, lighting approaches, and camera angles contribute to a cohesive and impactful visual aesthetic that enhances storytelling

Cinematography techniques

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• Lens choices affect depth of field, with wide angle lenses creating more background blur (bokeh) and telephoto lenses flattening perspective
• Handheld camerawork can convey intimacy, energy or chaos while smooth dolly shots suggest elegance or detachment
• Aerial drone shots provide sweeping establishing views of locations
• Employing different shot sizes, from extreme close-ups to wide shots, guides viewer attention and emotion

Color palette choices

• Warm tones (reds, oranges, yellows) evoke passion, danger or coziness while cool tones (blues, greens) suggest calm, melancholy or dystopia
• Desaturated colors can imply grit or depression (Breaking Bad) while vivid hues reflect heightened reality or optimism (Pushing Daisies)
• Analogous color schemes use adjacent hues on the color wheel for visual harmony
• Complementary color schemes juxtapose opposite colors for visual tension and contrast

Lighting approaches

• High-key lighting with bright, even illumination suits upbeat sitcoms and procedurals (The Office, CSI)
• Low-key lighting with strong shadows creates suspense for crime, horror and noir (The Wire, Hannibal)
• Natural lighting captures realism while expressive, stylized lighting reflects genre or tone
• Practical lamps, windows and motivated light sources integrate lighting into sets and blocking

Camera angles and movement

• High angles looking down can diminish subjects while low angles looking up empower them
• Dutch angles (tilted horizon) suggest disorientation or tension (Mr. Robot)
• Tracking shots moving with characters shape kinetic excitement or dread (True Detective, Uncut Gems)
• Zoom lenses allow changing perspective within shots to direct focus (Better Call Saul)

Establishing tone through visuals

• Visual style is a key tool for establishing a show's unique tone, atmosphere and point of view
• Genre conventions provide audiences with familiar visual shorthands, while subversive style choices distinguish a series' fresh take on genre

Genre conventions vs subversion

• Sitcoms often use bright, high-key lighting and eye-level, multi-camera staging to maximize clarity of facial expressions and body language
• Subverting sitcom style with cinematic single-camera techniques, moody lighting and filmic lenses can reshape genre tone (Barry, Atlanta)
• Sci-fi shows tend toward sleek, cool color palettes and smooth camerawork to convey futuristic settings (Westworld, Black Mirror)
• Period dramas often employ warm candlelight, classical compositions and desaturated colors to evoke historical eras (The Crown, Bridgerton)

Mood-setting imagery

• Opening episodes with evocative, moody imagery sets the stage for a show's tone (the desert landscapes of Breaking Bad, the neon-soaked city streets of Euphoria)
• Recurring visual motifs of settings, objects or compositions accumulate symbolic meaning (the Red Room in Twin Peaks, the Oval Office in The West Wing)
• Color-coding characters or storylines influences audience associations and expectations (the yellow hazmat suits in Breaking Bad, the red scrubs in ER)

Symbolic visual motifs

• Abstract imagery or subjective camerawork can externalize characters' psychological states (elliot's "mind prison" in Mr. Robot, Carrie's bipolar POV in Homeland)
• Mirroring and doubling character compositions can underscore themes of duality, parallels or opposites (Fleabag, Hannibal)
• Vertical lines and height differences visualize power dynamics between characters (succession's low angle shots of Kendall)
• Frames within frames (doorways, windows) suggest entrapment, voyeurism or porous boundaries between spaces (Mad Men, Sex Education)

Pacing of visual reveals

• Withholding and revealing story information through camerawork builds anticipation and suspense (the slow zoom out from Desmond's eye in Lost)
• Shifting lenses or focus racks can recontextualize a familiar scene with new details or perspectives (Better Call Saul, Watchmen)
• Montage juxtapositions compress time for irony or exposition (the suburban malaise cutaways in WandaVision)
• Slow push-ins build tension and intimacy while whip pans or crash zooms punctuate surprise or violence (Breaking Bad, Barry)

Integrating style and story

• Aligning visual style to the themes, character arcs and structure of a series creates a powerful, cohesive storytelling experience
• Shifting the visual style over the course of a series can externalize characters' transformations or raises in narrative stakes

Visual style reflecting themes

• The Americans uses washed out colors, harsh shadows and tight framing to evoke the paranoia and claustrophobia of Cold War espionage
• Euphoria's neon, glitter-soaked cinematography mirrors teens' oversaturated, extremely online inner lives
• The Handmaid's Tale employs desaturated colors and symmetrical compositions to reflect the oppressive order and restricted POVs of Gilead

Evolving visuals with character arcs

• Breaking Bad tracks Walter White's descent through increasingly harsh, alienating compositions and queasy, disorienting camerawork
• Russian Doll shifts from chaotic, handheld coverage in early time loops to fluid, graceful camerawork as Nadia finds peace and connection
• Enlightened's camera starts close and erratic on Amy's manic face but pulls back to calmer, more stable framing as she grows in empathy and openness

Stylistic changes for act breaks

• Sharp cuts to black or white provide an exclamation point on a shocking act out (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad)
• Slow dissolves, fades or superimpositions can poetically link disparate spaces or time periods between acts (Mad Men, The Leftovers)
• Shifting to handheld camerawork, saturated colors or abstract imagery disorients viewers at act breaks (Legion, Hannibal)
• Teaser prologues often employ a markedly different visual style to establish a flashback, flash-forward or standalone set piece (Lost, This Is Us)

Cohesive style across episodes

• Consistent, well-defined visual rules for camerawork, lighting, color and composition unify episodes shot by different directors
• Sitcoms and procedurals tend to prioritize visual continuity for viewer comfort and familiarity
• Anthology series can vary style radically between episodes or seasons since each installment stands alone (Fargo, Black Mirror)
• Prestige dramas often allow more stylistic variation between episodes for visual novelty and authorial voice

Collaborating on visual style

• Crafting a television series' visual style is a team effort, led by the showrunner and key department heads
• Aligning collaborators around a shared stylistic vision while allowing for creative interpretation is key to executing a cohesive style

Showrunner's stylistic vision

• Showrunners define the overall tone, themes and visual approach of a series to guide the creative team
• Showrunners reference paintings, photographs, films and music to communicate the desired mood and aesthetic
• Detailed lookbooks, storyboards and overheads visualize how the showrunner's ideas translate to the screen
• On set, showrunners work with directors to adjust and approve shots, lighting and production design that fit their vision

Cinematographer's creative input

• The cinematographer (or director of photography) is the key collaborator in executing the showrunner's visual blueprint
• Cinematographers contribute ideas for camerawork, lenses, lighting, color and composition to shape the show's look
• Cinematographers create consistency across episodes by defining rules for coverage, equipment and exposures
• Cinematographers train and delegate to their camera crew to operate cameras, build rigs and adjust lighting on set

Art department's role

• The production designer oversees the overall visual concept for sets, locations, props and color palette
• Art directors manage the design, construction and dressing of interior sets and exterior locations
• Set decorators source furniture, dressings and props that reflect characters and story with visual specificity
• Prop masters oversee hero props and hand props that are key to story, character or tone (the pink teddy bear in Breaking Bad)

Consistency in directing style

• TV directors rotate between episodes, so they must adapt their style to fit the established aesthetic
• Detailed shot lists, overheads and storyboards dictate directors' coverage and compositions for consistency
• Lookbooks, color palettes and sample footage define the desired lighting and exposure for directors
• Showrunners and department heads are on set to guide directors' staging and shot design to align with series style

Examples of distinctive visual styles

• Innovative cable and streaming series leverage adventurous visual styles to stand out and serve daring storytelling
• Even conventional TV genres have specific visual hallmarks that shape audience expectations and understanding

Innovative cable drama aesthetics

• Mr. Robot's alienating compositions, disorienting camerawork and vivid primary colors externalize hacker Elliot's dissociated mental states
• Atlanta experiments with aspect ratios, film stocks, lighting and surreal imagery to subvert sitcom conventions and represent Black experiences
• Hannibal's lush, operatic cinematography elevates lurid violence into dark poetry, blurring the line between gore and beauty

Sitcom visual conventions

• The bright, even lighting and eye-level proscenium staging of multi-cam sitcoms (Friends, The Big Bang Theory) prioritize the clarity of performances
• Single-cam sitcoms employ more dynamic camerawork, editing and lighting for cinematic effect (Parks and Rec, 30 Rock)
• Aspirational, upscale sitcom sets use warm colors, cozy textures and copious space to invite viewers into idealized homes and hangouts

Anthology series' changing styles

• Black Mirror shifts its cinematography, production design and color palette radically between episodes to suit each story's genre and themes
• True Detective alters style between seasons to evoke different eras, settings and tones (S1's grungy, handheld neo-noir vs. S3's icy, precise true crime)
• Fargo matches its look to each season's period setting, with saturated vintage hues for the '70s and stark digital cinematography for the 2000s

Mockumentary visual techniques

• Handheld camerawork, whip pans and crash zooms evoke the improvisational energy of documentary shooting (Parks and Rec, Modern Family)
• Talking head interviews, shaky framing and camera "mistakes" like lens flares create a sense of raw authenticity (The Office, Abbott Elementary)
• Mockumentaries often break the fourth wall, with characters directly addressing or reacting to the camera (Modern Family, What We Do In The Shadows)