Defining and Understanding “Tone”: The Function of Feeling in Corporate Video Production
We’ve all seen it before, whether we realized it or not: a brilliant advertisement or story is saddled with the incorrect tone, and ends up being flat and unwatchable.
Anyone in marketing, writing, or video knows the importance of tone. Whether or not your video has a suitable tone can make or break your video – not just in the entertainment industry, but in corporate promotions, too.
What many don’t realize, however, is that it isn’t solely about avoiding the incorrect tone; it’s about finding the perfect tone – one that will resonate deeply with your audience.
What is tone?
Tone refers to the general character or mood of a piece of art. Tone is certainly not exclusive to videos and film:
- the tone of books and poetry is dictated by the author’s use of words, humour, setting, and descriptions
- the tone of video games is impacted by content, design, music, colour, and gameplay speed
- the tone of visual art is impacted by the colour, paint style, and subject matter
- the tone of music is influenced by voice, pitch, timbre, lyrics, instruments, melodies and harmonies, emotional character and much more
Across all media, tone serves as the key element that governs the audience’s perception and emotional response. That might sound like something largely unimportant for corporate promotions and video marketing, but research has shown over and over that people most often make decisions based primarily on their emotional instincts – not, as you might suspect, logic and reason.
In other words, if you can use tone to dictate your audience’s emotional response, they’ll be more likely to choose your services over someone else's.
Framing, lighting, setting, and colour make a big difference to the emotional character of a shot.
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Cultivating the right tone
Cultivating the perfect tone for your video can be affected by many different factors, but for the sake of ease, let’s look at the three largest: music and sound, camera work, writing, colour, and editing.
1) Music and sound
The power of audio cannot be understated. Music has the power to tap intangibly into the emotions of your viewer, dictating the atmosphere, pacing, thematic depth, and psychological impact of your video. Nothing stands out to viewers more than an incorrect music choice. Beyond music, sound design and editing can also dramatically change the feel of your video.
2) Camera work
We won’t get into the technical stuff like exposure, aperture, shutter speed, etc., but for a moment let’s talk about camera positioning and movement. Pay close attention to some movies you love and take note of what the cameras are doing. If the movie is calm, slow, and dramatic, it’s likely that the camera isn’t moving too much, and if it is moving, it probably isn’t moving quickly. Now watch your favourite action movie. The camera’s movements are likely fast and frequent.
Key rule of thumb: when filming, you aren’t positioning your camera, you’re positioning your audience. If you’re presenting a slow-paced, plaintive scene, you want your audience to be sitting still to watch it, whereas if you’re presenting a car chase, you have to keep your audience mobile.
No movement vs medium movement vs lots of movement to match the feel of the scene.
3) Writing
This one is easy enough to avoid getting completely wrong, but is extremely difficult to nail perfectly. The simplest thing to remember when you’re writing – even for commercials and promos – is to avoid doing anything jarring or out of place. If you’re seeking a lighthearted tone, injecting some humour into your video is great, but if you’re going for something solemn and serious, your writing and dialogue should match.
4) Colour and tinting
Colouring basics can be really simple, but there are a lot of unspoken rules to consider that depend heavily on the form, context, and setting of your video. Here are some very basic rules:
- Be cautious! If you’re in doubt about what colour tint you should use, don’t colour at all. You’re much better off sticking with a neutral, true-to-the-eye colour palette. A mismatched colour grade will come across jarring and misplaced, and will undermine your overall tone.
- Subtle warmer colours (pinks, oranges, and yellow) often feel calm, happy, nostalgic, or romantic. Also, if you’re filming on a hot, summery day, stick to warmer colours.
- Subtle cooler colours (blues, greens, and purples) often feel melancholic, cold, mysterious, or dispassionate. Also, if you’re filming in the rain or snow, stick to cooler colours.
- Be careful with saturation. Over-saturating footage can make it seem garish and unappealing, but under-saturating footage can make it look unrealistic and boring.
Image credit: @colorpalettecinema
5) Editing
When editing, here are a couple things to consider:
Video editing can dramatically impact the pace of your video. Make sure you match your pacing to your subject/topic. Make sure your music matches, too.
Be careful with fancy transitions. A corny, misplaced wipe transition or colourful brush transition can damage your tone so much more than you might realize. You’re so, so much better off with no transition between scenes than one that doesn’t match.
Be thoughtful of how you order your footage. A good edit will tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end; a bad edit will be random, confusing, and meaningless.
Lastly, be ruthless. Cut shots that aren’t working. Cut shots that don’t serve the story. Cut shots that are a little too shaky, overexposed, or grainy. Most importantly, cut any shot that undermines the tone you’re trying to cultivate.
Considering Context and Intent
The most important thing to remember? All five of these elements must work in tandem. One affects the other, affects the next, affects the next. For that reason, you should always know what tone you’re trying to achieve before you begin production.
In choosing your tone, consider what you’re trying to sell. If you’re in health care, your tone probably shouldn’t be loud and fast-paced. If you’re in tourism you’ll probably want something emotive and emotionally rich. If you’re in sports, you might want something that is bold, loud, and/or heroic.
Within those basic examples, consider your intent. Are you hoping to hype up your viewer? Use loud music, garish sound effects, bright colours, fast pacing. Trying to keep things calm? Use plaintive music, minimal sound effects, slow pacing, and soft colours. Build suspense? Use jarring music with unpredictable rhythms, dark colouring, and dissonant audio design. Build tension? Use dynamic camera work and music that changes pace to match the scene.
It sounds complicated, but the main thing to remember is simply to trust your instincts.
How can we help?
If you’re not sure how best to find your tone – or even what tone you should use – we’d love to help you out. We’re educated filmmakers, writers, and storytellers with an excellent capacity for understanding context and intent within corporate videography. Get in touch for more information!