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7 Responses to “Lazy writing?”

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1. Comment by Christer — April 29, 2010 at 1:17 pm  

   LOL! Personally I love the “we got company” cliché, maybe because it’s so old and often done with humour (at least in many of these clips).

   But… the cellphone thing is beyond annoying, and just a very obvious indication that movies are having trouble dealing with inconvenient real-life communication technology.

2. Comment by Pål — April 29, 2010 at 1:31 pm  

   Yeah, cellphones have messed up a lot of plots and storylines. Especially when they work, so I can understand where the no-signal-ploy is coming from. I have seen some crime shows where 50 percent of the scenes end with the protagonist getting a call that takes him to the next scene.

3. Comment by Christer — April 29, 2010 at 2:31 pm  

   Absolutely true. And I guess I love the company cliché because it’s believable. People would probably say that kind of thing in real life, at least from time to time.

   However, people would not NEVER get a signal when they need it. So there, working cellphones have messed up film and TV in at least two ways.

   How the hell to get around it? In the Nidarholm script, yours truly wrote a scene where a priest smashes a cellphone to a stone floor. Same problem.

4. Comment by Pål — April 29, 2010 at 3:17 pm  

   We’re lucky they didn’t have Sony-Eiriksons in the viking age, with rune keyboard to text each other.

5. Comment by Christer — April 29, 2010 at 3:27 pm  

   Too right. Checking the internet to look up ocean currents and North Atlantic weather for the next five days, thank you.

   This is an interesting problem:

   If your protagonist does not take out her cellphone when she needs it, half the people in the audience are going to toss their own phones at the screen. If she does take it out and it works, she can just call her way out of the situation. If it doesn’t work, it’s a dumb cliché.

   What’s left? Avoid contemporary settings and stick to period or sci-fi?

6. Comment by Pål — April 29, 2010 at 10:23 pm  

   I think that as long as you´re aware of the corner, you can avoid painting yourself into it. A lot of contemporary shows and movies make it work, without the cellphones getting obtrusive. In The Wire they even give the gadgets a central plotline, with the gangsters using “burners” and sending picture messages in code.

7. Comment by Christer — May 4, 2010 at 10:00 pm  

   The Wire is an excellent example of making the cellphones work for the concept. Another option is obviously to ignore them. Should the hero take out his cellphone when he needs help? No, just ignore it. It’s explainable as “he didn’t have one on him”… That happens, doesn’t it? Just don’t admit to the problem, and it might go away.

   Might it…?