“No signal” is the new air duct
This terrific compilation clip by FourFour‘s Rich Juzwiak demonstrates what a hoary cliché it has become to explain why movie characters aren’t using their cell phones.
I plead guilty, having used the “signal goes away” variation as a major element in Part Three of The Nines. (I feel both disappointment and relief to have not made the cut.)
Unlike the air duct cliché, the cell phone problem can’t be solved by a simple vow of chastity. Cell phones are real things people use every day, so ignoring them is rarely an option for a movie set present day.
Don’t write movies in which characters would call for help. That’s probably the best advice I can offer.
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September 23rd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I still run into situations where I have “no signal,” but they are usually strange and weird and places I wouldn’t normally be.
Like on my sofa in my house. DAMN YOUS AT&T!
No, really, though I agree with this.
I also am sick of the “my battery died” complaint, but, at least, that’s a little more believable.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Of course, that would pretty much preclude from writing a horror/thriller script ever.
In some of those clips, I was somewhat “oh, come on, that’s not bad,” a la Identity, which has a very clear reason as to why none of the main characters can get out of their predicament, even to the point of it sometimes being cliche.
The simple “no signal,” or “I forgot to charge it” are lame and boring excuses. But integrating it into the plot – say, a hostage situation where calling out’s impossible because the feds have set up RF jammers.
Even with the Hitcher, which is a boring movie altogether, utilized this trope of creating isolation by having Sean Bean break the phone, that final, point of no return, “this guy isn’t fucking around” sensibility.
But even with the Nines, I thought it was okay, because by then you already know something weird’s going on, and there are external forces impacting the environment. Not necessarily including cell phones, but not excluding it, either. (Hey, a retroactive justification.)
In a time where instant global communication is ubiquitous and simple if not outright cheap to acquire, sometimes there’s just no choice but to address the fact that there are cell phones on everyone’s person.
Well, unless you’re, y’know, Stephen King.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
We have a “no signal” moment in All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, and a “no signal” moment in another horror movie I shot. Amusingly these moments were both in locations where I legitimately couldn’t get cell service in real life either.
The difference between the “air duct crawl” and “no signal” is that everyone has experienced being in an area with no cellphone service. Very few people have experienced crawling in an air duct.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Yeah, the “no signal” is overdone, but I think three or four of the examples there are bogus. “Quarantine” being the biggest one.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Actually, that was a brash reaction after not watching all the way through.
While I agree that “cell phone trouble” is a vastly overused cliche, some of those clips are actually from smart movies using the cliche smartly. That is, something like FUNNY GAMES where disabling the cell phone is motivated and consistent within lines of character behavior.
That said, this all seems a good lesson in NOT WRITING SOMETHING ONLY BECAUSE IT’S CONVENIENT.
Though the cell phone is an ubiquitous piece of tech and not addressing it would be like not addressing “why they aren’t RUNNING AWAY.” Oh…
Ack!
You can get twisted up all inside this, mostly for stupid reasons.
“Don’t write movies in which characters would call for help” seems to be the best advice. PROFESSIONALISM!
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:05 pm
you’ll be pleased to know that in “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D” the kid’s cell phone works just fine… at the center of the earth. (too bad it gets eaten by a flying fish though)
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
At the 2006 (or possibly 2005) Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness program (which included the criminally underseen ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE mentioned above), almost every single film on the program featured a scene in which the characters discovered they had no cell signal.
I wrote a remake of a well-known horror film around the same time (the film was eventually made, albeit not with my draft); my writing partner were determined to avoid what was already feeling like an absurd cliche. So we decided that the characters were perfectly capable of calling for help, and in fact actually did, but because of the geography and the weather trapping them where they were, it didn’t matter. The police could not physically get to them in time to make a difference. Avoiding the “no singal” cliche actually emphasized the jeopardy, because it dramatized the characters’ total isolation all the more.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I’m traveling for work right now, and I discovered to my embarrassment that my cheap (some have used the word “ghetto”) service provider, though it works in most major cities, does not work in the Seattle-Tacoma area. I’d like to see a movie in which someone dies because he was too cheap to pony up for a real phone plan.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I dig how they dealt with it in 30 Days Of Night… So blatant it’s clever.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 pm
In fairness, dropped calls and no signal ARE pretty common problems. I mean, walk into any mall in America and your bars disappear. So maybe another solution is, set your movie in a mall? :P
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I’m one of the half dozen people left on the planet that doesn’t have and never has had a cell phone. I guess that makes me much more likely to be tracked down by zombies, or whatever…
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:59 pm
I love this video–but seriously, cell phones kill movies for me. They’re fun, but they also alienate people and distract them from any meaningful interaction.
One of the first things I do to my characters is somehow make them lose their phones. I know, I’m guilty as charged, but guess what, it’s my universe.
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
I just wrote the final paper for my film degree on this whole cell-phone-in-film dilemma. Here’s a link if anyone’s interested:
http://mattschley.com/cellphones.html
The short version: though most films cop out with “no signal,” some have done a pretty good job of embracing cell phones and using them in a clever way (I liked “Cellular” and its Hong Kong remake quite a bit).
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
I excused The Nines cell phone use because
A: it was part of the set up, not a cheap plot-hole-filler (remember your own rule about how giant coincidence in act 1 is acceptable but giant coincidence in act 3 is poison)
B: A lack of cell phone signal in a canyon is perfectly reasonable.
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Ha Ha! The only place I have trouble getting a signal is, of course, in my own apartment. (That’s why I keep a land line.) Very funny video.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:20 pm
The world has actually changed. While being in a fucked up situation without being able to call for help used to be quite common, it just isn’t anymore. Forgot your keys? Just call someone. Car broke down? Just call someone.
Thrillers and horror movies could propably be even more intense, if they’d take advantage of this new world. There are a lot of situations where yes, you could call for help, but it would of no use. Wouldn’t it add a whole new level of terrifying to the movie?
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 pm
I live in something of a dead zone. How dead seems to depend on what service you have. Some get literally no signal and some have a faint signal. Because of this I only sporadically own a cell phone and when I do decide I need one, I always try a different service hoping for better results. That’s gone so well that currently I do not own a cell phone. None of this excuses poor writing to deal with cell phones in a movie, I just wanted to say that it does really happen and you don’t have to be that far out in the wilderness for it to happen.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Well, it looks like at least some of THEY MADE OPEN WATER 2!?
September 24th, 2009 at 1:15 am
My protagonists can’t get a signal because they’re stuck in a air duct.
September 24th, 2009 at 2:01 am
INT. BAD EVIL LAIR
JOHN
Damn! No Signal.
CATHY
That air duct, it’s essentially one giant antenna! If we can get inside, it should amplify our reception and provide an expedient escape.
JOHN
Hmmm.. I don’t know. What if it has giant fans?
September 24th, 2009 at 2:48 am
I got a short scene in which my protagonist types the wrong PIN three times in a row and can’t use her cell phone. I think I should strike the whole idea… never liked it. The technique doesn’t even fit into the story taking place in Nebraska’s mid of nowhere. Although, I say it’s of an older model.
September 24th, 2009 at 3:21 am
As mentioned above, there are plenty of situations wherein one should be able to make those damn calls. Why not, what could a VOICE possibly do for them? I think good writing can change the ‘destruction of isolation’ into ‘underlining the isolation’.
Let those victims call, police are hours away anyway. Let them phone their family, tell them they love them, knowing they won’t get out of this alive. I think the recently sold ‘Buried’ is perhaps a prime example of this. Although it eventually uses the reception-thing as a gimmick too.
Give those people a phone, it’s practically useless anyway. What are they going to say? “I’m locked in a bizarre trap-like bathroom!”,”Okay sir, sit tight, we are on our way!”
Never understood this problem.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:49 am
This is where “No Country For Old Men” succeeds so well. The Cohen brothers have the crime plot set in a time without mobiles and sophisticated electronic and crime fighting equipment…
September 24th, 2009 at 6:26 am
how about “Geez For no reason officially acknowledged by Apple, My Iphone just burst into pieces” ?
September 24th, 2009 at 6:29 am
no but seriously, your best bet is to force the characters to switch their phone off themselves because it d give their location away to the tech saavy vilains looking for them
September 24th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Or set your film in the 80′s… Most of the rest was the same as of now..
Besides , it s fun to notice that in this era you could find phonebooth everywhere, whereas protagonists didnt seem to care and would rather run away from their killer than calling the police with it (although it s not easy to wait for 911 to respond when you must hide from your nemesis inside a box of transparent securit glass with the phone cable too short of the length that would allow you to sitdown out of sight)
September 24th, 2009 at 8:44 am
The way I see it, if a character wants to call for help… let them!
In today’s world, we find different things to be a threat than we did ten years ago. In today’s world, a problem that can be solved with a phone call isn’t all that dangerous.
As writers, we need to choose conflicts that are relevant today. If our protagonists find it easy to overcome the challenges we present themselves with, our hero has found a problem with the story that’s not going to get solved by taking their toys away.
Rather than jury-rig the situation, we need to challenge challenge our protagonists in a current, meaningful way.
Easier said than done? Welcome to screenwriting!
September 24th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I was just talking to a friend after watching Pineapple Express (lame scene in the woods) and discussing how I know watch every movie to see how they are going to deal with the “cell phone issue”. It seems every movie in every genre has a scene, or a dozen, where they are held up, get in trouble, lost, because of the lack of signal, battery dies, water damage, or the phone gets destroyed in some contrived way. The more you pay attention to it, the more distracting it is.
I love this site, everytime I have a thought John has a blog about it!
September 24th, 2009 at 9:02 am
I think it’s nice that at least they’ve begun to acknowledge that the characters have cellphones- nothing gets me crazier than movies (usually written by older writers or adaptations from older scripts) where the characters just don’t have them, don’t mention them…
September 24th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Try to think of this from a killer’s point of view. He wants to take his time torturing a family psychologically and then physically but he can’t have the cops ruining his fun. Does he take several cell phones from different providers around to find an area with no signal?
Oh wait, old analog service still has coverage a lot of digital services don’t so he could be looking a long time if he takes roaming into account. Being a movie villain isn’t going to be easy if he’s crafty and his career will be short if he doesn’t stop the cell phones.
He might have to hide in the house for a while collecting their phones first. There’s room for referencing those 70s and 80s horror films maybe.
I suppose modding a cell phone booster to act as a jammer might work but he’d have to be an electronics whiz too so that’s stretching things.
The idea of the protagonists being somewhere that help cannot get to is nice, but not everything can be stuck in the outskirts of civilization or farther off.
The protagonist being a bad guy on parole who doesn’t want to be a three strikes and out loser could work because he cannot afford to call anyone in.
This cliche is going to take some careful thought in any story you want to eliminate it from. Forget air ducts. This is a much better exercise.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I agree that some of these are bogus. In the Strangers, it’s the bad guys who throw the phone onto the fire. That isn’t a lame coincidence; that’s the antagonist taking measures against the protagonist, and I think that’s what you’re SUPPOSED to do. If not, then a previous commenter is right: there would be no horror movies at all. Or only horror movies that take place pre-1990.
An even more egregious cliche, I think, is actually the one–usually in romantic comedies–where not only cell phones apparently don’t exist, but land lines don’t exist, either–all contrived to get two characters to speak face-to-face, since, of course, that’s sooo much more dramatic.
Must Love Dogs has the best example of this, I think. Diane Lane simply HAS to tell John Cusack ASAP that she really does love him, so she tracks him down to a lake where he’s rowing around in a boat. She can’t even wait until he comes to shore: she hops onto someone else’s boat–BRINGING HER DOG (since, you know, they HAD to live up to the title)–and when she’s close enough to his boat, JUMPS INTO THE WATER–WITH THE DOG–and swims to him.
And THEN, as if that weren’t stupid enough, they actually ACKNOWLEDGE the inanity: John Cusack goes, “You know, you could have called.” And Diane Lane goes, “Perhaps that would have been the wiser course, yes.” YES!! It would have!!! So why didn’t you do it?!??! Because the writer thought it’d be SOOOOOO funny to have a grown woman jump into the water to swim after the man she loves???? That isn’t funny; that’s retarded!!!
Just once, I’d like to see a movie where the love interest is going to the airport and the main character realizes that he really does love her, and his friend says, “So, are you gonna rush to the airport to stop her?” And he goes, “Nah, I’ll just call her.”
September 24th, 2009 at 10:50 am
My friends and I want to write a film that starts with a guy who’s adamant about not needing a cellphone and then he gets stalked by a killer and REALLY wishes he had one.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:19 am
The cell phone issue is definitely a pain, but just imagine if humans develop the ability to teleport. Then we’re REALLY going to be fucked.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Or what if someone keeps texting for help? And then the killer actually gets them at the end. And we dissolve to their twitter page with the numerous cries for help…
Only to realize that they have “0 followers”!
September 24th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
And of course, there’s the complete opposite of the video above, of movie plots if they used cell phones: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1832002
September 24th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
You’ll notice that in none of those movies where the signal was lost (OK, Cellular is an exception), none of them had a product placement deal with the phones, and in fact most brand names couldn’t be seen. I worked for 5 years in product placement for Nokia, and a big no-no was lack of reception, even though it’s usually the provider, not the phone. So if you want to write a big blockbuster, a cell phone deal is usually a big part of those things (either thru cash or free service for the production), you’d better not have bad reception.
And it is amazing where cell phone service gives out, when in the X-Files, back in the early days of cell service, they always got reception, no matter where they were.
September 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I both agree and disagree, honestly.
My problems comes not from the fac that people’s phones don’t work, but how they call ATTENTION to it. It’s sort of like the really forced, awkward insert that the writers put in to club you over the head with “Pay attention to this.”
Instead of wasting a scene or dialogue on it, why not just have your character look at his phone, make the obvious face ‘this does not work right now’, shove it back in his pocket and carry on. No insert on phone bars, no “Oh no, there’s no signal.” At most, maybe an annoyed grunt. Because, in a world of cell phones, we’ll instinctively know if he checks his phone, maybe taps a button or two, then crams it in his pocket – it’s not working right now. No overly forced exposition necessary.
Like they say: Show it, don’t tell it. This situation is a prime example.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
If JJ Abrams does another Star Trek film, I sincerely hope there’s a scene where the crew of the Enterprise are watching a 23rd century thriller and we see how films in the future deal with the “communicator and transporter” problem.
23rd Century Film: “‘Oh no, my communicator isn’t working!’ ‘But the salt vampire is almost here! Can’t we just beam up?’ ‘Not with the Mutara Nebula just two parsecs away! We need to find that shuttle!’”
Spock: “These narrative convolutions are not logical.”
McCoy: “Dammit Spock, it’s just a movie. Now, don’t gimme that look, I’m a doctor, not a film critic!”
September 24th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
If my characters live long enough to call for help, then I have a huge problem.
Usually remedied by re-writing and just killing them. When they try to escape it pisses me off.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Instead of using it as a minor plot point, you could write cellphones into the fabric of the screenplay itself… Witness INFERNAL AFFAIRS and the remake THE DEPARTED.
I loved The Departed, and enjoyed IA quite a bit.
The biggest problem with cellphones (and other tech doodads) as major plot devices I think is that they can really sort of date the film.. It won’t be a timeless movie in 50 years. In 50 years I fear I may not enjoy Departed because of this.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Some observations late to the party:
– As noted above, AT&T has crappy coverage in places. I had an AT&T cell phone in Washington Fracking DC and had a hard time getting a signal at my house. That said . . .
– I’m with Tennyson (#27) that a better solution is to let them make the phone call and crank up the tension anyway. Few things are a greater buzzkill for me in tension/horror films than arbitrary limitations and/or stupid character actions. One of the reasons why “Aliens” was so effective (IMHO) is that the Marine force was bright, competent, hard, well armed, and still ended up mostly wiped out and stranded on the planet after the first contact with the aliens. The best kind of horror/tension is where the protagonists are doing everything smart and right and they’re still in deep kimchee.
– #36: Yeah, I also noticed the remarkable phone reception in X-Files; it often required more suspension of disbelief than the actual plot.
– #40: Cell phone size and technology now seems to date films even more than cars or computers. It’s always jarring to me when someone whips out a cell phone the size of an ice cream sandwich.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
If you set a film in Nevada this is a believable issue. I biked through there. Not much going on. And there was no signal.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Why do you have to address the cell phone at all? Does everything need a clear cut answer?
September 25th, 2009 at 3:05 am
The line “There is no signal!” seems to generate a lot of bad and unimaginative acting.
September 25th, 2009 at 7:15 am
The line from Eden Lake is a lie – the kid does have a signal and is texting the bad guys.
Good movie, BTW. If it’s not hit much overseas, I recommend it.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Like Jonathan Peters, I don’t and have never owned a cell phone. Why not have a character who actually doesn’t own one? Too unbelievable to people in the industry who all have cell phones?
September 25th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
they made a Rest Stop 2?
September 26th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Its an axiom.
Any given set of six blond teenagers will inadvertently generate a coverage-disrupting force field within the 24 hours prior to their unfortunate death.
I know. I’ve tested.
And you can make your car stall simply by being chased by either a vampire, or Steve Buscemi. (I have find in my experiments that the two are basically interchangeable. – Though the latter tends to generate much louder music.)
September 26th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
This is more specific to the clip from 30 Days of Night: why did Renfield waste time burning every cell phone in Barrow when it would’ve been easier to sabotage the town’s 2 cell towers?
September 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am
in 30 days of night, some of the people had satellite phones which work anywhere and don’t need cell towers.
Also check out this video about cell phones usage and current trends in tech. 93% of adults in the US have a cell phone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8
September 30th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Love the topic — thanks, John.
@Veikko: Right on! Although I also agree with bfwebster’s ice-cream sandwich observation.
I guess the sense of realism around all this is relative. If I were starring in a movie about my own life, for example, it would be completely believable (and in fact, expected) to have my cell battery cut out at the most inopportune of moments. Or even due to the fact that I forgot to go online and pay the bill.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:15 am
I was buying it for the guy in the desert, but then he had to be too on the nose about the 3% of the country without coverage. There’s way more land in this country without signal than 3%, by the way, maybe he meant by population, in which case, being in the boonies is plausible enough.
I have all kinds of excuses not to be able to make a cell phone call in my real life. Batteries, signal, SD card acting up, forgot it …
Just use it to increase tension. Accidentally call your grandma and ask her to call 911, but you’re still in the boonies so there wasn’t enough triangulation to find you before your cell phone died. Now your grandma knows you’re in danger, but can’t do anything about it and won’t understand it wasn’t her fault if you die.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:18 am
There’s another Alien vs. Predator? Where have I been to miss out on that?
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Does anyone live anywhere near open country? In the middle of Houston, there are plenty of places where coverage drops out. Tall, large, or clustered buildings interfere. And you can drive not too far out, particularly if you head about 10 minutes off any major freeway, and completely lose coverage. Perhaps this isn’t the case in East/West Coast country, but it is so central.
And I swear, when my friend in New Mexico (VERY spotty coverage) calls from the car and the signal keeps fading in and out, we can hear each other say “Can you hear me now?” every single time, but absolutely nothing else! We’ve tested this repeatedly. Over years. Sometimes 10 times in five minutes.
I’m with the people who say, it happens, don’t call attention to it.
October 9th, 2009 at 3:24 am
You’re right. Even though often you can’t get a signal in real life, in a story you know the reason there’s no signal is because the writer just decided there wouldn’t be.
I have a similar problem with any scenario where a character wins just by fighting. Okay, I do realize that applies to a lot of stories. But take Buffy Season 7. The ubervamp turns up and Buffy can’t lick it. And then she fights it again and this time she wins. And it doesn’t look like she had to win the second time, it looks like she was very lucky. Instead of “surprising yet inevitable” it was “unsurprising yet random”.
My point here: the victory doesn’t seem earned the way that a character can earn a victory morally (they do something brave) or even intellectually (that’s why we like tricksters). In a fight, the character wins just because the writer typed: “And then she hits the other guy and he doesn’t get up.”
I’m not saying fights can’t make interesting stories. Look at Rocky. But you need to see the hero do something clever or brave – or for the fight to not reach the conclusion you expected. When it all hinges on whether the hero turns out to be the tougher (or luckier) fighter, and that’s all – well, that’s just the same as a cellphone that conveniently doesn’t have a signal.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Or you could set the film in Canada. There is coverage in the cities and a swath along the Canada/US border but it is really spotty along even the major highways. Back home in the interior of BC, I actually have to drive thirty kilometres to get to a place that occasionally has enough of a signal to make a phone call. It is a stretch of road on the peak of a hill that is about a hundred meters long and there is nothing else for another forty kilometres past that.
As for sat phones, we have two and they only have a usable signal about a quarter of the time… and when we do manage to get a call through it rarely maintains the connection for more than a minute.