The pathos of the text message

TV and films show texts don't have to be unemotional throwaways.

Read the whole story

 

[edzieba]

I have yet to see anyone on screen using their phone in a bathroom

Stand Alone Complex had an instance of some diplomatic back-handing occurring with one party on the porcelain throne, but being a 10-minutes-into-the-future series the conversion was carried out virtually over brain-computer interfaces (represented on-screen by floating heads and speech processed by a spatialiser) rather than a hand-held interface represented by on-screen text.

 

[salvarinho]

"if tension hinged in any way on a situation that could have been solved by a simple cell phone call or text message, the call was never placed and the text was never sent."

THIS ! I've been discussing this topic for some time with a couple of friends. Seems like a phone call or a text message are difficult to fit appropriately in a movie plot.

It's kind of funny how even today, when somenoe tries to escape a serial killer and he/she gets into a car, the engine always fails to start. Texts and cellphones are literally everywhere these days, and they're still being kept out of the movies.

 

[S_T_R]

I am so glad that Stamper-Rachel story is over. It was, by far, the least interesting plot line of the entire season. I loathe the idea that the aftermath will rule a large chunk on season 3.

 

[gazugafan]

Pfff... I was incorporating texts and IMs into film in the 90's before it was cool. God help me if I ever throw my high school film class project up on youtube... God help us all.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

Guess what else will be in future plotlines?

 

[portent]

And here I thought the dramatic impact of pervasive mobile communications was a solved problem:

"Oh, drat, no signal. And my battery's dead. And I just dropped my phone. Down a sewer grate. And it broke the screen."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0

 

[jxmzsr]

Aside from Sherlock and House of Cards, the show Elementary has also used this concept to some extent.

 

[UN1Xnut]

edzieba[/url]":3ucsux98]Stand Alone Complex ann instance of some diplomatic back-handing occurring with one party on the porcelain throne

This, and things like an entire episode dedicated to IRC channels, has Stand Alone Complex continuing to be a shockingly accurate prediction of the future. Especially considering it's now more than a decade old and based on a manga from the 1980s.

I'd even go so far as to argue that Laughing Man basically ended up happening in real life through various actors like Anonymous and 4chan around the ~2005 to ~2011 timeframe. What is original if everything is a copy anyways?

And yes, House of Cards is far and away the best representation of text messages in film that I've ever seen.

 

[phobos512]

The first season of House of Cards used this as well. And for better or for worse, after the inclusion of the opening picture, I read somewhere around the first paragraph and a half in Frank Underwood's voice.

 

[edzieba]

UN1Xnut[/url]":10s2f0vz]
I'd even go so far as to argue that the Stand Alone Complex basically ended up happening in real life through various actors like Anonymous and 4chan around the ~2005 to ~2011 timeframe.

Know what's REALLY amusing? Anonymous may well have been partially inspired by the fictional Laughing Man phenomena. Which means that a fictional depiction of a Stand Alone Complex (a bunch of copycats without an original due to all the copycats having access to the same gestalt of information) itself was part of the melange that created Anonymous, a bunch of copycats without an original (a bunch of trolls without a ringleader, created by a bunch of people having access to the same message board).
By describing a Stand Alone Complex to a wide audience, the show created a Stand Alone Complex in that audience!

All this from a show that aired around the time the iSight was making webcams popular, and only a year after Windows XP was released.

an entire episode dedicated to IRC channels

Chat Chat Chat! It's only a matter of tine until the Oculus Rift CV and a cheap mocap setup (Sixense STEM or YEI PrioVR) end up emulating a virtual chatroom. Heck, the episode even had a nice way of combining the 'full presence' participants with the text-only participants and AV-only spectators!

 

[TMilligan]

Yup, right when I saw House of Cards overlaying the text on the screen, I told my brother it wouldn't be too long before we start seeing that design decision in other movies and TV shows. I saw a trailer for Non Stop and they did a copy/paste of the overlay. How long before Days of Our Lives is using it?

 

[Supra5mge]

S_T_R[/url]":1k3yqi5d]I am so glad that Stamper-Rachel story is over. It was, by far, the least interesting plot line of the entire season. I loathe the idea that the aftermath will rule a large chunk on season 3.

I disagree somewhat. I admit it wasn't the most compelling in and of itself. SPOILERS**

The fun was waiting for it to boil over, knowing she is the key that could unravel all of the corruption. I think it will only get better in Season 3. I also think she will be Frank's "undoing". We shall see!

 

[Boskone]

Two things to remember about phone calls and texts: they can't always be sent, and they don't always get received (esp. texts).

The second, especially, is why we don't use texting for critical information at work. It's too easy to miss.

Aside from those two, there's prioritization of communication. Most of us at work are far more likely to ignore a text/IM/email than a phone call.

 

[achbed]

Supra5mge[/url]":36gpxzci]

S_T_R[/url]":36gpxzci]I am so glad that Stamper-Rachel story is over. It was, by far, the least interesting plot line of the entire season. I loathe the idea that the aftermath will rule a large chunk on season 3.

I disagree somewhat. I admit it wasn't the most compelling in and of itself. SPOILERS**

The fun was waiting for it to boil over, knowing she is the key that could unravel all of the corruption. I think it will only get better in Season 3. I also think she will be Frank's "undoing". We shall see!

Either that or they'll repeat the opening from Season 2 and simply move on.

 

[killing_time]

Supra5mge[/url]":10i2shia]

S_T_R[/url]":10i2shia]I am so glad that Stamper-Rachel story is over. It was, by far, the least interesting plot line of the entire season. I loathe the idea that the aftermath will rule a large chunk on season 3.

I disagree somewhat. I admit it wasn't the most compelling in and of itself. SPOILERS**

The fun was waiting for it to boil over, knowing she is the key that could unravel all of the corruption. I think it will only get better in Season 3. I also think she will be Frank's "undoing". We shall see!

Stamper certainly wasn't the most interesting character.

I'm thinking it will go the way of the BBC production, while she may be key in unraveling, Underwood won't escape the original's fate.

 

[Sufinsil]

portent[/url]":2wc2vgma]And here I thought the dramatic impact of pervasive mobile communications was a solved problem:

"Oh, drat, no signal. And my battery's dead. And I just dropped my phone. Down a sewer grate. And it broke the screen."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0

In Star Trek Voyager, their precedent for something bad about to happen is "We will send an away team, but make sure you keep a beam lock on them at all times"

"Get them out of there"

"I can't get a lock! There is to much interference/their shields/the rock/nova star etc"

 

[Johnb0002002]

Text messaging in House of Cards leaves us missing the content and plot lines of the messages. We sit too far away from our 32" television to read the messages. I feel like House of Cards needs a system requirements page for the show.

 

[Schizoid]

As an example of texting worked into a plotline, see The Departed where Matt Damon texts blind on a phone in his pocket.

 

[manolin]

Schizoid[/url]":3oj7e3kc]As an example of texting worked into a plotline, see The Departed where Matt Damon texts blind on a phone in his pocket.

in the original, Infernal Affairs, Andy Lau uses a laptop to send area targeted smses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWMVhLtFtNI

 

[Nixon's Back!]

killing_time[/url]":1adjbjw9]

Supra5mge[/url]":1adjbjw9]

S_T_R[/url]":1adjbjw9]I am so glad that Stamper-Rachel story is over. It was, by far, the least interesting plot line of the entire season. I loathe the idea that the aftermath will rule a large chunk on season 3.

I disagree somewhat. I admit it wasn't the most compelling in and of itself. SPOILERS**

The fun was waiting for it to boil over, knowing she is the key that could unravel all of the corruption. I think it will only get better in Season 3. I also think she will be Frank's "undoing". We shall see!

Stamper certainly wasn't the most interesting character.

I'm thinking it will go the way of the BBC production, while she may be key in unraveling, Underwood won't escape the original's fate.

SPOILERS

I certainly hope he doesn't escape the fate of the BBC version...

Spoiler

since that means Meechum pulls the trigger. Going to be a very interesting internal conflict for him. And I really hope they play it the same, with Claire ordering Meechum to do it without Francis knowing its coming. And while Stamper wasn't the most interesting character, I really liked him. I did think there was a lot of weirdness with him in season 2 with the reading and whatnot, but I am rather sad that he's dead. It does make the unraveling easier though. Now, both Rachel and Gavin are hanging out there.

 

[Nixon's Back!]

TMilligan[/url]":2koajhst]Yup, right when I saw House of Cards overlaying the text on the screen, I told my brother it wouldn't be too long before we start seeing that design decision in other movies and TV shows. I saw a trailer for Non Stop and they did a copy/paste of the overlay. How long before Days of Our Lives is using it?

I noticed that for Non Stop as well.

What's funny to me is the first time I saw the effect in House of Cards, I thought, "Oh, they got that from Sherlock." I watched HoC with director commentary recently and there's a bit where they talk about all the ideas they had for showing texts on the screen and then someone showed them Sherlock and went with it.

 

[Zan Lynx]

Sufinsil[/url]":2dbiliqm]
In Star Trek Voyager, their precedent for something bad about to happen is "We will send an away team, but make sure you keep a beam lock on them at all times"

"Get them out of there"

"I can't get a lock! There is to much interference/their shields/the rock/nova star etc"

Yep. And they never explain why they don't send over a team of Federation Marines in full combat armor with crew-served weapons and combat drones in order to guarantee extraction of the team via shuttle if the transporters don't work.

 

[Nixon's Back!]

Zan Lynx[/url]":2n8j27e2]

Sufinsil[/url]":2n8j27e2]
In Star Trek Voyager, their precedent for something bad about to happen is "We will send an away team, but make sure you keep a beam lock on them at all times"

"Get them out of there"

"I can't get a lock! There is to much interference/their shields/the rock/nova star etc"

Yep. And they never explain why they don't send over a team of Federation Marines in full combat armor with crew-served weapons and combat drones in order to guarantee extraction of the team via shuttle if the transporters don't work.

Star Trek has always amused me for things like that.

"It could be dangerous. Should we send a probe, Captain?"

"No, I think I'll take some command officers and go myself. Lightly armed, of course. And in the same clothes I wear for afternoon tea."

 

[Sufinsil]

It made sense in the budget constrained TOS, but the newer series you would at least they could afford extra for every other episode. Very few away missions involve the Federation security and the big SNES Super Scope phasors. Sometimes they make an appearance during security problems on the ship. Or they just send Worf or whoever from the bridge to engineering, since no other security officer around it. DS9 was nice since you actually got to see some ground combat events that were more plausible.


...



I wonder if this text overlay display would be used for someone's computer terminal. Instead of explaining their actions you can see them be working on it while the camera has a better angle of the shot or angled for someone coming into the room.

 

[Ainamacar]

TMilligan[/url]":3tqb7zz4]Yup, right when I saw House of Cards overlaying the text on the screen, I told my brother it wouldn't be too long before we start seeing that design decision in other movies and TV shows. I saw a trailer for Non Stop and they did a copy/paste of the overlay. How long before Days of Our Lives is using it?

I think it'll probably end up being assimilated into the broader argot of film-making. Eventually we internalize these ways of communicating. The very notion of a cut was disorienting until it wasn't, and now different types of cuts are surprisingly expressive. I bet the title cards in silent films didn't feel out of place in their heyday. Maybe if they had acquired broader artistic uses during those early years they'd still be with us in a more pronounced way.

Let's also not forget that the musical score is often at least as dissociated from the experience of the characters as floating visual text, and the former is ubiquitous. Give it a generation and perhaps some scenes might feel "silent" for lacking that text in the same way the lack of music can make a moment feel sparse. I'm imagining, for example, a scene in a stadium after some tragedy. The chorus of text arises from the crowd, but as the camera focuses on the distraught main character the texts fade to nothingness, emphasizing the character's isolation from the hubbub while in its midst.

 

[secretknight42]

Fine, but I'm not ok when a show gets it monumentally wrong. There's an episode of Castle where the main plot point depends on him calling 911 for help using a cell phone, but it's locked, so he can't make emergency calls...

I'm pretty sure that all cell phones have to be able to make emergency calls regardless of their locked/unlocked status. It could even be a law (I didn't fact check that one, just a suspicion)

 

[Jeremy2013]

Using texting in movies and TV will open an opportunity to show parallel subplots in a different way. Getting or sending text messages while in the middle of a voice conversation with someone in the room is what happens every day to most of us. The lack of body language and tone of voice can even be used for dramatic effect, for example in over-reacting or under-reacting to a message. It's about time this activity appears on screen more often.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

Zan Lynx[/url]":2qadtkxd]

Sufinsil[/url]":2qadtkxd]
In Star Trek Voyager, their precedent for something bad about to happen is "We will send an away team, but make sure you keep a beam lock on them at all times"

"Get them out of there"

"I can't get a lock! There is to much interference/their shields/the rock/nova star etc"

Yep. And they never explain why they don't send over a team of Federation Marines in full combat armor with crew-served weapons and combat drones in order to guarantee extraction of the team via shuttle if the transporters don't work.

Military downsizing.

 

[HKPhooey]

salvarinho[/url]":2sj2ie9i]"if tension hinged in any way on a situation that could have been solved by a simple cell phone call or text message, the call was never placed and the text was never sent."

THIS ! I've been discussing this topic for some time with a couple of friends. Seems like a phone call or a text message are difficult to fit appropriately in a movie plot.

It's kind of funny how even today, when somenoe tries to escape a serial killer and he/she gets into a car, the engine always fails to start. Texts and cellphones are literally everywhere these days, and they're still being kept out of the movies.

I hate the hackneyed events now, where someone needs to contacted urgently to tell them the killer is in the house with them; to get out of the building because of the bomb etc. etc. The call never gets through because:

a) the recipient has for some moronic reason turned their phone to mute;
b) the recipient has left their phone in the lounge and is in the kitchen with the 1812 Overture playing at 11;
c) the recipient sees that their phone is ringing, sees that it's the office, control room, president; they decide that it's obviously not an important call so they'll get it later.

These are all despite for the rest of the film/programme the phone is never on mute; they hear every other call/text/Whatsapp; they answer every other call they receive.

It's their new unbelievable deux ex machina.

 

[RaceProUK]

secretknight42[/url]":3uo26iab]I'm pretty sure that all cell phones have to be able to make emergency calls regardless of their locked/unlocked status. It could even be a law (I didn't fact check that one, just a suspicion)

It is the law, at least in the US and the EU.

 

[Black Jacque]

This story appears to have borrowed from Sarah Wanenchack's 'Cyborgology' blog of 9 January 2014.

 

[dfiler]

When i saw texts in HoC, it immediately evoked a memory of fight club's ikea scene.

 

[DancesWithBikers]

Umm, wasn't that Moriarty doing the mass text, not Sherlock?

 

[FrankM]

HKPhooey[/url]":26rlwoq2]

salvarinho[/url]":26rlwoq2]"if tension hinged in any way on a situation that could have been solved by a simple cell phone call or text message, the call was never placed and the text was never sent."

THIS ! I've been discussing this topic for some time with a couple of friends. Seems like a phone call or a text message are difficult to fit appropriately in a movie plot.

It's kind of funny how even today, when somenoe tries to escape a serial killer and he/she gets into a car, the engine always fails to start. Texts and cellphones are literally everywhere these days, and they're still being kept out of the movies.

I hate the hackneyed events now, where someone needs to contacted urgently to tell them the killer is in the house with them; to get out of the building because of the bomb etc. etc. The call never gets through because:

a) the recipient has for some moronic reason turned their phone to mute;
b) the recipient has left their phone in the lounge and is in the kitchen with the 1812 Overture playing at 11;
c) the recipient sees that their phone is ringing, sees that it's the office, control room, president; they decide that it's obviously not an important call so they'll get it later.

These are all despite for the rest of the film/programme the phone is never on mute; they hear every other call/text/Whatsapp; they answer every other call they receive.

It's their new unbelievable deux ex machina.

I did see this done well in The Unit.

Spoiler

One of the soldiers was mortally wounded during an operation, so they patched his comm to let him talk to his wife one last time. She was in a noisy area and there was no indication that the call was urgent, so she let it go to voicemail.

Of course, seeing it done well only once is disappointing.

The inability to connect calls reminds me of a 1-800-COLLECT commercial I saw, probably their last one. They had to contrive a situation where the cell phone batteries in a car full of guys were all dead, and they found a pay phone but none of them had any change.