What year did cellphones become so ubiquitous that their use would not be questioned in a movie?
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Posted 7/18/2011 12:26 am
I'm working on a script that requires a bit of "instant communication" between characters near the end. But realized the mid-80s was not a point where whipping out a cellphone was commonplace.
That's the problem. I think I have to move it forward in time as the instant communication is crucial in the final scenes. The mid-80s were the original plot for the vehicles used, but I can bump it into the 90s as necessary.
Just checking whether it was early or late 90s. Or was it 2000?
I remember when the WTC got hit. Many used cellphones. Was that the time?
Back then, they had this device called a "phone booth." It worked a lot like a cell-phone, except that instead of taking it out of your pocket, you stood in front of (or inside) it to make your call. They were ubiquitous, just like cell-phones, in pretty much every public space or place of business, so unless your characters are out in the desert, you can still achieve that instant communication.
Posted 7/18/2011 12:34 am
Hard to tell if this is a troll or a dipshit. Playas had Motorola flip phones in 1992- trevs had bag phones- in flyoverville.
Make your two characters psychic. This will also increase the "chick flick" value of your script, and will thus attract a wider demographic than a typical film involving cars and crashes and explosions and shit.
Posted 7/18/2011 12:34 am
There was a roughly five year interval in which cell phone usage expanded dramatically. Say 1995 to 2000. By 2000 prices had dropped enough that the economics favored cell phone usage. People started dumping their land lines. The US was behind the curve because of the greedy telecoms.
Posted 7/18/2011 12:34 am
Well, I can tell you that when I was in a major car pile-up on the freeway in 1992 or 1993, out of the 20 people or so milling about (either in the accident or just behind us because all lanes were blocked), there was one person with a cell phone, he was a contractor or maybe something like a property maintenance manager who attended to multiple buildings.
Posted 7/18/2011 12:34 am
Problem is, the final scenes occur on major highways where phone booths would be too convenient a plot device considering the action involved.
Like I said, I can move the time forward, but am wondering whether it is early or late 90s, if not the 2000s.
You must be young. Yes, they had pay phones every few miles along major highways, often associated with mile markers and shit like that. And of course at rest stops.
Posted 7/18/2011 12:37 am
What's funny is when I was going for my trucker's license, I had a teacher who showed me how to get "free phone calls" via his ham radio and beat the cell phone charges which were dollars-per-minute back then.
When writing these scripts, you get caught in today and then for continuity sake get fucked when someone brings something to your attention. Hence my need to bump it a few years forward.
The 80s has to do with when hyper motorcycles became popular and Congress was trying to legislate them. Can't go into more detail, but I'm sure anyone who remembers that time period would know what I'm talking about.
by 1989 they were all broken...even the ones in top hotel lobbies had been vandalized and were unworkable. That's when I was meeting people that had their own cell phones, but they were big ones.
Try a carphone instead.
