I was watching a movie the other day and it got me wondering… How do the movie sets prevent cell phones from actually dialing 911 when the actor needs to call them in the script.
No idea if this was used for any film, but you may make your own GSM “tower”. Though it needs to be powerful enough that the phone won’t decide to roam to something else, and that might be a regulatory issue.
For 911 calls, and most calls actually, they almost never show the screen of the phone being dialled anyway. They just show the actor tapping at the phone vaguely while the camera shows them from the side or the back with an intense expression, and then suddenly they hold it up to their ear and then they act like they’re talking to 911.
And if for some reason they really do have to show the screen, they will just use a non-functional phone with a fake app or graphical effects in post-production, the same way they make ghosts and dragons appear and spaceships come crashing out of the sky, etc. A phone screen is a trivial effort to fake.
I can’t remember which show I was watching last night (tried a few of them and gave up on all cause everything is seemingly terrible nowadays).
But I commented because that thought specifically camemto mind since I watched them dial 911 exactly on the screen and press the green dial button and see the screen switch to “calling 911” or whatever it does which is what triggered my question.
Maybe airplane mode, if not a fake app. Doing it in effects would be the same effort of recreation with way more extra work for worse results. If it matches an actual dialers modern design, rule of least effort would say airplane mode or similar. Else, fake dialer.
I was watching a movie the other day and it got me wondering… How do the movie sets prevent cell phones from actually dialing 911 when the actor needs to call them in the script.
No idea if this was used for any film, but you may make your own GSM “tower”. Though it needs to be powerful enough that the phone won’t decide to roam to something else, and that might be a regulatory issue.
Also could use a fake phone app. Or a fake phone…
“Fire at studio, 9000 dead cause emergency services couldn’t be called.”
For 911 calls, and most calls actually, they almost never show the screen of the phone being dialled anyway. They just show the actor tapping at the phone vaguely while the camera shows them from the side or the back with an intense expression, and then suddenly they hold it up to their ear and then they act like they’re talking to 911.
And if for some reason they really do have to show the screen, they will just use a non-functional phone with a fake app or graphical effects in post-production, the same way they make ghosts and dragons appear and spaceships come crashing out of the sky, etc. A phone screen is a trivial effort to fake.
I can’t remember which show I was watching last night (tried a few of them and gave up on all cause everything is seemingly terrible nowadays).
But I commented because that thought specifically camemto mind since I watched them dial 911 exactly on the screen and press the green dial button and see the screen switch to “calling 911” or whatever it does which is what triggered my question.
Maybe airplane mode, if not a fake app. Doing it in effects would be the same effort of recreation with way more extra work for worse results. If it matches an actual dialers modern design, rule of least effort would say airplane mode or similar. Else, fake dialer.
Fake phone app that looks exactly the same. Or literally just a video. Or even just visual effects, with the phone being a green screen.
Movie Magic
They could just not show them pushing the buttons. Just go “beep boop boop” “hello 911 what is your emergency”