[Quick Summary: On the evening before its centennial celebration, a small northern Californian town and its citizens are attacked by vengeful supernatural fog.]
Let's say you know there is a bomb under the table.
How many pages into a script do you have to know WHY it was placed there?
In this script, the writers were able to postpone it until p. 45! That's amazing.
So how did the writers keep us interested between p. 1-44? I found a few hints:
- There are multiple bombs detonating all the time.
- The bombs are not all the same. ex. The first one is like a smoke bomb, i.e., destructive but not deadly.
- The bombs happen at random, like shark attacks.
- The citizens have to figure out that bombs are happening.
- Then they have to discover the bombs have a pattern.
I don't want to spoil the reveal WHY, so here is a sample of an early "smoke" bomb:
ex. "INT. CAR
...Nick puts the truck in gear and starts up again. The MUSIC onthe radio ends and Steve's voice comes on.
STEVE (voice over radio): It's four and a half minutes after midnight and let me be the first to wish Antonio Bay a Happy Birthday. We're one hundred years old today!
Suddenly the driver's window next to Nick SHATTERS wildly into a million pieces!
ANGLE ON FRONT WINDOW
The entire front window SHATTERS, BLASTING inward!
ANGLE ON ELIZABETH
She SCREAMS and the passenger window CRASHES in on her!"
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: It's ok to postpone the WHY of a bomb.
We can build suspense in the meanwhile: who might be a potential victim; the consequences for the town during a public celebration; etc.
The Fog (1980)
by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
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