Quarantine Screenplays

Not about a quarantine, but written during a quarantine.

A thought experiment. What if in response to the COVID-19 virus crisis, the shelter in place edict not only spreads to cities throughout the world, but stays in place for weeks, maybe even months?

How would this impact filmmakers? For example, here is a list of things a person can do when in this type of social quarantine, five types of “essential activities”:

• Engaging in or performing tasks essential to health and safety, or to the health and safety of family/household members. This includes pets. Examples include picking up medicine, visiting a doctor or getting supplies to work from home.
• Obtaining necessary supplies or to deliver supplies to others. Things like groceries count here.
• Going for a run, hike, or other outdoor activity, as long as proper social distancing is observed.
• To care for a family member or pet in another household
• To perform work at an essential business (see below) or perform minimum basic operations

So screenwriters, what if in conceptualizing and crafting a story, you were limited to these type of outdoor activities? How could you use them in a script to open up your story beyond the boundaries of your characters’ home?

On the other hand, given the restrictions on movement outside, perhaps it’s time to bring back the Contained Thriller:

What are some of the common elements of a contained thriller? Obviously the contained part is key. If one of our goals as writers is to lock a Protagonist in a circumstance, what better way than to — literally — lock them to a specific location. The suffocating closeness of the locale can prove claustrophobic for a moviegoer. Combine that with a Nemesis figure who knows the ins and outs of the location, then you up the underdog status for the Protagonist.

Maybe a Found Footage project:

First, the very idea of the central conceit — found footage — can translate into low budget filmmaking. If the audience is expecting to see raw footage, then filmmakers can embrace that and cut costs at the same time.

Second, viewers seem to be drawn to found footage movies because they create a heightened sense of reality making the viewing experience that much more realistic and visceral.

How about a movie which takes place entirely on a computer screen:

Or how about a movie with two people having dinner together:

Here’s the thing about writers: We have imaginations. The fact most of us are stuck inside lends itself to those powerful words: What. If.

What better time to ponder potential story concepts which lend themselves to the limitations we have in personal mobility than now?

I guarantee you there will be some amazing stories which emerge during this crisis from the minds of screenwriters and filmmakers. Not movies about quarantines… who would want to see THAT after having lived in one for months on end.

No, I mean quarantine movies as in stories which lean into the physical restrictions of where characters can go and what characters can do.

Put on your thinking cap, writers! I know I am.

In 2012, Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel put out this ‘trailer’ for a movie called Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse:

That led to a contained apocalypse comedy This is the End:

Here’s your chance. What will be YOUR quarantine movie (again, not about the quarantine, but responding to the limitations of the whole ‘shelter in place’ thing).