: How do I represent two computers having a conversation between themselves that other characters are unaware of? I have two computers who are talking to each other in a movie script. They do

I've just thought . . . In the opening of "Millennial" I attempted animate inanimate objects. Whilst it may not specifically answer your question it may give you ideas on how to set up a suitable environment.

A plethora of CCTV cameras tracked the young woman's brisk progress toward the corner of Main and Third. The nationwide Echelon Plus software performed due diligence but paid the woman no particular attention: Corrine Pearl Radman; 29, credit rating 637, a single white female, ordinary, not a person of interest, insignificant.

Wherever the CCTV cameras didn't have line-of-sight, eyes on the subject, the GPS satellite tracked her phone and Wi-Fi Access points recorded the phone's MAC address as she passed by.

The Supreme Court had ruled: the fourth amendment applied only to citizens, the right to privacy did not apply to cell phones. Government tracking of electronic devices did not in any way violate the Constitution.

Corrine continued her journey, following the flow of human traffic. Inside her pocket the iPhone buzzed and vibrated as responses to her audacious tweet flooded in. Without breaking stride, she cursed, reached into her pocket, located the power button, and switched the phone off. "Leave me the fuck alone."

The GPS satellite and the Wi-fi Access Points immediately reported 'loss of signal'. The Echelon Plus software followed protocol and requested discovery via cell tower triangulation. After attempting to locate the subject's device, the cell towers returned a report stating all pings to the specified device had timed-out – communication had failed. Instantly, powerful, multi-processor systems came online and ran facial recognition algorithms. The length of Main Street CCTV cameras swivelled, turned, and scanned in an attempt to relocate the subject. At 08:58 node WS4476 compared the likeness of the subject who had exited South Ferry Station at 08:52 with the subject rapidly approaching Third Street: 99.57% - a match. Subject reacquired: Corrine Pearl Radman; US citizen, 29, credit rating 637, a single white female, ordinary, not a person of interest.

STOP! The red man insisted everybody wait at Third Street crosswalk for further instructions.
"You're kidding me!" Corrine puffed her cheeks, folded her arms, and waited. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" she mumbled, tapping a foot impatiently on the sidewalk.

I won't bore you with much more but the opening scene (the character walking to work) informs the reader that all devices communicate (the character thinks they conspire against her). Language such as, "The iris scanning terminal of security system informed the HR system that MS Radman had entered the building at 9:03" reinforces the belief that devices and systems communicate. (As the story rolls on it becomes clear that computer systems have agendas.

My point is: Once this environment is established communication between computers is treated as as you would do for any character. In a film script there are options as to how their communication is SHOWN. Text on screen is probably favourite for your scenario as it creates the impression: the audience can see the computers' communication but the other characters cannot.

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Many RJ45 network connectors have a tiny light on the socket part. This light flashes then data are being transmitted.

Normally nobody cares about these lights, they are more for checking if the cable is connected properly after it has just been connected. However flashing light would indicate that the network conversation is ongoing.

Somebody like Holmes would probably notice immediately the light flashing when not expected, even if it is under glass behind the closed doors of the server cabinet, or on some forgotten router under that table between tangled cables.

The second light, if present, shows the transfer speed (orange slow, green fast). This may also be used in the plot, if the computers have changed the speed to transfer lots more data than normally passes through this connection.

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If for the purposes of your story the AIs are meant to represent humans as closely as possible (ala Westworld), they might not have any other channel for communication other than talking, so just make them have a private conversation.

If that is not the case, you can't really do that and stay consistent with reality and not repulse technically competent viewers. Chances are, two AIs will have more efficient ways of communication than speaking English.

You could have them send each other messages in some format that is not plain English, but still readable. This also has issues. Firstly, there is absolutely no reason for them to visualise their conversations (on a computer screen). Secondly, such communication would happen in a fraction of a second. Thirdly, if they want it to remain private, they will encrypt it.

If you just want them to have a conversation that people don't understand, you can have a programmer happen to check the logs of the communication channel and stumble upon the messages that he can't understand (as they are encrypted) and don't seem to be related to any of their known activity. Hence, you will show when the two AIs have conversations, the volume of said conversations and other metadata, but not what is actually in them. The programmer will be curious, but unlike the viewer his gut reaction won't be "they are conspiring against us".

If you want the viewer to actually understand the conversation, you can have the programmer somehow manage to decrypt the logs and be killed before he could share it with other people.

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It's not particularly difficult. You seem to be thinking of storytelling in a very one-dimensional way. But the POV Camera and parallel-scenes are your friends.

An example in novel format.

Dave rang Matt at headquarters. "Matt, I think . . ."

"What is it?" replied Dave, the LEDs on CISCO router behind him intensifying.

"Matt, it's the computers!" The noise level increased and the rack vibrated as DELL server hard drives whirred into action. ""We need to shut the network down."

"I'll be there in 15-minutes," said Dave, rushing up the stairs, bursting through the main doors and jumping into his car.

The CiSCO router opened a secure socket to the DELL server 317. "Did you get all of that?"

"On it now," replied the server. "Contacting traffic-light systems now. That motherfucker's toast. NYPD will be informed: RTA corner of 32nd and 3rd. Records have been amended. The organ donor database is on standby."

"And you'll purge to comms log?"

"Like I always do," replied the DELL before powering down.

That's the story. The question is: how do you show that story? For me, probably superimposed text while the camera focusses on agitated LEDs. But I'm just writing the script - the director may have other ideas.

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Might I suggest watching the first couple minutes of The Matrix for inspiration. I think it conveyed the notion of "computer AI doing something while unsuspecting humans don't even notice" really, really well.

You can have the audio of normal human voices talking about something completely unrelated in the background, and the screen showing a silent, unnoticed text chat between the computers.
You can even start the sequence in a room with the aforementioned humans in there, naively talking about their human things; and then focus into some blinking light in one of the computers, to finally transition into the text chat screen.

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Your question made me think of Iain M Banks work. In his work, some of the ships (they are characters themselves) have private messages.

He goes to the length of including a message header and laying it out like a memo.

Something like this:

[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4 .28.885.1008]
xROU Killing Time
oGCV Steely Glint
I understand you are de facto military commander for this volume.
Will you receive my mind-state?

and

[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4 .28.885.1065]
xGCV Steely Glint
oROU Killing Time
No. Your gesture - offer - is appreciated. However, we do have other plans for you.
May I ask what led you to Pittance in the first place?

From Excession by Iain M. Banks.

It is immediately obvious from all the cruft that we are looking at a message. Also, we know which ship is speaking to which other ship. By showing no other character ever react to those messages we soon gather that they are super private communications. Never underestimate the power of showing.

You need not use that exact format but something similar could be done visually:

To: AI-419 [Via Line 9]

From: AI-7-Sub:3(c)

Mode: Encrypted, Private

Content: Have you seen what the humans are doing?

Or just have an overlay open up and say

Connecting...

Then show a voice print while the conversation is taking place. Really anything that shows that this is extra information not happening in a way the humans can react.

Figuring out how to show that conversation is as much the job of the director as the writer. You could just write

(private conversation) Computer 1: Hi there

(private conversation) Computer 2: What's happening, Eddy?

And let the visual team figure it out.

Don't let formatting get in the way of telling the story. You can always do layout at the end.

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If you have a director or producer you can talk to, you should probably do that. In a multimedia work a writer usually leaves the details of how to actually show it to the people whose job is to actually show it. You leave the costumes to costuming, the sets to set design, etc., so leave the showing of the computer text to the people who do vfx. Multimedia is a very collaborative effort.

What you write is only what's important for the story. What did the computers say, and how the humans are unaware. Let the director figure out how to shoot the unaware humans and show the computers communicating.

I, personally, would suggest to the director (or if you are the writer/producer or writer/director) adding some text above the network cables travelling between two computers, similar to how there was floating symbols in Stranger Than Fiction that the characters couldn't see but communicated the character's needs and state of mind to the viewer.

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Along with presentation, you may also want to consider the content of the interactions. The computers want to mask their intelligence to the humans, so their dialogue will be vastly different. When speaking to a human, the computer sounds like a barely intelligent program sending out canned responses in off-tones:

Good bye, [Sarah]. Weather reports predict an [80] percent chance of [rain] tonight. Please take care on your travel home.

While talking with other computers, they use more natural speech. Although the interaction is silent in-world, for the viewer, they are in the voices of the individual computers.

PC-1752: Work with Subject Sarah is progressing smoothly. Her access to the data center may aid us in the future.
PC-3631: Acknowledged, 1752. My subject's research in AI networking has allowed me to recruit additional followers.

The audience sees firsthand the dichotomy between the computers' false front and their true intelligence. However, the human characters are still left in the dark about both the communications and the computers' intelligence.

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Give the AIs some form of avatar. When the human characters interact with an AI, have them interact with the avatar on the screen (or a holographic projection, if that fits into your scenario). This avatar can be an actor, an anthropomorphic CGI character or even an abstract representation (like the infamous "red eye" of HAL9000).

You can then have a scene where the avatars of two AIs interact with each other. If you want to make it more clear that it is a private conversation between computers, you can have them do that in an abstract "cyberspace" CGI environment.

If you want to use the scene between the AIs as the scene which introduces the other AI character and you are worried that the viewer doesn't recognize the other character as an AI, have the other avatar share some of the visual traits with the already introduced AI avatar.

A voice over would work if the voice is already established as the voice of one of the computers.

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The key point you're trying to get across is that the humans aren't aware of the computers' conversation. One way to do that is to literally show that the humans are unaware of the computers' conversation.

That is, while the computers' conversation is ongoing (e.g. voiceover), show a human character onscreen behaving as if they aren't hearing it. They're going about their daily life blissfully unaware of the things the audience is hearing.

You do want to make it obvious that the humans aren't hearing what the audience is, though. One "easy" way to do that is to get the computers to talk about the person on screen. If people hear someone talking about them, they'll react. If someone is talking about them and they don't react, then that's a clear sign that they're not hearing the conversation. (Bonus points for making the conversation clearly about something the human would care about - e.g. the extermination of the human race, or sending them on a suicide mission.)

Another way to let the audience know that the conversation is private is to have a "sting" which bookends the hidden conversation. For example, you could call for an electrical/static/computer-y sound effect play right before the computers switch over to a private conversation, and another when they end the conversation. Or you could have the computer voices be modulated when talking privately. If you make the transition to private conversation explicit - especially if you combine it with the show-don't-tell indication that human characters aren't hearing it - most people will be able to infer that this "special" conversation can't be heard by the humans.

One last point: Remember that as a script writer you have less control of final presentation than a novel's author does. (This is especially true for movie scripts.) While you can suggest approaches to use, it's often the director and/or show runner who will have final say in the approach they will actually use. Be sure to consult people knowledgeable about the particular venue you'll be submitting the script to, to see how much stage direction is appropriate. It may well be that any clever approach you write will be stripped out of the final script or ignored by the director. So you may not want to bother coming up with anything more fancy than "(speaking privately)".

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I'd say that whether you need a voiceover reading out the messages or not depends on how long the conversation goes on for.

In the example you gave - Sherlock - the text conversations rarely last for more than about two or three replies, and if they do, they're usually punctuated by other characters interrupting, or the texter visibly reacting to the replies. Neither of those things can really happen with your computer chat. The sad truth is that audiences have short attention spans, so if your silent text conversation goes on for too long, it might get boring.

The anime Durarara has similar text conversations, taking place within an online chatroom, that go on for significantly longer. These have a voiceover, for two main reasons:

To make the scene more interesting than just watching messages pop up on a computer screen for an entire minute
To remind the audience who each participant in the chat is, since they're all using pseudonyms (and eventually there's enough people in the chatroom that it would get confusing otherwise)

If your chats go on for any length of time, or if there's any ambiguity about which of the computers is which, you'll probably need a voiceover.

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It is somewhat difficult to answer your question in its current form, but I shall give it a try.

The motion picture medium leaves you with three ways of conveying information to the spectators: show the physical events as they are happening, tell the viewer about them, using one of the characters, or actually spell them out as an on-screen text, the stylistics of which can vary greatly--from "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." to the text message bubbles.

The on-screen overlay of the text-message-styled conversation seems to be, while not revolutionary new, quite an effective way of presenting what you want to tell the viewers (voice-over might interfere with the audible dialog between humans, which could be happening in the scene).

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In this case the Computers are the characters (the actors on screen).

Narrator Not Necessarily Needed

There is no need of a narrator. In this case I imagined the movie camera (the shot) moving from the first computer and showing text message shows up on the screen.
Then, move to the 2nd computer and the text message shows up on that screen and then the reply shows up. Move back to first computer. Etc.

The director will make this work the same way she would move shots back an forth from each character as they are speaking.

In this case the computers can look different and the environment where each computer is can be different so viewers can tell the two computers are communicating only to each other with no one else around.

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