Variable Interest Rates on the Ice Road
The traction control light has been on since 2023, and the ice doesn't care about my credit score.
Introduction
This screenplay adaptation of 'Variable Interest Rates on the Ice Road' serves as a practical exercise in translating high-stakes narrative prose into the strict visual language of cinema. By converting a story driven by internal monologue and mechanical failure into observable action, this script demonstrates the intersection of creative writing and digital literacy, offering a clear example of how formatting syntax and sensory details are used to control pacing and tone in a professional production document.
The Script
EXT. ICE ROAD - DAY
A vast, frozen void. Lake Winnipeg. The horizon is a blur of white ice and grey sky.
Two pickup trucks sit side-by-side. Engines idling. Exhaust plumes rise straight up and freeze instantly in the minus-thirty-two air.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - CONTINUOUS
A HIGH-PITCHED WHINE drills through the cabin. It sounds like a dying bird trapped in the dashboard vents.
MARK (39), wearing a winter jacket with a blown zipper, stares at the instrument panel.
The dashboard is a Christmas tree of warning lights. Check Engine. Low Oil. Tire Pressure.
A red icon glares: DOOR AJAR.
Mark looks at the driver's door. It is shut tight.
He slams his shoulder against it. THUD.
The light stays on.
He cranks the radio volume knob. Classic rock BLASTS, fighting the mechanical scream.
EXT. ICE ROAD - CONTINUOUS
The truck beside Mark's is a Ford that is mostly rust.
KEVIN (30s), wearing only a hoodie, stands outside his driver's door.
He scrapes a porthole in the frost on his side window using a credit card.
He scrubs frantically. The card bends. SNAP.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - CONTINUOUS
Mark watches Kevin through the glass.
He revs the engine. It COUGHS. A rattle of loose heat shields.
The tachometer needle jitters like a nervous addict.
EXT. ICE ROAD - CONTINUOUS
Kevin stops scraping. He climbs in.
He flashes his HIGH BEAMS.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - CONTINUOUS
Mark jams the shifter into 4-High.
CLUNK.
Metal on metal.
He grips the wheel. Knuckles white.
He mashes the pedal.
EXT. ICE ROAD - CONTINUOUS
The rear tires spin. ZIIIIING.
Rubber polishes the ice. Smoke rises, but the trucks barely move.
They inch forward. Painfully slow. The traction control lights on both dashes flash in unison.
Kevin’s Ford fishtails in slow motion, drifting toward a snowbank.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - CONTINUOUS
The speedometer reads 80.
The world outside moves at walking pace.
Mark eases off the gas.
The tires catch. A LURCH.
Mark’s head slams the headrest. The coffee in the cup holder SLOSHES.
EXT. ICE ROAD - CONTINUOUS
The trucks find grip. Speed builds.
20 km/h. 30 km/h.
The suspension RATTLES violently over washboard ice.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - CONTINUOUS
Vibration shakes the cabin. Mark’s teeth chatter.
He glances at the odometer: 214,000.
He looks ahead. Through the windshield, a jagged scar cuts across the ice. A pressure ridge. One foot high.
Kevin swerves to the left to avoid it.
Mark stays the course.
A cell phone in the cup holder BUZZES against the hard plastic. The screen lights up: LOW BALANCE ALERT.
Mark ignores it. He grips the wheel harder.
The heater WHINE rises in pitch. A dentist's drill.
The front left wheel starts to THUMP-THUMP-THUMP. The floor mat vibrates.
The plastic moose bobblehead on the dash blurs from the shaking.
Mark doesn't lift his foot.
EXT. ICE ROAD - CONTINUOUS
The truck hits the ridge.
WHAM.
It goes airborne. A rusty bird taking flight.
Silence for a heartbeat. The tires hang in the empty air.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - CONTINUOUS
Gravity returns.
SLAM.
The suspension bottoms out. The bump stops SCREAM.
The coffee flies from the cup holder.
It splashes the windshield. Instantly freezes into a brown, opaque smear.
Mark is blind.
He fumbles for the window switch.
The glass rolls down. The wind SLAPS him. Tears freeze on his lashes.
He leans his head out the window. Dog-style.
EXT. ICE ROAD - CONTINUOUS
Mark roars past Kevin.
Kevin is fishtailing, fighting for control.
Mark crosses the imaginary line at a bullet-riddled stop sign.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - MOMENTS LATER
The truck coasts to a halt near a snowbank.
Mark sits. Shaking. The smell of burning oil fills the cab.
He rolls up the window. It GROANS. He has to pull the glass up with his fingers.
EXT. ICE ROAD - CONTINUOUS
Kevin pulls up behind. He gets out. Still just the hoodie.
He walks to Mark’s window.
Mark rolls it down two inches.
<center>MARK</center>
You owe me fifty.
<center>KEVIN</center>
You caught air. I saw your whole undercarriage. You got a rust hole in your muffler.
<center>MARK</center>
I know. Did I win?
<center>KEVIN</center>
Yeah.
Kevin digs in his pocket. He pulls out a crumpled blue five. A ten. Some coins.
<center>KEVIN</center>
I only got twenty-four bucks cash. I can e-transfer the rest.
<center>MARK</center>
Data is down out here, Kevin. You know that.
Kevin looks at the frozen lake. He reaches back into his pocket.
He pulls out a bag of beef jerky.
<center>KEVIN</center>
Teriyaki.
Mark sighs. The heater WHINES.
He takes the cash and the jerky through the crack in the window.
INT. MARK'S TRUCK - LATER
Mark drives slowly back the way they came.
He tears open the jerky with his teeth. Chews.
It is tough.
He stares at the grey horizon.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
The wheel still wobbles.
What We Can Learn
Adapting this story highlights the challenge of translating internal financial anxiety into external visual cues. In the prose, the protagonist's desperation is conveyed through detailed internal monologue about the price of eggs and his bank balance. In the screenplay, these abstract concepts must be converted into physical objects: the 'Low Balance Alert' on the phone screen and the physical condition of the truck (the 'Door Ajar' light, the broken heater). This shift forces the writer to rely on the 'objective correlative,' where physical objects become the carriers of emotional and narrative weight, ensuring the audience understands the stakes without needing voiceover narration.
From a technical perspective, this script demonstrates the importance of sound design formatting in building atmosphere. By capitalizing specific sounds like the 'HIGH-PITCHED WHINE,' 'CLUNK,' and 'THUMP-THUMP-THUMP,' the script instructs the sound department to create a sonic landscape that is as oppressive as the visual setting. This technique, known as 'embedded sound direction,' allows the screenwriter to control the sensory experience of the film without overstepping into the director's role, effectively using the page to dictate the rhythm and tension of the scene.
The adaptation also serves as a lesson in pacing and the '4-Line Rule' of action description. The prose version uses long, descriptive paragraphs to immerse the reader in the cold and the mechanics of the truck. The screenplay breaks these descriptions into short, punchy blocks of text—never exceeding four lines—to mimic the rapid, disjointed editing style of an action sequence. This structural choice accelerates the reading speed during the race, visually replicating the frantic energy of the event on the page itself.