SAVING JUSTICE
After his wife is killed by a rival street gang, a reformed criminal follows his dreams to teach music. But when a school shooting forces lockdown, he must protect a disabled protege.
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I’m trying to understand what the major relevance is of protecting this disabled protege? Will it help him achieve an internal goal? It feels like the two sentences don’t match up. Would a former criminal be allowed to teach in a school? And what is the importance of his wife being killed to why he has to defend a disabled protege?
It’s very promising. But
Protect a protege is weird, because protege means protected person. So, protect a person with a protection. I feel that there can be a lots of options for dramatic events, however, in your logline, the events don’t connect. Or at least their connection isn’t that strong. Maybe you need to find irrelevant details, cross them out and reduce it to 2-3 sentences. It will make it clear for us (and you) whats the important factors of the story.
What may not be important is that his wife was killed by a street gang. It intrigues that he is feeling guilty, but that can be put in another, shorter way. The fact that he teaches music seems irrelevant too. Also why he must protect the guy and why its important that he is disabled?
When mad shooter attacks the school, the music teacher, a reformed criminal responsible for death of his wife, must protect his students (reason) to redeem his soul/because no one else can.
My line is not great, just want to demonstrate what I mean. Hopefully it will help 😉 Good luck
My understanding of protege is completely different. My guess is that within the context of the story the “protege” would be a music student/apprentice/pupil. Is there something particularly special about this protege? Is he/she carrying anything special? Is he/she being protected because they’re disabled?
I’m thinking the he must protect the protege because “After his wife is killed by a rival street gang.” Otherwise, I don’t see a reason to tell us about the wife (actually, telling us about the wife still might be too much back-story for a logline).
I would stick with just one “When,” (When his wife is killed)—(When a school shooting forces lockdown) otherwise your logline will be too long.
“When a school shooting forces lockdown, a seemingly mild mannered teacher must revert back to his old ways to protect his disabled student from the attackers.”
Hope that helped, good luck with this!!!
Thanks for all the feedback 😀
Its GOOD WILL HUNTING meets AMERICAN HISTORY X
ACT I
Set in scenic L.A., A local street gang, the “Bloods” kill the wife of a “Crip” member after he is framed to take the fall of a grand theft auto turned sour by an accidental hit and run.
Fleeing to save his own life and on the verge of suicide, He finds a photo at her parents house where he goes into hiding. On the back of the photo it says “Always follow your dreams”. This makes the protagonist change his ways and with his love of music, decides to help and educate the gangs in school with a music program.
ACT II (part one)
CUT TO: 4 YEARS LATER.
After graduating from university, the protagonist tries to introduce the music program by reaching out to the school system with no avail. Constantly being denied and pushed back for his radical idea, the protagonist slips into his old ways and holds up a gas station. After hearing about the program, a High School notorious for its lack of prosperity reaches out in desperation to the protagonist and bails him out of his jail sentence for community service by allowing him to teach music at their school.
ACT II (part two)
MIDPOINT SHIFT
From here on in, it swaps to a student born with musical ability, that of the likes of Mozart.
His only solace is in his new teacher, the reformed criminal.
BUT when one of the student gangs learns who the teacher is, they notify the Bloods leader and is told to mass execute anyone and the teacher who believe in him. After being given guns, they go into school and starts randomly shooting, feeding of the power. The Bloods pay a visit to the dead wife’s family and kill them in cold blood.
ACT III
With the school in lockdown mode, the teacher must protect the future of the musical protege and overcome his past by turning to his old ways in a new light.
In the end, the teacher gives his life for the student and a new musical room is named in honor of him.
This is just the rough outline idea. Any input // feedback // help would be greatly appreciated.
Another reason the logline is difficult for myself is that I want to display the two stories and the midpoint shift but Im not having the best of luck.
Look forward to hearing from you all. 😀
Hey Tor,
You shouldn’t need to put the full story up… Try and make things clear from the logline. (I think one of the attractions of this site is that we don’t have to read long synopses. 🙂 )
Here’s my immediate tweak:
During a lockdown after a school shooting, a music teacher must protect his disabled protege using the skills from his street gang past.
Without having read the synopsis, it seems the wife’s death is back story.
I hope this helps!