High Drama
Based on the true story of a nurturing, but ambitious television series producer struggling to achieve emotional balance and fulfillment in her own life against the backdrop of teeming behind-the-scenes drama and the perpetual antics of the actors, crew and network executives involved in the production of her long-running, daily soap opera.
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“struggling to achieve emotional balance and fulfillment in her own life” are subjective needs; while they are critical elements to the story, they are not critical elements to a logline.
What is the producer’s objective goal?
Who is her antagonist? Who opposes her struggle to achieve her objective goal?
What’s at stake? What does she stand to gain if she achieves her objective goal? What will she lose if she fails to achieve her objective goal?
How urgent is it for her to achieve her objective goal?
Thanks so much for your input.
The producer is a woman in her late 30’s who begins to feel her own biological clock ticking and realizes she has never been in the kind of stable, committed romantic relationship she emotionally needs and has dreamed about for herself. Her antagonist in some respects is the very career she loves and collectively the people who surround her daily. She is nurturing, caring, and beloved by the cast and crew of the daily television drama she produces, but their needs, entanglements, and idiosyncrasies chip away at her emotionally leaving it difficult for her to focus on creating the fulfilling life she imagines for herself.
Does this help explain more about the protagonists inner conflict? Do you have any suggestions for how I can incorporate this more into a short log line?
BlackstonM:
The biological clock ticking is a great subjective motivation/problem. But how do you show, how do you visualize a biological ticking clock on a movie screen, an internal state of mind?
How does that translate into external action toward a specific objective goal? What, exactly, is she going to do about that ticking clock in her body?
Thanks again for the additional feedback. This piece is not a movie. It is a series in which the protagonist actually narrates some of the action with voice-over conveying some of her internal feelings relative to what is visually occurring onscreen.
For example, she sees some of her co-workers with their children and begins to realize if she is ever going to have a child of her own, she needs to get busy, so one of the things she does externally is rush into a relationship with a “playboy” actor on the show she produces thinking she can domesticate him, and that fails miserably. There is also a young actress on the show who confides in the protagonist that she gave up a child for adoption as a teen, and now the actress longs for and wants to find the child she gave up. In addition, there are scenes where the protagonist is talking to her best friend about her biological clock ticking and whether she should consider just having a child on her own as a single parent.
The cast & crew of the show she produces constantly come to her for advice and support in their personal “real” life dramas, which she provides, but she just can’t seem to get her own personal life together. The protagonist wants it all…career, loving, stable relationship with a man, and motherhood, but she struggles internally coming to grips with the idea that may not all happen for her.
Thanks again for the additional feedback. This piece is not a movie. It is a series in which the protagonist actually narrates some of the action with voice-over conveying some of her internal feelings relative to what is visually occurring onscreen.
For example, she sees some of her co-workers with their children and begins to realize if she is ever going to have a child of her own, she needs to get busy, so one of the things she does externally is rush into a relationship with a “playboy” actor on the show she produces thinking she can domesticate him, and that fails miserably. There is also a young actress on the show who confides in the protagonist that she gave up a child for adoption as a teen, and now the actress longs for and wants to find the child she gave up. In addition, there are scenes where the protagonist is talking to her best friend about her biological clock ticking and whether she should consider just having a child on her own as a single parent.
The cast & crew of the show she produces constantly come to her for advice and support in their personal “real” life dramas, which she provides, but she just can’t seem to get her own personal life together. The protagonist wants it all…career, loving, stable relationship with a man, and motherhood, but she struggles internally coming to grips with the idea that may not all happen for her.
Thanks again for helping zero in and focus this log line. I tried to send you a reply comment earlier, but I don’t see it posted, so I will try to reconstruct the reply & see if I can get it to post this time. 🙂
This isn’t a movie log line. It is for a serialized drama/comedy told from the point of view of the producer protagonist in some places in actual “voice-over,” so we do have a little glimpse of her internal conflict from that perspective. Externally, we see her on screen observing actors & crew members interacting from time to time with their children and spouses, and we can see a bit of her wistfulness. Also, the protagonist interacts with a 20-something actress in her cast who had a child in her teens, gave the child up for adoption, and now is interested in finding the child. We also see the protagonist actually confiding in her production assistant/best friend that she hears her biological clock ticking and pondering whether she might be able to go it alone as a single mom.
Externally, we also see, in her effort to create the life she imagines for herself, the protagonist making a choice to enter into a “committed” relationship with one of the “playboy” actors on her show thinking she can domesticate him, and that ends badly. A recurring theme in the series is how the protagonist begins to come to grips with the fact that she simply may not be able to “have it all” in terms of a successful, high-profile career, a stable, loving committed relationship, and a family.
Any ideas for how I refine all this into the right kind of log line?
I’m not sure if nurturing but ambitious makes sense, because I don’t think those two things conflict necessarily. In reference to dpg’s objective goal problem, as this logline sounds similar to Murphy Brown/ 30 Rock maybe you could do something about pregnancy or something of that vein. Although your objective goal should probably be very unique because as it stands now the premise is very similar to the previously mentioned tv show as well as Sports Night.
What is the producer’s objective goal in this story? (It cannot be to achieve emotional balance and fulfilment – this is an inner goal. What would that even look like? You need to find visual representations to the character of emotional balance and fulfilment – perhaps she must settle a custody lawsuit with her estranged ex-husband?)