Thanks to commenters below for the HELP – hope this is better…
Taboo: Couple
TabooCouplePenpusher
The true life misadventures of a couple who try to save their failing marriage and reignite their dull sex life and relationship by daringly moonlighting as an ?escort duo? and experiencing the fantasies of others.
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We LOVE this one dpg – THANK YOU!!!!!
How about something like:
The true life misadventures of a couple who, while trying save their failing marriage, accidentally rediscover the joy of sex in their relationship when they become an ‘escort duo’ fulfilling the sex fantasies of others. (35 words)
[Notes:
“True life” — this really happened, folks. Part of the sizzle that sells the steak.
“Misadventures” rather than adventures to suggest the comedy in the premise. More sizzle.
This version attempts to put the spotlight as much on your relationship as the adventures because, for the long haul, it’s the relationship chemistry — more sizzle- between you two that has to carry the story, whether feature film or series.]
fwiw
Again GREAT advice! I edited the above just to share ONE anecdote…
Furtherless:
While I’m not yet sure as to what the logline should include for your story, I am fairly sure what it should not include. “Changing thousands of lives and saving many marriages along the way.” probably ought to be dropped out.
Why? Because it’s giving away the ending. A logline should make people wonder how it will all work out, but it should never tell them. Raise an implied question, yes, but don’t answer it.
Again, consider, the logline for “Breaking Bad”. It would never say how the saga of Walter White is going to play out, like “When a law-abiding chemistry teacher is diagnosed with a fatal cancer, he decides to cook meth to earn enough money to pay for treatment and provide for his family after his death which he succeeds in doing but in the process causes the death of innocent people, loses his soul and all the people he loves.”
A treatment for a feature film beats out a story that concludes with a denouement: story lines conclude, conflicts are resolved. End of story. FADE OUT
A treatment for a series pilot beats out a story that concludes with a cliffhanger: story lines are developed but not concluded. Conflicts are set up but not resolved. The audience is left wondering and wanting to know what happens next. FADE OUT Tune in next week to find out.
A film treatment ends with a period. A series treatment ends with an exclamation point (surprising reveal, a suspenseful twist) and a question mark (what happens next?)
A treatment serves the purpose of providing producers with evidence that there is enough dramatic material to warrant going to the next step which is to invest time and serious money in development. (Like hiring a professional screenwriter to write a script.)
Tony Edward and dpg, you’re both AMAZING and thank you both for your fantastic advice, suggestions, and the time you take to write them 🙂
So, here’s what’s happening…
We’ve received a lot of press lately for our Sex Coaching services, including interviews by salon.com, Marie Claire, Maxim Magazine, a piece on FOX5, an article in the NYPost, and we were featured on Jenny McCarthy’s XM show, “Dirty, Sexy, Funny,” all of which has gotten the attention of several production companies hoping to secure the Life Rights to our story. Some have proposed docu-series, others a cable series, and yet others have proposed a feature film.
Most interestingly, it has been our FaceBook page which has garnered even MORE attention – you’d think that when certain folks see “TabooCouple” that they’d shy away from it, however… We basically have a “Who’s Who” list of “Friends” in the entertainment industry. We connected there with several award-winning producers, directors, etc., among them, Tony Award-winning producer, David Garfinkle (Spider Man: Turn Off The Dark, GHOST, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, and dozens of TV productions). David is now our manager and legal consultant (he started off by running his own entertainment law firm).
Anyway, the challenge for ME (Rob – my wife’s name is Bianca) arose when I was asked repeatedly for a “Treatment” – which I had NO IDEA what it even meant. I went online and researched, found a few examples, and put one together. I think I did pretty well in breaking the story down into a 3 Act structure; but, as you guys have pointed out, the freaking LOGLINE is what’s KILLING me!
Here’s the thing: I was assuming that Sex Coaching itself is pretty boring – there are TENS of THOUSANDS of people working in this capacity (thanks in part to Pornification); however, there are ZERO Sex Coaches or even PHd therapists with the PRACTICAL knowledge we gained through our unorthodox erotic journey – in a list of all the practices whereupon PRACTICE trumps reading books or attending seminars, SEX would be #1 (at least in our opinion). So, that’s why I figured the CORE of the story would be our JOURNEY to become what are perhaps the most knowledgable Sex Coaches in the world (pardon the hyperbole, but… even a few well known Sex Therapists with impressive resumes and schooling have admitted this to us).
And dpg, indeed our experiences have often been HILARIOUS. This was all due to the fact that English is my wife’s 4th language – think “Gloria” in Modern Family – so she often misinterpreted potential client’s desires. In one instance, she somehow interpreted a man’s desire “to have rough sex with a woman while another man watches” to mean that “I want to be tied up, beaten, and tortured by a demon-possessed dominatrix while her slave watches.? She ended up tying me up to a giant lamp in the corner of a hotel room after having gagged me and stripped me of my clothes. She then turned her “rage”/attention towards the confused man cowering in the other corner of the hotel room, gags HIM, strips him of his clothes, places a collar around his neck announcing him as a “SUB,” then walks him around the room on a leash like a dog, rides him like a pony, until finally strapping him spread-eagled to the hotel bed and beats him senselessly with a flogger. Mind you, at the time she was the one that monitored emails, etc., so when I saw her researching ways to be the PERFECT “Domme” and she explained that we were going to have our first BDSM session, I was a bit excited but also CLUELESS to what this man had actually requested. We didn’t discover the mistake until we read the review the man posted about his experience on the Yelp for this type of “thing.” He actually described it as the most erotic experience of his life despite never knowing he was ever into BDSM, but warned, “Be VERY careful of what you request of Bianca as she seems to misinterpret things, in this case in an EXTREME way.” This was her first such error, but not the last… I eventually HAD to take over email monitoring duties. Anyway, sorry for the long prose, but I enjoy writing about our adventures 🙂 So,…
Another thing now that you guys mentioned it: Is a Treatment for a feature film different for one for a cable series? Google SUCKS to find this out…
Humbly appreciative for your time and assistance, like, TRULY!
Rob (and Bianca)
What Tony Edward said.
And if you have as much material based on real life anecdotes and incidents as you suggest, you can’t possibly cram them all into a feature film. The concept might work better as a long form TV series rather than a feature film. We are in a golden age of long form TV/streaming series now. And it might work better as a comedy of human relationships– sex is the perfect vehicle for that.
Whatever, the logline ought to focus on the pilot episode that sets the series in mottion. A great example is the one for Breaking Bad: “When a law-abiding chemistry teacher is diagnosed with a fatal cancer, he determines to cook meth to earn enough money to pay for treatment and provide for his family after his death.”
Five years of award-winning and highly-rated episodes flow from the story set in motion by that logline and pilot episode.
… or, to put it another way: at the moment, they are always WINNING. An audience gets engaged with the plight of a main character(s) when there is something clearly at stake and when they are STRUGGLING towards a goal, as in “…Their experiences don’t always go smoothly…” — you have to tell us, very specifically, in what way they don’t go smoothly…
And is this a doco, a drama based on a (your?) true story, or complete fiction?
I think you’re going in the wrong direction; the edit gives us way too much — a 13 episode series would struggle to fit all this in. I think you have to choose what this movie is mainly about; is it about them keeping their marriage together, or, more about them becoming successful sex coaches/ therapists? Once you have chosen this, you then have to decide what the main stumbling block is to them achieving the goal.
Below are just a couple of my ideas:
‘A bored married couple discover a new lease on their love life by becoming professional sex coaches, but face a public witch-hunt lead by a conservative church leader hell-bent on their demise.
After opening up to each other about their inner most sexual fantasies a married couple struggle against their own jealousy and insecurities on the road to becoming professional sex coaches.
Obviously just MY take on a couple of potential ways you could go, and it could go A LOT of different ways — the point is to state only one goal and one clearly stated antagonist to them achieving that goal…
Again, best of luck with it.
Thank you Tony! Edited the logline to include EVERYTHING, but having a difficult time cutting it all down… :/
Hi TabooCouple,
It’s interesting subject matter, but I’d avoid stating ‘dramatic and often hilarious’ — the specifics of the premise need to be dramatic and hilarious without you having to tell us that they are. It’s an oversell that can look insecure/ amateur… just IMO.
I’m reminded of Masters of Sex, where the subject matter really cooked because it was set in the 50’s and 60’s when sex in society was still taboo. You have an interesting angle with the ‘Pornification’ of culture and society with yours, which could be worked into the logline/ story.
Has potential, but I’m not yet getting grabbed by the youknowwhats — the logline just needs to focus on the dramatic goal and specifically what is stopping the couple from attaining it.
Best of luck.
dpg – thanks for the stats, really interestings
>>>We NEVER had an objective?….
That’s a problem when trying to dramatize your story!
Yes, you can initially stumble into a new career, seemingly discover it by accident. But one of the conventions of modern drama is that there comes a point (around page 30) where you lock into an objective goal and a strategy to achieve that goal. This lock in raises the Dramatic Question that the rest of the story– Acts 2 & 3 — will be devoted to answering.
And a “yes” answer to that Dramatic Question must be in serious and credible doubt. The odds must not be in your favor. And what factors make a “yes” answer to the question in doubt? Enter, stage right, the antagonist and opposing forces.
Your logline promises a “dramatic… erotic journey”. Well, what creates drama in … drama? Consider the 2004 film “Kinsey”, based upon the career of the pioneering sex research Alfred Kinsey . (Have you seen it?) What Kinsey had going AGAINST him in real life, the film “based upon” his life had going FOR it: plenty of opposition, conflict, hostility, legal and cultural repression. Such was the era he was working in. And that was the source of the drama in the story.
What are the opposing people, the negative forces, the complications and obstacles that create serious and credible doubt that, in the scripted world dramatizing your career, you could achieve your objective goal? And what’s the character weakness, the flaw in the relationship, that threatens to undo all of your success, destroy your most important relationship by the end of Act 2 if not confronted and overcome? (I don’t need to know the answer to those questions. But in building a dramatic scenario for your life story, you do.)
>>We?d simply like to inspire a dialogue about the secrets? people keep from their significant others, same as we did for the first half of our relationship
Okay, but drama is more about dialectics than dialogue — about the clashing of opposing points of view, values, interests. If you want to inspire a dialogue, why not write a how-to book? Develop a syndicated talk show (TV or radio)? Why bother trying to “adapt” (aka: mythologize) your story into the Procrustean bed of a script?
dbg…
How about:
After their dull sex life is exposed, a married couple struggles to spice things up while moonlighting as the world?s top rated escort duo then use what they learn to help save many other marriages as sex coaches.
??
Wow, GREAT reference to Aristotle! #impressedbyyou 🙂
Clarification:
We NEVER had an “objective” – we happened upon this role/life while seeking ways to spice up and save our OWN marriage, the irony being that we ended up saving OTHER marriages along the way.
Also, believe it or not, our story is NOT about sex – it’s about uninhibited human interaction; about how best to improve communication between romantic partners, etc. We’d simply like to inspire a dialogue about the “secrets” people keep from their significant others, same as we did for the first half of our relationship.
Let’s face it: Regardless of where someone is from and/or what inspires their core beliefs, everyone has to admit that sex sells; thus, savvy marketers around the world develop erotically-charged themes/pitches in hopes of gaining our attention towards their particular products, brands, and/or services. This marketing ploy contributes to a phenomenon socio-scientists dub “pornification”; but, no industry instigates pornification more than the one that serves as the root of the term: Pornography.
While pornography simply provides vicarious arousal, this medium also instills in most people certain fantasies that are difficult to fulfill in real life. Accordingly (and even acceptably to proponents of capitalist philosophy), two industries capitalize on this demand: Paid Adult Companionship/Escorting, which addresses the needs of those seeking to experience their ultimate fantasy[ies]; and conversely, Sex Therapy/Coaching, which addresses the emotional turmoil that often ensues when one represses or defers their erotic desires.
Pornification is a topic that most people can relate to on a tangible and emotional level ? it even affects you (or now it will), and/or you know someone affected by it; trust us.
Ask yourself: What are the chances of getting precise directions about how to deal with pornification? We?ve been there; done that; and, yes, we even did THAT, as well. We have THE map…
dpg, Email us at: taboosexcoaches@gmail.com. You seem AMAZING and we would love to show you the film treatment to hear your thoughts…
Dramatic plots are artificial constructs. As Aristotle observed in his classic treatise, “The Poetics”, the plot is (only) an imitation of (real life) action. Which is why films are “based upon” or “inspired by” by real life stories. Events (and characters) must be sliced and diced to fit into the Procrustean bed of the dramatic form.
Apparently your story is about a couple whose objective goal is to become sex coaches. The story suggests the prospect of lot of fair amount of sex. But there’s a surfeit of that on the Internet already, a lot of it free for the looking. How can your story, even though true, possibly compete for attention (and sales) on the basis of sex alone?
What your story really needs to deliver is a story line with dramatic (vs. libidinous) tension, conflict, and suspense. That’s what the logline should focus on.
>>how long do you think a logline can be without it being TOO wordy?
For some time, I have been keeping a spreadsheet of loglines for plots that actually got made into films. The sample size is currently over 600. About 62% are 25 words or less. About 87% of the loglines are 30 words or less. I have yet to encounter a plot that survived the gauntlet of the development process and got produced that couldn’t be distilled to 40 words or less.
So those seem to be the markers: most loglines can be stated in 25 words or less; 30 words is the ideal maximum; 40 words the tolerable maximum.
fwiw
Good point – just stay home and read about us, Lucius… 😉
If we can just read these articles for free, why do we need to see your movie?
Whoa: “ENTIRE life story” is clearly hyperbolic – this is a SEGMENT of our lives together; NONE of which we regret, as it were…
Or:
When a married couple?s dull sex life is exposed, they seek ways to spice things up and submit an online ad. Their experiences don?t always go smoothly; yet, they go on to moonlight as the world?s top rated escort duo and eventually quit their corporate jobs to become Certified Sex Coaches, changing thousands of lives and saving many marriages along the way.
This is basically our ENTIRE life story – yes, really…
Advice is MUCH appreciated…
For example, in terms of length, etc.:
A married couple seeking ways to resolve their dull sex life stumble upon an escort ad and go on to moonlight as the world?s top rated escort duo; but, their experiences don?t always go smoothly. They eventually quit their corporate jobs and become Certified Sex Coaches, changing thousands of lives and saving many marriages along the way.
Sex Tape has NOTHING on the LOL moments we’ve experienced, Lucius; and, we’d make 50 Shades seem like a Disney Production… 😉
dpg, how long do you think a logline can be without it being TOO wordy? We keep seeing suggestions for 20-25 words; but have seen some that are up to 40-45…
We have a FASCINATING life story, by the way… 🙂
Remember when Sex Tape came out?
I think that put an end to “sex comedies” for about 20 years…
>>a dramatic and often hilarious erotic journey
Specifically what? The logline is a tease without the stripping. That won’t work anymore. We live in a jaded era when films have the legal and artistic license to explore just about every angle and aspect of human sexuality in explicit, HD, 3D detail.
So drop the tease and deliver the booty. What’s the sex angle of this story that makes it stand out from all the others? The specific sex angle-hook of “50 Shades of Grey” was BDSM. What’s so special and unique about their erotic journey that differentiates it from all the other erotic journeys in all the other films?