Beater (Short Film)
In a last-ditch effort to get rid of her eye sore car, a paranoid business woman risks being mugged in a particularly shady part of town by an unknown potentially dangerous buyer.
Alan SmitheePenpusher
In a last-ditch effort to get rid of her eye sore car, a paranoid business woman risks being mugged in a particularly shady part of town by an unknown and potentially dangerous buyer.
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The logline suggests a concept — but not a plot. And loglines are about the plot, a specific course of action. “Redefines her understanding of success and life’s purpose” is vague and indeterminate. What’s the visual on “success and life’s purpose”? Which is to say, how will the audience know from looking at the screen whether she has succeeded or failed?
As a result of meeting the college student, what becomes her objective goal?
Who/what opposes her struggle for that goal?
What is the character flaw that she must overcome to achieve her goal?
What are the stakes, that is what does she stand to gain if she succeeds, lose if she fails?
A jaded, wealthy business women redefines her understanding of success and life’s purpose when selling her eye sore car to a broke, yet optimistic college student. In order to find happiness, she must let go of her job and the sense of security it brings to embrace the uncertainty of the exciting unknown.
Probably need a stronger goal than just ‘find happiness’ though.
Revised it a fair bit. Think it’s a bit more plot than concept driven now.
But what’s the risk to her? Seems like the student is the one taking the risk. She’s dumping her eye sore on him.
>>>Probably need a stronger goal than just ?find happiness? though.
Yep. Everyone wants to find happiness. But, in terms of drama, is not an objective goal. It’s a subjective want. And, in reel life as in real life, happiness is a end product, the consequence of achieving a goal.
>>what’s the risk to her?
reworded it a bit. Going to the shady part of town is the aspect of risk for her.
The logline is still hiding the game ball in terms of the specific risk she will incur that will be played out for the duration of the short. Rape, robbery, or…?
To clarify what I mean and mangle metaphors: A good logline is like a fish hook baited with something specific that makes it irresistible for a mind to bite, makes someone want to read the script.
This logline sets up the expectation that something bad will happen to her. And the expectation that the “something bad” will be the central conflict of the film, to wit, the plot, what she must do when the risk becomes a reality. But the logline doesn’t gives me a clue as to what, among the multitude of dangers she could face, the specific danger she will actually face.
This logline tosses out a hook bare of bait. Give me something to bite on. Please. I’m hungry, I have the urge, the need to bite. And so do producers, directors and actors. But where’s the bait?
It’s a plan, not a plot. Might start with: ‘when she is mugged while selling her eyesore car in a shady part of town and left without money or identity, a paranoid businesswoman must reshape her whole life and find out who her real friends are.