A rich-turned-poor senior student at an elite Manhattan prep school becomes desperate for her dream college-tuition money, so she?s forced to take a miserable long hours-low pay job at the Coney Island?s rundown amusement park.
LayalPenpusher
A rich-turned-poor senior student at an elite Manhattan prep school becomes desperate for her dream college-tuition money, so she?s forced to take a miserable long hours-low pay job at the Coney Island?s rundown amusement park.
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A senior student at an elite Manhattan prep school finds out her father has been involved in a massive business scandal, leaving her financially bankrupt and disgraced. Nearing the end of the year, she becomes desperate for her dream college-tuition money, so she?s forced to take a miserable long hours-low pay job at the Coney Island?s rundown amusement park.
The crisis of a teenager free falling from the heights of the privileged 1% falls into the depths of the? underprivileged 99%, is a worthwhile one to explore.
But given the fact? tuition for a dream college (like one in the Ivy League) will costs over $50,000 a year? — and that’s just for tuition, not counting room and board — how believable is that she can even fantasize that she can earn enough money at minimum wage during the course of a summer job to pay for even one semester, let alone 4 years?
A desperate situation requires more desperate measures.
fwiw
“When her family loses it all, a spoiled rich girl gets a secret job at Coney Island in order to pay for her prep school tuition.”
Layal:
I like the inciting crisis being her father’s financial ruin but didn’t realize on the 1st read that it was for a short.
Obviously there isn’t enough screen time in a short to explore all the dominoes that could fall, all the problems that could be created by the financial ruin of her father.? And? you say that what the film is about, what you want to focus on and explore,? is the experience of an privileged kid having to work a menial, minimum wage job,? right?
So why not have her wealthy father compel her find? a menial job in order to learn the meaning of “real work”? Like he had to do when he was her age in order to work his way up from poverty.? If she doesn’t get and stay on the job through the summer, he won’t write the check for the tuition to the dream school she’s been accepted to.? Add peer pressure:? all her friends have been accepted to their dream school.? They expect her to do the same.
She can still decide to forgo the dream school at the end of the summer.
fwiw
fwiw:
Thanks for your feedback again! you’re extremely helpful. I may try to pack her fathers financial ruin in the first 2 minutes of the film (I’d have to try to figure out exactly how) but I also like the less dramatic scenario that you suggested. It’s possible i may change my story to that – I like that its a simple cause (her dad wants to teach her value of hard work) with a good motive for her (she has to get a job soher dad can pay for tuition), as well as with the peer pressure from her friends – the only thing is that I don’t want it to seem like she is a negative character, as though she is being punished that she has to get a job. She’s a good girl thats unintentionally spoiled.
what do you think of this new logline:
When a daughter of an affluent family is challenged on the value of hard work, she is forced to take a miserable job at the run-down amusement park to prove herself.
>>>?I don?t want it to seem like she is a negative character
Okay, but what’s her character arc?? Shouldn’t she start out in a subjective position of negativity that is the polar opposite from the positive one she grow into by the FADE OUT?? ?That’s the? core dynamic of drama, change, peripety, reversal.? And the stronger the contrast between the beginning value and final value, the stronger is the dramatic effect.
By “stronger is the dramatic effect”, I mean in terms of the emotional impact on the audience.? Such that? viewers may want to boo her at the beginning , but by the end their attitude “flips” such that they want to applaud her final choices and character growth.
Just saying.
Layal,
In regards to the latest version of your logline, there is a ‘first principle’ about loglines deriving from the fact that movies are first and foremost a visual medium.? Therefore, every element of a logline should refer to a specific person, place, object or activity that can be visualized on a movie screen.
For example, if the script is about a? character’s struggle to win Olympic gold then the visual (and audio) that informs the audience that she has succeeded is standing on the highest step as the Olympic gold medal is placed around her neck and the national anthem is played.
So what’s the visual for “prove herself”?? ? What will that moment look like on a movie screen?? What will it sound like?
Unfortunately, not only does? “proving herself” seem vague and undefined in terms of a specific visual moment or prop, I suggest it also seems to be more of a subjective goal than an objective goal.? Of course, a script is all the better for having a secondary subjective story line,? but loglines are only about the “A” story, the pursuit of objective goals, not subjective ones.
(And who forces her to take the miserable job?? You need to be specific.)