A savvy, overly confident uni student sets up a food delivery business as a front for drug trafficking, but when his operation is exposed he fakes his death on a hiking trip, but one detective won?t accept his disappearance until the search reveals his body, dead or alive.
GStarLogliner
A savvy, overly confident uni student sets up a food delivery business as a front for drug trafficking, but when his operation is exposed he fakes his death on a hiking trip, but one detective won?t accept his disappearance until the search reveals his body, dead or alive.
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Who is the protagonist, the student or the detective? ?If the detective, then the logline needs to be reformulated with the focus on the detective. ?(In this version, the first 32 words — 2/3 of the logline — are focused on the ?student.)
If the protagonist is the student, ?he’s an unsympathetic character; ?I don’t see anything in the logline to suggest why a movie audience would empathize or be interested in a story focused on him.
Agreed with DPG.
If the student is the MC he would need a noble reason for selling drugs. Could he have a sick mother, father, sibling or lover that needs the money for medication?
I see what you’re trying to do by making him a social conscious drug dealer. Unfortunately it ain’t enough – he is a drug dealer.
Any character that seeks to find gain in other people’s substance addiction, legal or not, with knowledge of the harm it does is acting in an un ethical way.
Would you say that tobacco companies are socially conscious? They fall in to the same paradigm as your MC’s…
You would need to work doubly hard to make a person who makes and or sells drugs empathetic, look at Walter White as a good example – a complex plot and set up was needed to form empathy in?the audience during season one.
I’m not someone who thinks that a character has to be relatable to find an audience, exactly, (because that can lead to the argument that a character needs to look you in order to relate to them and other similar ideas) but you need a hook.
Superman may be an alien who always does the right thing, but he plays on the idealistic visions of ourselves. We wish we could be like that.
Spider-Man may be a genius with awesome powers, but he was also a teenager who was bullied, had relationship problems. He’s an everyman, he’s relatable.
Hannibal Lecter may be a cannibalistic serial killer, but he’s an?interesting? serial killer.
Walter White has his hook as well. So for this story, what was that lead to him being a drug dealer? Why does he continue to be a drug dealer? Does he have to make money to get his family out of a crime-ridden city? Send his little sibling to the college of their dreams? Pay medical bills? Make enough money to build his dream project?
Gstar:
>>I did intend for the student to be the protagonist, but I see your point, I was intending his operation to be one that sells drugs that are ?tested? for safety and comes with support for addiction and safe usage, so a dealer with a social conscience and one that is operating in a system where drugs are legal.
Oh.
Still, I agree with Nir Shelter. Since when did enabling other people’s drug habits — and profiting from their addiction– become a manifestation of a “social conscience”? ?What is there about the young man that will make a movie audience sympathize with is choices, perhaps relatable with his struggle?
And if he’s not sympathetic, relatable, then there needs to be something compelling in his lifestyle and fascinating in his character that makes people want to watch anyway. ?Like Tony Montana is in “Scarface”. ?Tony Montana is a compelling character because he is so ruthless, fearless. ?He’s not the kind of guy who would disappear, fake his death when his operation is threatened. ?He’s the kind of guy who stands his ground, introduces his adversaries to his “little friend”.
And, again, as written the logline seems to give the 2nd half of the story to the detective. ?Who is in the driver’s seat of the plot? ?Who owns this story? ?The student or the detective?
All that said, ?I would be interested in a story where the young man is so naive and deluded to sincerely think that he?s acting with a social conscience. (After all he is “overly confident”. ?Overly confident about what? ?That he’s doing the right thing? ?That he won’t get caught? ?Both?) The logical, causal outcome being that reality bites in the form of the eventual realization of the ?consequences of his naivete and reckless confidence, how he has contributed to so much suffering.
Reality could also bite in the form of the police coming after him ?? the nemesis he has richly earned. ?In Greek tragedy, nemesis was the goddess of revenge, retribution, who punishes those guilty of hubris, of being ?overly confident?.
Those were all really great comments guys and really makes me think about my character and how I can make him more interesting, there’s a strong reaction from the drug dealer angle which is interesting given that there my exposure to that world hasn’t always been what you would expect. The story was inspired by an interview I did years ago, an young Asian uni student who became involved in the infamous Asian Triad gang that in Sydney, he was caught, found God (it was for Uniting Care). He wanted a glitzy lifestyle that he saw on telly but fortunately managed to come turn his life around. It was a growing up experience for him and I thought in that way his character was relatable, he knew what he was doing but he also realised what the opportunity cost was to his life to his state of mind.