A Secret Service agent kills the President to save the Presidency. 20 years later, he must help save his estranged daughter, the newest President, when she is taken hostage.
Alan SmitheePenpusher
A Secret Service agent kills the President to save the Presidency. 20 years later, he must help save his estranged daughter, the newest President, when she is taken hostage.
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Clarity is key in a logline – killing the president to save the presidency doesn’t make sense without context and therefore makes your concept confusing.
More to the point, you shouldn’t waist precious logline real estate on an event that occurred 20 years prior to the start of the story. If the inciting incident is his daughter being taken hostage, then start the logline with that, then describe what he does to fix the situation.
Lastly, how could anyone take a president hostage? It’s a bit hard to believe that a person who’s guarded 24 hours a day and in constant public view could be taken hostage.
I think everyone made the same points last time.
So he killed the president. Has nothing to do with him having to save his daughter.
Go back read all the previous suggestions.
Plus there is a little logic hole. I think a kidnapped president may have more rescuers than dear old dad.
Here is the problem, in both your logline attempts you begin the logline with the part about how 20 years ago a secret service agent kills the President to save the Presidency.
That is all set up.
Then you go on to tell us that, now 20 years later, his daughter is president and he must rescue her. Which is highly improbable.
It seems to me that the ‘hook’ to the story is the idea that there is a potential “Hitler in the making” who was president and a Secret Service agent ends up killing him in order to save the Presidency and our nation’s freedoms.
Since that seems to be the hook, that is the story you should tell.
Tell the story of a secret service agents moral dilemma. Tell the story of a President spiraling into madness.
That is a far more compelling story.
Improbabilities aside, my primary concern is that the logline presents two plots of co-equal dramatic import: 1] The assassination of one President; 2] The rescue of another President.? So what kind of project is this logline pitching?? A mini-series?? Because? it seems to me it would be quite difficult cramming both plot lines within one feature film.
Not to mention that? doing so would violate standard plotting convention going back to Aristotle’s Poetics, that a plot should have unity of action, one organizing principle, one dramatic spine (action, motive, objective goal) on which all the other elements hang.? What is the organizing principle, the dramatic spine that unites both the assassination and the rescue?? What is this story really about?
Also,? the audience needs a justification for the assassination.? ?What was the protagonist’s motive ?? To rescue the country from a corrupt President?? If so, the logline needs to indicate this.
The biggest problem is you have a really cool open shot and you are desperate for us to see it.
Link it to the story and it will make sense. Also stop with the cryptic sentence, does you no favours.