As a giant asteroid hurtles toward Earth, an embittered doomsday prepper must choose whether to open up his shelter to his runaway ex-wife and her crazy cult friends or risk spending eternity alone.
harryLogliner
As a giant asteroid hurtles toward Earth, an embittered doomsday prepper must choose whether to open up his shelter to his runaway ex-wife and her crazy cult friends or risk spending eternity alone.
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>>>after giving shelter to his runaway wife
Oh, well,? that casts? loglining the plot in a whole new light.? It’s need-to-know info.? The first version gives the impression that she’s on the outside with the cultists trying to get it in. (“…whether to open up his shelter to his runaway ex-wife”)
>>?not realizing she?s a double agent
Setting up the expectation of a? midpoint reveal/reversal/plot twist.? Normally that is not included in a logline.? For the sake of brevity.? In this instance, adding that reversal/twist extends the logline length from 27 words to 34 — which is tolerable.? And it may work as? a story hook –? an element that makes industry folk want to read the script to see how it plays out.
fwiw
Thanks to you all for your input. Lots of great points. That logline was a version done by a friend of one I had done earlier.
Here’s my own version. It probably still needs work but I’d value your feedback on this one, too:
As a giant asteroid hurtles towards Earth, a?brokenhearted survivalist must defend his doomsday bunker from a vengeful cult leader after giving shelter to his runaway wife
…not realizing she?s a double agent.
Don?t forget, a logline doesn?t sell to the audience, where you?d want to keep some mystery. This is for potential producers, who need to know the whole story. So what is it he actually ends up doing?
I think Valentin’s review is an improvement.
It occurs to me that the more interesting and certainly more desperate character is the ex-wife.? All the guy has to do is … well, very little.? He’s safe and secure in the shelter, well-provisioned to wait out the disaster.? All he has to do is open the door — or not.
In contrast,? she is in imminent danger of dying — she’s the character with the higher stakes, greater peril.? She’s pounding on the door, begging, pleading with him to let her and her fellow cultists in.? She would seem to be the more urgently, frantically proactive character.
fwiw
As a giant asteroid hurtles toward Earth, an embittered doomsday prepper must battle desperate invaders lead by his estranged wife on its way to his bunker.
Having ?the enemies between him and the bunker create tension while letting the possibility of deal with the ex-wife. I also changed the enemies from crazy cultist to desperate. The implied choice to let them him sounds more plausible, but also create ambiguity: Who is the real bad guy in that situation?
Loglines that entail ‘choice’ don’t always work because?you think, am I really going to spend two hours watching a movie where the main character is deciding should I let them in, should I not.
Implied? tension and conflict is necessary — but not sufficient.? There needs to be an explicit statement of an objective goal.
>>The ?decision? is just the choice he has to make after the call to adventure.
When? At the end of the 1st Act?? Act 2?? At the climax in Act 3?
And if he doesn’t decide either way at the end of Act 1, then what is his objective goal going into Act 2??
And please clarify what “all eternity” means?? Is it to be taken literally?? Does it apply to both choices?
Interesting take.
I would say there’s multiple levels of implied tension and conflict that would carry the reader through the entire story:? ex VS ex; prepper VS cult; living in a confined space with unhinged strangers; the strain on his supplies and the escalating stakes that would ensue, etc. The ‘decision’ is just the choice he has to make after the call to adventure.
The logline seems to posit a false dilemma.
A true dilemma is one where a character must choose between 2? options and either both are equally undesirable or both are equally desirable.?
But in this logline, it’s? a no brainer that spending all eternity alone is the more undesirable option; it’s far worse than than putting up temporarily with an ex and her cult crew.
Or is it temporary?? Is the predicament that he whatever choice makes he will have to live with for all eternity?? That’s not clear.?
Furthermore, taken at face value, the logline is saying that for the time span of the entire 2nd Act — a full hour screen time — the protagonist will be deciding to decide.? But a? plot isn’t about deciding to decide.? A plot is about the action follows when a protagonist decides to pursue a specific objective goal.
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