Imprisoned in an apartment with a complete stranger, an idealist twenty-something has to find a way to save herself and the world population from the secret organization holding her captive.
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Imprisoned in an apartment with a complete stranger, an idealist twenty-something has to find a way to save herself and the world population from the secret organization holding her captive.
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“Imprisoned in an apartment with a complete stranger, an idealist twenty-something has to find a way to save herself and the world population from the secret organization holding her captive.”
Why does this organization kidnap her? What’s so special about the MC? Does she pose some kind of threat to them, and that’s why they’ve kidnapped her? ?Also, what skills or abilities does she have that enables her to fight back? How does this organization threaten the population? What kind of organization? A rogue division of the government? A terrorist organization? Don’t be vague, a logline is used to sell the script to someone who has money to invest into the project. They’ll want to know what they’re spending money on.
Example:?When she is kidnapped by a secret spy organization, a conspiracy theorist must find a way to escape and prevent the organization from unleashing a deadly plague.?(27)
While my example may not be what your story is, I’ve included what I’ve suggested. I’ve specified what kind of organization it is, and implied a reason they may want to kidnap the MC, the fact that she’s a conspiracy theorist implies that she found something they didn’t want her. And I’ve specified what kind of threat the organization poses to the world. Now, what are the actual details of your story?
I hope this helps.
As Dkpough1 said. ? Save the world from what? ? ?What threat does this cabal pose? The logline needs to specify the nature of the danger to the world, what’s at stake if she fails.
So the secret organization wants to recolonize Earth to start over by exterminating everyone except the chosen few (the girl included). The girl finds herself in an apartment with a guy (we don’t know much about him at first, but he’s been in the apartment for a while). She is amibitous and tries to do everything she can to make the world better (I will show that in the scenes before she gets kidnapped). ?She is supposed to be the girl who will form a relationship with the guy (the couple eventually leads a group of other chosen ones to build the new society after the extermination).
The organization is made up of all the most powerful people in the World, even the President is on it. How would you call an organization like that? That’s trying to create a new society by killing the “old world”.
I don’t have much of a story though, that’s why I’m trying to get the logline right at first.
Thank you for helping!
So she’s breeding stock?
>>>She is supposed to be the girl who will form a relationship…
Why her? ?What makes her so special? ?Says who? ?Who has determined this is her fate whether she likes it or not?
Who is leading the organization? ?Who is the designated alpha-antagonist?
And how do they plan to exterminate 6 billion+ people?
It seems to me that the story hook is the exact nature of the conspiracy; to wit, exterminate most of humanity, start over. ?But the original logline buries the hook instead of dangling it before a logline reader enticing her to bite — to read the script, find out what happens next.
Dig up the story?hook and dangle it before our eyes.
fwiw
That again brings up my question of what exactly is this girl going to do? The President of the United States alone commands the world’s most well trained and funded army, and scientists and some of the most advanced technology on the planet. But before she can even get to that level she somehow has to get her captors to confess information that the President is indeed apart of this conspiracy, and then somehow find a way to take this organization down? I like a good thriller but for one movie, and for one girl whom you haven’t specified to have any sort of training, this seems too big. Don’t be afraid to go low scale, a personal story. Not every story needs to have the hero saving the world. Take John Wick for example.
Something I often recommend is to really think out the antagonist’s goals and motivations. I go as far as making a logline for the antagonist. A good antagonist poses a realistic threat for the protagonist(meaning there shouldn’t be absolutely no hope of beating them, which the more you explain your story the more unrealistic it seems she has any chance of beating this group, but also enough of a challenge to make the story interesting) should be more than just a bad guy for being a bad guy.
Another thing is what differentiates this from other conspiracy, plotting the end of the world movies? What’s the hook? The original angle or the interesting twist on an established trope?
>>>Something I often recommend is to really think out the antagonist?s goals and motivations. I go as far as making a logline for the antagonist.
Excellent advice! ?I wholeheartedly agree. ?It takes a great antagonist to make a great protagonist.
In this case, the antagonist can’t be a cast of thousands, a collective “they”. ?The logline needs to ID ?one alpha-antagonist who, more than any other, is the organizing and driving force of the conspiracy .
“And the difference with other conspiracy movies is that she can?t really stop it. I imagined the story where the girl eventually has to choose to leave the apartment and die or start over and create?the new society with the rest of the group.”
Interesting that you would have her lose. I think there aren’t enough movies which allow the protagonist to lose. However, you do need to create dramatic tension and at least give her a chance to stop this attack. Because in the logline it raises the dramatic question of: Can she stop this attack? rather than: Can she escape?
If the answer the to the dramatic question is a big, resounding ‘No’, that’s fine. But the story still needs to give a glimmer of hope, whether or not it’s a false hope for the audience and the character to the latch onto, and then it hits them harder when she fails.
But the problem with that being the difference, the hook, is that it comes at the end, it would be a spoiler and a logline shouldn’t include a spoiler. Making her father the antagonist is great way to explain why he targets her, making their conflict a lot more personal.
I hope this helps.
jumeriot:
You are correct that the logline should never include a spoiler, in this case how the story ends.
But I will say that a downbeat ending like that will make the script a harder sell. Well, in the American market, anyway, where, as a general rule, ?audiences don’t like pessimistic endings, are not attracted to movies where the message is that the situation is hopeless, humanity is doomed.
I notice you list your location as in France, so maybe those audiences are more accepting (realistic?) about pessimistic endings.
Anyway, ?Dkpough1 is correct that there must be at least a glimmer of hope that she can escape and/or at least die as martyr in a way that defeats the conspirators. ?If her situation is hopeless, her chances less than zero from the start, then what is the source of dramatic tension?
Why has she been singled out to be one of the chosen few to survive when she opposes everything the conspiracy stands for? ?What makes her so special that the conspirators would overlook her defining characteristic?
And it’s still unclear to me as to who is her singular antagonist in this scenario. ?Cueing off Dkpough1’s excellent practice and suggestion, if you wrote a logline for this story from the point of view of the antagonist, what would it say?
” When his secret organization?s plan to recolonize Earth is unfolding, an estranged father attempts to include his humanitarian/idealist daughter in the plan.”
A logline framed around an antagonist should still include the same elements. It should have an inciting incident, whether it’s different from the protagonist’s, or in some cases it could be the same event. But for the antagonist it could be something which happens offscreen. So what single, specific event causes him to kidnap his daughter?
Also, describe the father using his occupation or skills, or a personality trait.
Example:?When his secret organization releases a biochemical which will eliminate a majority of the human population, an agent abducts his estranged humanitarian daughter so she can live?in the new society. (31)
?If you’ve seen The Dark Knight, here’s a video?from a great channel analyzing what makes a good antagonist. I’ve found Lessons From the Screenplay to be a great, insightful resource for better understanding storytelling.?
>>>And also, she?s an idealist and wants to make a better world which means that, even though she might not understand it at first, starting over could be doing just that.
So what’s her character arc? ?The focus of ?a logline ?is the through line of the action toward an object goal (which, in her case is?), but in delineating a through line it should suggest a character arc that the protagonist undergoes along the way.
By the end of the story how we will she differ from what she was at the start?
“When a secret organization launches the last step of its plan to eliminate 99% of the population, one of its main agent abducts his estranged humanitarian daughter so she can live in the new society.”
Since this isn’t the main logline, one used to sell the script, it is fine because it shows you understand the goal and motivation of the antagonist. If you still want to revise it for practice, what is the last step? Be more specific, whether it’s poison like I used in my example or something, being more specific would probably shorten the logline.
Now, onto the main logline. It seems that you haven’t posted a revision. So, for:
“Imprisoned in an apartment with a complete stranger, an idealist twenty-something has to find a way to save herself and the world population from the secret organization holding her captive.”
You have an inciting incident(abduction), which is clear. Now, what do you see as the goal? Due to her being abducted by her estranged father, what does this motivate her to do? Is her goal to stop them after she finds out what they plan to do?