In order to get a job as a zookeeper, a former prostitute must convince the owners of an idyllic wildlife shelter to release their genetically valuable tiger to a questionable city zoo.
LoemoembaLogliner
In order to get a job as a zookeeper, a former prostitute must convince the owners of an idyllic wildlife shelter to release their genetically valuable tiger to a questionable city zoo.
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This does clear things up a little bit. I have a little better understanding of what the story is about now.
How about something like this?
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To get her dream job as a zoo keeper, a former prostitute is given one week by a questionable zoo keeper to convince an idyllic wildlife shelter to sell them their rare Tiger, but upon seeing the preserve she begins to question the zoo’s motives.”
To get her dream job as a zookeeper in a questionable city zoo, a former prostitute must prove her skills in a remote wildlife shelter by gaining the confidence of the rare tiger that the zoo managers badly want to buy.
Do you think this one is better? I’m ?trying to het rid of ‘must convince’.
It seems strange to put ‘dream job’ and ‘questionable zoo’ in one sentence, but maybe it’s a good thing?
Is there a meta-story story here, that the ex-prostitute’s effort is, in effect, a ?salvage operation , an effort to rehabilitate and retool herself? ?(Otherwise, what’s the point of her being an ex-prostitute?)
I suggest reshaping the logline in the form of a redemption story. ?She identifies with the tiger as a creature being abused/mistreated/exploited as she once was (that’s could be the emotional hook/inciting incident for her ). ?Her objective goal becomes to save the tiger.
Her implied subjective need is to save/redeem herself, which she does by saving the tiger. ?And in the process, discovers her own “inner tiger”, her own strength and power to fight back for survival and a just cause.?
Sorry, I don’t know enough about your intentions, that is, what the personal hook is for you — why you want to tell this story — to be more specific. Just tossing out what comes to mind. Hope it helps.
Loemoemba:
You’re right, I didn’t pick up on it immediately. ? One reason is that looking for an?”honorable job” ?is an understatement, sets the stakes too low. ?Bigger stakes, the Biggest Stakes for her, is that she is looking for an escape route to a new life. ?In fighting for the animal, she’s fighting for her own life.
So I suggest the logline be framed around the hook, the idea, character or situation that instantly?grabs and holds a reader’s attention. ?And it seems to me that the hook for this story is a prostitute struggling to rescue herself by rescuing animals who are like her, abused and discarded as hopeless, beyond redemption.
Why a tiger? ?Does it have to be that exotic? ?Is it possible for the setting to be only the animal shelter? ?Where all she can initially get is volunteer or temp work? ?And becomes ?committed to saving the life abused and rejected ?pets. ?One in particular. ?A pathetic, hopeless animal doomed for extermination.
Anyway, I think you have the raw material for an interesting, dare I venture, marketable character study/human interest drama. ?Best wishes.
I hate to write what I think when it is only negative, so sorry for not being encouraging, but I fail to understand the story elements and stakes in this concept.
I’m not sure why she needs to be a prostitute, nor do I see the connection to the subject matter and I simply don’t understand the stakes AT ALL.
If she is a prostitute at the start of the story and wants out of that life, why doesn’t she get a job as a waitress and take a course at a community college?
If she no longer works as a prostitute at the start of the story, what’s the problem? She can get on with her life and put her past behind her. She may need some emotional support or therapy, depending on the way she worked as a prostitute, but she will get over it.
If the story is about her overcoming an emotional trauma of life as a prostitute, it needs to be framed within that world. If she has emotional scars, the actions she takes to overcome them need to amount to a goal that clearly signifies an achievement of putting her former life behind her. While having a tiger transfer to a zoo could be seen as symbolic by some, it is not directly connected to the MC’s problem.
Her dream job can be anything, and working at a zoo doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal. No offense to zoo keepers, but unless she wants to be a veterinarian, I don’t see the great big challenge of getting a job at a zoo especially one that is described as questionable.
While I find some interesting ingredients in your concept, I’m not so sure about the recipe to mix them ?together for an appetizing film.
>>Actually it is not really about overcoming the emotional scars, it?s more about finding the strength to keep doing the right thing, regardless of the circumstances.
I suggest it could and should be about both — that’s her character arc. ?What is a character arc, anyway? ?It’s the journey a character takes from a negative state to a positive one (or from positive to negative in a tragedy). ? The former is necessary to add emotional depth to her struggle for the latter.
One thing that “The Pursuit of Happyness” had going for it was that it is based upon the real life struggle of a real person. ?It rings with authenticity. ?Is your story based upon the real life struggle of a real person? ?If not, have you been able to do the research to become knowledgeable with both the world she is trying to escape. prostitution, and the world she is trying to enter, tending animals in a zoo?
>>I?m pretty sure i should leave the prostitute thing out of the logline, because it?s such a big word that gets so much attention that the actual story is pushed away.
Yep, it’s a ‘hot’ word that stands out from the rest of the text like the emergency red lights ?on a patrol car or ambulance. ? It grabs attention from everything else in the concept.
Maybe she could be a divorced mother, recovering from a violently abusive relationship.
Then , in my mind, there is the matter of possibility versus probability. ?While anything is theoretically possible in a script, given the context ?of a particular story, is it probable — believable? ?Specifically to this story, in times past, in a less enlightened and humane context, it was more probable that zoo animals were subject to abuse.
But in modern times, zoos (in developed countries anyway) ?are supposed to be managed with more enlightened and human policies and by better trained keepers. ?So how probable is it that a ?trophy animal such as tiger would be subject to abuse? ?( Look at what happened recently at Sea World. ?The management finally saw the light and discontinued the show for their trophy animal, ?their biggest money maker, killer whales, because of realization — and bad PR — that they were abusing and exploiting the animals.)
If ?there are stories of such abuse in ?contemporary zoo management — okay. ?I’m just not aware of it is a probable cause.
Just saying.
The stakes don’t match up.
In The Pursuit of Happiness the stakes were made clear, sleep in the subway and starve or put everything on the line. The MC had to make a choice that forced him to either have faith in himself – apply for an unpaid internship in order to get a life changing job, or not believe in himself and give up custody on his son.
What are the stakes in this concept? What is her do or die moment? How will it be made visual?