You Know Me
Nicholas Andrew HallsSamurai
In order to seduce his junior assistant, a conceited inventor exchanges bodies with an attractive stranger. But when she rejects his advances and he loses control of his research, he must attempt to reverse the exchange or else face the rest of his life living someone else's.
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correction: I meant to say the “majority of produced film’s loglines ”
— when I read through the loglines of produced films, I don’t see that formula very often.
The formula works, which is probably why it’s popular here. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we’ve gotten so used to reading each other’s loglines, we’ve all sort of gotten into that same formula.
The stories you’ve been coming up with are very unique. I think the packaging should be unique as well.
I mean, a majority of produced films could be broken into that formula, but, in reality, they probably aren’t.
I hear what you’re saying – I use the same structure again and again. But what is the alternative? By its very nature a logline needs to be set up in that fashion. Every logline on this site (if written correctly) reads like this:
When (the inciting incident happens), a (flawed protagonist) must (achieve this goal) before (whatever the stakes of failure are occur).
The optional conjunction (step 3) is included when the goal of the protagonist changes at the midpoint (for instance, in this story, the first half of the film is concerned with him trying to sleep with the girl, the second half is him trying to reverse the damage done. Or in Avatar – trick the Na’vi into moving, save the Na’vi. Or Toy Story – get rid of Buzz, get back home).
So what’s the problem with this setup grammatically?
This one is a lot better as tells us the story to intrigue us but doesn’t give all the minute details that we will learn on watching/hearing/reading the story. It is also shorter and snappier.
I love your loglines. I am really interested in the stories.
My only suggestion is purely grammatical. You might be stuck in a rut.
I’ve only read three, so it really isn’t enough to say for sure. So far, it seems like you have this thing going:
1. adverbal phrase/clause
2. subject + verb + prepositional phrase
3. (optional) conjunction
4. then repeat the same structure above, sometimes skipping step 1
I’m seeing it at least in these three,
Old Time Rock n Roll
Leathered Up (same pattern, just steps 1 & 2)
and this logline.
It seems like this pattern might be fairly common here. I’m probably going to leave the same comment on someone else’s logline as well.
Another suggestion is to make the logline simpler. It’s exhausting. It feels like I’m shoveling through snow, trying to juggle the 4 clauses those complex sentences.
How about this?
“After switching bodies in a failed attempt to live out his sexual desires, a self-obsessed inventor must race to reverse the switch or face the rest of his life living someone else’s.”
So you think something more along the lines of:
“A conceited inventor uses new technology to exchange bodies with an attractive stranger, but loses control of his research and must attempt to reverse the exchange or else face the rest of his life living someone else’s.”
The plot doesn’t work without the clarification of why he switches once, then wants to switch back? Any ideas on how to tweak it to make it work?
It tells us the story but seems to go around the block in order to tell it. I think a lot of this could be cut and we would still get the same idea. I would get rid of telling us his advances are rejected as that will be something to learn along the journey and instead I would state he changes body’s to get the girl but it goes wrong and he has to change back before he’s stuck. That to me is the story and the love story would by the ‘B’ story which doesn’t need to be mentioned here.