It’s the early 70’s, a young surfer dude is plucked from his idyllic Southern California beach existence to find himself in a foreign high school amongst a group of variously addled American expat adolescents, running fearlessly and unbridled, through the streets of pre-revolution Tehran.
steavboydLogliner
It’s the early 70’s, a young surfer dude is plucked from his idyllic Southern California beach existence to find himself in a foreign high school amongst a group of variously addled American expat adolescents, running fearlessly and unbridled, through the streets of pre-revolution Tehran.
Share
This is just the set-up
What is the lead character’s goal?
What is standing in his way?
also, having an American relocated to Iran is actually the catch of the concept. The hook. Still, you have it in the very end of the log line.
I would put this right on at the beginning.
EDIT: After sitting at my desktop, I can properly write and edit…
The formula
Please read the formula, which goes:
or as I remember it:
This is not suggested in order for your writing to become formulaic, but because this formula is the tool that
Syntax
If you take a second look at your logline, you may see that it is actually a non-sentence. It has two main sentences connected with a comma.
You can fix that by changing the initial “It’s” with “In” but this is not going to make the logline much better.
(Hint: try the formula.)
Poetic language
Meh. All we care about is reading as few words as possible, which also are to be the sharpest words possible.
Look at all the perfume and flowers that you’ve put to your logline?making it reach an enormous 46-word chunk:
Instead of:
… try:
Same number of words, but we get a clearer idea of his flaw?if “naive” is indeed his flaw.
Instead of:
… try:
Instead of:
try telling us what he and they are doing, in specific. The movie can’t be about them running through the streets.
Which brings us to the final part:
The formula (again)
What is missing from your logline is the 3rd element: the MAIN ACTION.
1. Who is the PROTAGONIST??a naive surfer from California
2. What is the BIG THING that happens to him??his family (diplomats? military?) moves to 70s Tehran.
(I actually love the idea so far.)
Now, let’s pause for a moment. Is that the big event? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty big, but it could mean anything.We don’t get a sense of the specific forces of antagonism that arise. Why is this a big thing for him? Is he nostalgic of the California beaches? Or is there something else?
(In Karate Kid, Larusso moves to LA from another state?or wherever?and hates it. Still the big thing is not the move itself, but facing the Cobra Kai guys.)
So, what is the something else? You mention something about American expat teenagers. What about them? Do they clash with local law? Do they clash with each other? Why are they running through the streets?
This part needs clarification, in order to provide clear sense of the antagonism.
3. What ACTION must he take?
This is the other part that is missing. Having established the antagonism, what is the action that the protagonist must take? We are talking about the main action, the main objective that will drive the whole 2nd Act.
Have a good rewrite!
The idyllic life of a SoCal adolescent is upended when his family moves to pre-revolution Tehran, where he faces coming of age struggles in an American melting pot wrapped within a foreign culture whose certain realities are but an illusion.