(REVISED)
When a single-minded entrepreneur conducts an unauthorised trial of a ?telepathic phone? in a small town and accidentally transmits a virus that makes everyone lose self-control, she must find a cure with the help of the only uninfected person – a technophobic hippy.
MichaelGLogliner
(REVISED) When a single-minded entrepreneur conducts an unauthorised trial of a ?telepathic phone? in a small town and accidentally transmits a virus that makes everyone lose self-control, she must find a cure with the help of the only uninfected person – a technophobic hippy.
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I don’t see why a protagonist can’t be the source of the inciting incident as long ?the “Doh!” moment is caused by his own ?character flaw. ?Instead of describing the protagonist in this logline as “single-minded”, ?I would also describe him as “reckless”. ? There is definitely a causal relationship between his character and the dramatic problem.
However, when the character flaw is so obviously the cause of dramatic problem, as in this instance, it can become a problem making the protagonist a sympathetic or likable character. ?In this case, I may be more inclined to root for the uninfected person, not only to solve the dramatic problem but also pop the balloon of the protagonist’s ego in the process, cut him down to size for the “dramatic sin” of hubris in the form of recklessness and single-mindedness. ?
To wit, ?the uninfected person ?becomes the pivotal character — because the protagonist needs him to clean up the mess he created. ?He becomes life-saving hero of the story.
Hmm. ?Maybe the plot and logline should be re-engineered to make the uninfected person the protagonist.
fwiw
The revised version of the logline describes the inciting incident as an event of the main character’s doing.
Good inciting incidents are normally bought about by an external force to the MC, which force him or her to take action. In this instance however, the MC causes the bad thing to happen so she is taking action to correct her mistake. This means that at the very starting point of the story her world is in a neutral state, she then makes it negative and eventually improves the state of the world back to neutral. So the world around her doesn’t change for better or worse, over the course of the story, and nor does she – she seems to lack a character flaw (single-minded isn’t necessarily a flaw), which indicates that she will change.
Point is that in order for the story to gain meaning there needs to be an element of significant change for the character and her world, currently it doesn’t seem to be the case.
What if she was over-trusting/naive a the start, and as a result of that someone else took advantage of her and infected the town? Now she must take action to save the world around her and learn a valuable lesson along the way.
Agreed with the above the logic flaw renders the logline confusing. What if you were to change it so that someone else triggers the viral spread and the only two left un effected are the MC and a different character to the hippy, one that brings a useful skill to the party and helps the MC save the town. What if it was the local geeky kid, the one that all the kids at school would make fun of and no one took seriously? Now it is up to him to save them all.
As FFF said.
It’s hard to understand how the hippy is of any use in diagnosing the cause or developing a cure. ?There is no real mystery why he isn’t infected as he never used the phone. ?Compare the plot Michael Crichton setup in “Andromeda Strain” 1971, where the mystery to be solved is why everyone in an isolated town exposed to an alien virus dies — except for a baby and a drunk.
fwiw
The situation is very interesting and original but I can’t imagine?what we will actually see in the movie…what does the entrepreneur DO?with the hyppie? I’m not sure about the logic: it seems to me that the hyppie is uninfected because he didn’t use the phone so he’s not immune because of some kind of anticorps to be researched. And if he used the phone, then the his technophobia is kind of irrelevant in the logline. I don’t know.