The 5th Shadow
jamesmichaelPenpusher
THE 5TH SHADOW is a dark, surreal thriller with a troubled protagonist, searching for one last masterpiece and a mysterious villain. This is the deep exploration of a disturbed man, alone in a world that has no place for him and the razor thin line between dream and reality.
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This reads like the back of a DVD – which is something that is written by marketing, and not a useful tool for actually selling the concept of your film to producers or funding bodies.
You have stated outright the film is dark and surreal. Every protagonist ever written could likely be described as troubled. His goal is too vague – searching for one last masterpiece – and it does not reach out to some primal fear or urge in your readers, so it doesn’t hook them. Mostly, the second sentence means nothing.
Get specific. Who is your film about? In what way is your protagonist troubled? What has caused this? Now that he/she is troubled, what is the goal? (To find a masterpiece and a villain? Too vague). What are the stakes if he/she fails to find this masterpiece and villain?
Sounds like the protagonist is borderline insane. A bad start! Less emphasis should have been made on the protagonist being “disturbed” and much more on how powerful the “mysterious villain” is. Also, the mere mention of a “masterpiece” does not engage either our interest or our curosity, as we have no sense of what this object means to the protagonist. Better to have the villain abduct the protagonist’s lover. While such a plot device might be thought to be stereotypical, it at least makes it obvious why the protagonist – no matter how flawed – would be compelled to chase after the villain and endure great hardship to defeat him. Heroes can be loners, but they should not seem to be so disconnected from everyone else that their alleged quest comes across as more delusion than noble cause.
Steven Fernandez (Judge)
The logline as currently stated is missing many crucial elements, and needs to be restructured and reconfigured if it there is any hope of effectively promoting the script. Identify the protagonist, antagonist, the goal, the obstacles, the stakes, the “hook” (what separates this story from all others of its genre), any irony and have it give the tone of the genre( do not state it).
A more effective logline might read something like: When a troubled (blank/ protag) searches for a final masterpiece (goal), he encounters a (blank/ antag) bent on stopping him (obstacle) in order to rid the world of (blank/stakes). The “hook” is your unique plot point, and the tone should suggest genre.
Geno Scala (sharkeatingman)- judge