Hammerhead (Therapy)
Rutger OosterhoffLogliner
When a depressed hammerhead shark befriends a therapeutic dolphin, his incompetant shrink – a wite shark – wants to violently stop the healing process.
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Isn’t the’ identity crisis’ the inciting incident? I can explane in the sory why he has a identity crisis. But maybe having an identity crisis is to complicated a theme for children.
Should I cut the aggressive shrink? Then I don’t have an antag anymore?
After an undercover hammerhead shark agent and his white shark crime boss bump their heads against a Japanese wale ship, the hammerhead thinks he?s a dolphin and starts giving dolphin therapy to his traumatised boss who – after witnesing the whale slaughter – doesn’t want to kill big fish anymore.
There is a genre confusion here.
The logline describes an animated children’s comedy similar to Finding Nemo and Madagascar this is because you anthropomorphised the animal characters. However, your explanations hint at it being a more violent affair for adults.
Regardless the story you based this on, best to structure a story that works better for an audience as appose to sticking to “what really happened”. In this case I would make this a playful animated comedy for kids all the needed bare story components are there.
As such the logline needs to reflect better what the hammerhead wants and what makes him want it in other words; the inciting incident and goal.
In the second draft of the logline (which you preferred) you specified that he thinks he is a dolphin, what made him suddenly think he is one? Did he bump his head? Suffer amnesia? What ever made him think he was a dolphin is the inciting incident.
The other option is he always thought he was a dolphin this however is a more cryptic approach as there is no definitive point in time this came about and would require much backstory to explain. If this is the case then when he learns he isn’t actually a dolphin would be the inciting incident but I fear this will happen too late in the story to work well within act 1.
Either way what is it he wants to achieve? Helping other animals is vague as a goal because it isn’t a specific measurable and visual goal perhaps specify one animal he is emotionally attached to and make helping that friend in a specific way his goal.
Hope this helps.
… Yes, you’re right “on this forum they told me it’s called “burying the lead” but I have no idea how to differently construct the logline and solve this problem. The video is about ‘an unrealistic friendship between a “hammerhead shark with an identity crisis and a bunch of dolphins”. My first logline represents the stated friendship” and my revised logline represents the ?identity crisis?. I like unrealistic friendships between animals too, but it has been done so until know – I prefer my second attempt at a solid logline, although it’s too long and the first one is really short. 🙂
Hello,*I like a lot the idea,
the problem in my opinion is that your logline seems to put the white shark in the role of the main character. This join a little the previous comment.
I like te friendship between tha hammer and the dolphin. And it’s a true story. Good.
Maybe you should go for an inciting event who create a menace to this friendship or to the dolphin.
For exemple:
“when his shrink -a white shark- learns about the friendship between his depressed patient -an hammerhead shark- and a gentle dolphin, the hammerhead shark must defie the rules of his fish society to find his true nature”.
Or maybe the strange couple of friends leave the society to find a mythic sea where their frienship is accepted.
Anyway, I think you have to focus about you main character, make him active, and find a valid inciting incident.
Then sell to pixar 🙂
Dig it, the friendship between the hammershark and the dolphin has a true potential.
Thanks, good point!! From now it?s an ‘X rated animated hammerhead tale!’ I hope A “bloody rampage” should do the trick as as the A plot action and adventure – set in motion through the hammerheads identity crisis.
I’m assuming this is a kids animated story, in which case, do these characters go on some kind of adventure? The story line hints toward adult themed drama, but the characters hint toward children’s movie. Maybe this sounds to me like the B or emotional subplot, whereas the A plot is the action and adventure.
I was surfing for an ideal photo to accompany the logline and found this:
http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/hammerhead-shark-has-dolphin-identity-crisis …
So maybe I must change the logline into:
“Based on true events — When a depressed hammerhead shark befriends a therapeutic dolphin, his incompetent shrink ? a white shark ? wants to violently stop the healing process. ”
And I’m not going to change it into:
“Based on true events — When a hammerhead shark with an identity crisis thinks he’s a dolphin and starts giving dolphin therapy to depressed sea animals, his incapable shrink – a white shark – goes on a frantic rampage to destroy all competition.”
or:
“Based on true events — When a hammerhead shark with an identity crisis thinks he’s a dolphin and starts giving dolphin therapy to depressed sea animals against the advise of his white shark shrink – bloody hell breaks loose.”
..or am I?… and did I just bury the lead… twice?
I think for the sake of brevity it would be best to say just that the dolphin is the hammerhead’s shrink, and leave out the detail about them being friends. Wouldn’t there be ethical problems with the dolphin being too friendly with its patient? (Although, you did mention that it’s incompetent…)
Why does the ‘wite shark’ [do you mean a Great White?] care about the Hammerhead? What’s their relationship?
Sharks with shrinks… Weird idea, I like that.