When during a famine a loving Eskimo grandmother is abandoned by her migrating family, she reflects on her past life and faces death, which is inevitable. Or isn’t it?
auntmaryLogliner
When during a famine a loving Eskimo grandmother is abandoned by her migrating family, she reflects on her past life and faces death, which is inevitable. Or isn’t it?
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Two other points comes to my mind why it is better to focus on the struggle to survive rather than the reminiscing in the logline.
1]The struggle for survival constitutes a strong visual story line. ?Without knowing anything else about the story, it immediately evokes specific?images of what it takes to survive in the Arctic.
Reminiscing — not so much. ?Reminiscing about what? ?What’s the visual on that?
2] The struggle for survival through a harsh winter is a strong indicator as to where the story is going. ?It’s obvious, needs no elaboration.
And again, in contrast reminiscing — where is the story going with that?
>>>for never doing enough for people in your environment who die.
Okay, but even when we do enough — people are going to die anyway, all of us eventually. What matters, then, is the quality of our living and of our dying.
Your protagonist is a grandmother. ?Which means she has successfully nurtured the survival of 2 generations of her family in a harsh, unforgiving environment. ? No small feat. ?I suggest that in the end, the story ought to pay homage to her accomplishment.
I reposted your version, I hope that’s OK.
How about:
When an Eskimo grandmother is abandoned by her migrating family during a famine, she struggles to survive through a bitter winter until?the ?spring ?thaw.
(20 words)
The reminiscing can be part of the story, of course, but it’s extraneous for the purpose of a logline. ?The purpose of a logline is to pitch the hook of the plot. ?And in this case, the hook is the struggle of an old woman to survive after being abandoned — not whatever reminiscing she does in between efforts to stay alive.
And now that you’ve clarified your concept, I think it has the makings of a compelling film.
(And I don’t know what your thematic intention is, but the story would make a great vehicle to explore an important agenda that most films studiously avoid– coming to terms with one’s mortality. Studiously avoid as most films are based on scripts written by young people who don’t want to think about that, ?wouldn’t know how to think about it if they tried.
IMHO.)
fwiw
The essence of drama is conflict, debate, struggle for a purpose, for a goal. ?The story in this logline begins after all that is?past: to wit, the conflict, debate and struggle by the grandmother to not be abandoned by her clan. ?All that remains is for an audience to watch her resign herself to her demise and reminisce (presumably through flashbacks).
What’s the dramatic purpose of bypassing all the drama that led up to her being abandoned? ?What’s the drama — conflict, debate, and struggle for a goal — to be found in her reminisces?
On a minor technical note, a logline ?should imply a dramatic question, but it should never state one explicitly. ?So sentences like “Or isn’t it?” should not be used.
“When during a famine a loving Eskimo grandmother is abandoned by her migrating family, she reflects on her past life and faces death, which is inevitable. Or isn?t it?”
Movies and television are a visual medium. Meaning the viewers want to see something on screen. So how does “she reflects on her past life and faces death” translate to a visual action on screen?
The logline also lacks an objective goal, something she wants and works toward during the story.
Review the Formula tab if you haven’t already for information on a standard logline.
I hope this helps.