When a village wizard is kidnapped by his power hungry brother, his accident-prone niece must learn to trust her abilities and save her uncle, before his energy is used to release a malevolent power.

Gabe,

It's important to remember that it's the details of your story that will sell it, not the tropes. The imagery your concept evokes needs to be original yet in line with the genre requirements - that's what creates a 'hook'.

I suggest you break your story down and see what about it is original with in its genre and then how best to describe it visually.

What does "...power hungry..." mean? Or what does it look like??
"...trust her abilities..." what abilities? What can she do?
What does "...malevolent power..." look like? What can it do?

>>>I'm not sure how I can signify the entity without actually describing it,

Well, can you refer to it?in terms of the threat it poses to the protagonist? ?Exactly what can this malevolent power do?

My takeaway is this: film is a visual medium. ?Which means that every element of a logline should evoke a distinct image in a logline reader's mind. ?(Better yet: images that induce an emotional response.) It may not be the exact image you have in your mind but it should be similar, in the ball park.

"Malevolent power" evokes no particular image in my mind. ? I don't know what the visual is for that. My mind draws a blank. ?(It does, however, induce an emotional response: ?perplexity, frustration at not being able to imagine what that power might be. Which, needless to say, is not a desired emotional response.)

If I took the time to brainstorm "malevolent power", I can come up with a list of possible images that would fill in the blank. ?But ?I shouldn't have to take the time to do that. ?And people in showbiz don't have the time to brainstorm the missing imagery. ? Day and night, their minds are bombarded with pitches and story ideas. ?You have 10-15 seconds to sell your concept in a way that evokes images. ?If no images are evoked for the key logline elements, the logline has failed, the story concept is DOA. ? ?Showbiz people will move on to the next logline, the next pitch, the next text message, the next phone call.

A logline should be so written as to make a reader see the plot of the story in their mind's eye.

fwiw

>>>I'm not sure how I can signify the entity without actually describing it,

Well, can you refer to it?in terms of the threat it poses to the protagonist? ?Exactly what can this malevolent power do?

My takeaway is this: film is a visual medium. ?Which means that every element of a logline should evoke a distinct image in a logline reader's mind. ?(Better yet: images that induce an emotional response.) It may not be the exact image you have in your mind but it should be similar, in the ball park.

"Malevolent power" evokes no particular image in my mind. ? I don't know what the visual is for that. My mind draws a blank. ?(It does, however, induce an emotional response: ?perplexity, frustration at not being able to imagine what that power might be. Which, needless to say, is not a desired emotional response.)

If I took the time to brainstorm "malevolent power", I can come up with a list of possible images that would fill in the blank. ?But ?I shouldn't have to take the time to do that. ?And people in showbiz don't have the time to brainstorm the missing imagery. ? Day and night, their minds are bombarded with pitches and story ideas. ?You have 10-15 seconds to sell your concept in a way that evokes images. ?If no images are evoked for the key logline elements, the logline has failed, the story concept is DOA. ? ?Showbiz people will move on to the next logline, the next pitch, the next text message, the next phone call.

A logline should be so written as to make a reader see the plot of the story in their mind's eye.

fwiw