A surveillance operator struggles to keep her team from falling apart as they pursue the crime syndicate that murdered her brother during an unsanctioned operation.

This is interesting but I think it is a little unclear if the 'unsanctioned operation' is the pursuit that the surveillance operator is leading, or the murder of her brother. Perhaps it is the use of 'during' that is confusing. Having said that, I think the stakes and the story are compelling.

Haven't seen 'The Black Windmill' but like Michael Caine.

Was reading the logline of "The Black Windmill" with Michael Caine shown tonight at 21:00 on ITV4, and thought of your script. Never seen that movie, so can't say more that the logline seems interesting.
Here is the logline.
A British agent's son is kidnapped and held for a ransom of diamonds. The agent finds out that he can't even count on the people he thought were on his side to help him, so he decides to track down the kidnappers himself.

Hi Nicholas Andrew Halls ,

I'm guessing you missed the revised logline cos it's stuck somewhere deep in the comments.

What we had was: When her brother is killed by the target of a surveillance operation, the leader of a mobile surveillance team pursues the killer in a cat-and-mouse game on the streets of north London.

Having said that, I like your idea and I'm editing the original logline posting to highlight the change for any further comments.

The focus of your logline is muddled, because you begin by introducing us to the character of the brother, and then have to clarify that the character of the sister is the protagonist.

A hard-ass surveillance team operator struggles to keep her team from falling apart as they track the double agent who murdered her brother during an unsanctioned operation.

The funny thing with the French "Nouvelle vague" is that most of them were intellectuals in some case cinema critics. They changed the way, movie were made and brought that raw energy into films. However with the exception of Fran?ois Truffaut despite the new raw energy maybe because they were intellectuals most of their films were very boring. They disappeared without leaving a massive trace on cinema history. Their influence being greater than their actual cinematographic achievement.

You're right in that the 70s were great for thrillers. That period had still that fear and paranoia of the Cold War. But it also had the energy that new generation brought: the Beatles, Rolling Stones, ... John Frankenheimer, Don Siegel, William Friedkin, Costa Gavras are under rated. Some of their movies are still brilliant to this days. That is a great accomplishment, when so many look dated and conventional.

Movie such as "The conversation" (poorly rewritten into "Enemy of State"), even the Sci-Fi movies were original and not afraid of being intelligent and on some tough subject but still accessible.

I know ?Haywire? and ?Collateral? and 'Get Carter' quite well and I've seen 'Harry Brown'.

The thing about ?The French Connection? which was made in 1971 is that William Friedkin brought a documentary style realism to the streets of New York that must have been influenced by 60s French new wave films. Scorsese didn't make 'Mean Streets' till 1973 so 'French Connection' was groundbreaking in its day. So, this is the direction I'm headed in.

In TFC, many of the street scenes and the famous New York subway scene and even parts of the unbeatable car-chases-train sequence were shot Guerilla style because of budgetary restrictions. Also, Friedkin never allowed the DP to see the actors? rehearsals of the street scenes so the DP had no choice but to shoot documentary-style coverage. All this is from the director's commentary.

For me, any time I'm researching thrillers, 70s Hollywood is always where I start ? in those days movie directors were like dinosaurs ruling the earth. Not this cinema of the ?accountants? that we've had since the 80s.

Living in London, your movie looks like it has "Get Carter" (the original, the Sly remake is not a patch on the original) and "Harry Brown" feel. Incidentally both with Michael Caine. Like I said in my previous post. A kind of naturalistic look, nitty gritty, urban aspect in both the physical look and the treatment of its subject.
While in 90s and 00s, blockbusters used to go bigger (bigger target: the world ..., bigger villain: world conspiracy, bigger explosion: ...) to the point of ridiculousness (see Transformers, Fast and Furious, bad Boys, Spider-Man, ...), some big directors such as Michael Sodenbergh have bucked the trend and have been going smaller. "Haywire" is a perfect example in understatement. Michael Mann with "Collateral" was also very restrained in both the subject and its treatment.

Thanks, Valentin. Thanks, dpg.

London is the city with the largest number of surveillance cameras in the world and it's not anywhere near as violent as most major American cities simply because over here it's very difficult to legally own a firearm which begs the question why all the surveillance? Over here, we're neck-deep in paranoia.

Guys, have you ever started a script from the standpoint of a limited canvas? It's the first time I've tried it and while I can't yet speak of results I can say that in this project I have only 3 interior locations (about 10% of screen time) and less than 20% of the script is dialogue. I even promised myself no guns ? just fists and knives. I had to bail on that in order to have the climax I needed and do have a couple of shots fired at the end. I'm not saying therefore it's a good script. All I'm saying is it's strange and fascinating and may be worth the effort regardless of results.

As usual, Valentin, has a number of good ideas. But I think killing the brother out right -- I would describe it as a "brutal killing"-- is sufficient. Particularly now that I realize that kbfilmworks has other fish to fry.

I think a Kafkaesque approach has the potential to take the story to a new and very interesting level. Even though the project is small in terms of budget and shooting scope, I can see it working as a metaphor for the larger post-911 Kafkaesque world in which we all now reside. A world in which we have become trapped in an infinite loop of paranoia.

We can never know for certain who or where or when the next next attack will come. We can only be certain that it WILL come. And because we can, we MUST put everyone under electronic surveillance in the name of national security. In a court of law, we are entitled to the presumption of innocence until we are proven guilty. But on the Internet, we are all presumed guilty (vaguely, potentially) until proven otherwise.

Good luck with your concept, kbfilmworks.

Two solutions to deal with your kill or not kill dilemma:
1) the brother is severely injured, maybe in coma or paralysed for life. Because he has been injured, there is still the thirst for revenge but not to the point of kill.
2) the brother is kidnapped. They are on time sensitive mission to either retrieve the bad guy who knows his whereabouts.

From what you describe, it is more like a spy chase thriller where the object of the spy is not known. In the TV s?rie the "The Equalizer" they had episodes where the package, the item, were talked about without ever explaining what they are referring to. Everything was so secret even the name of the boss was just "Control". The shadowy organisation for which the protagonist used to work was never explicitly named. All of those little details added to the mystique of the s?rie. The same way the TV s?rie "The prisoner" became cult for those mysterious and slightly out of kilter vision.

You could also have the covert agents not being aware of what the package is. They know it is valuable for their hierarchy, but they don't know how valuable. That could be a source of conflict between members of the team. I also remember an old French movie in black and white where some member of the resistances transport something very precious but they don't know what it is. They die, sacrificing themselves for it, just hoping that it is worth it. In another movie (German I think) lowly soldiers die to bring a box to their leader on the war front. At the end the content of the box is revealed to be wine for an arrogant commander.

Yeah, I guess. I did borrow a copy of The Trial weeks ago and so that's really perceptive of you. I didn't think it was having any influence because I just read a few of the opening pages - hoping to trigger a different project.

What I'm consciously influenced by are David Mamet's films, in this case 'The Spanish Prisoner' and the re-write he did for 'Ronin'. He avoids dealing with MacGuffins by calling things 'The Process' or 'The Case' and I just go for stuff like that along with the rat-tat-tat dialogue of 'Glengarry'.

So... you're going Kafkaesque?

Hi dpg,

I don't really answer this question in the script. I thought long and hard about the object of the conspiracy that gets the trainee killed and did come up with quite a few options including money laundering, match fixing, vote rigging, etc. But in the end nothing felt right.

The script's focus is strictly on the thrill of the chase, the team leader's inner conflict and the dynamic of the surveillance team. The only thing that's clear is the bad guys are more than equal to detecting and eluding the surveillance team and are undone in the end by a very small lapse in concentration due to over-confidence.

Personally, I like the mystery of never knowing what the bad guy's are up to. They demonstrate serious skills and for me that says it all. I'm sure many writers will say this approach is completely wrong and they may turn out to be right. But for now I'm going with my gut.

Others have asked, hence, so I suggest it needs to be clarified: Is the suspect a terrorist, a drug dealer or...?

Couldn't agree with you more, dpg. Thanks, again.

So here goes:

" When her brother is killed by the target of a surveillance operation, the leader of a mobile surveillance team pursues the killer in a cat-and-mouse game on the streets of north London".

Okay, but I still prefer "pursue: for the logline for the following reason: "tracking" is a means to an end, to the eventual objective goal of apprehension. And it seems to me that "cat and mouse" be an equivalent colloquial description of the m.o. of tracking -- a more interesting way of saying the same thing.

>>the trainee killed is maybe too much motivation

I disagree. It creates more psychological tension because it traps the woman in an emotional double-bind between passion and proper procedure, desire and duty: as his sister, ever fiber in her would be screaming for revenge, to take down the killer NOW. BUT as a law enforcement officer she KNOWS she must wait patiently, play the long game of tracking rather than the short one of immediate apprehension.

Indeed, for me, as one who is more attracted to interesting character conflicts than to clever plots, her psychological conflict is what hooks my attention. [I observed that kind of double-bind when I worked in law enforcement, officers torn (asunder sometimes) between their personal feelings and their professional duty -- endlessly fascinating to watch how it played out. So I strongly suggest you push her predicament to the red line.]

Hi dpg,

Thanks. You've raised a key question for me which I thought I'd already dealt with, which is: why does the surveillance team decide to follow the killer rather than attempt to apprehend him at first sighting? (in the script they track rather than pursue him).

My thinking was that since the killer is obviously engaged in some kind of criminal conspiracy and they have no real evidence to prove that he killed the trainee it would be in the nature of surveillance operators to try and follow him and attempt to locate the entire criminal network rather than snatch him off the street and try and torture him to get to the bottom of why the trainee was killed. (I'm thinking torture is a special skill and they won't have what it takes to break the killer).

I'm now starting to think that having the trainee killed is maybe too much motivation just to launch a surveillance operation. So now I'm exploring the idea that the killer goes after the trainee but doesn't actually get him - which is enough motivation to launch an operation.

Of course, I then lose my emotional storyline - which takes me back to square one (just another day in the life of a writer). Any thoughts on this you wanna share? Obviously you don't know the script but I think that's a plus - since you're not influenced like I am by too many predetermined elements.

Better.

I suggest "pursues" instead of "tracks" as the latter connotes mere observation without intent and effort to apprehend.

Revised logline: When her brother is killed by the target of a surveillance operation, the leader of a mobile surveillance team tracks the extremely elusive killer in a cat-and-mouse game on the streets of north London.

kbfilmworks says: Revised logline:

When a trainee surveillance operator is killed by the target of an unsanctioned operation, his sister, as team leader, struggles to deal with her emotions and manage a team on the brink of self-destruction as they track the killer on the streets of North London.?
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Richie V says:

1: You should begin the logline with the lead character.
2: Her brother is dead, you don't have to say 'struggles to deal with her emotions'.
3: You can also leave out the 'team on the brink of self-destruction' since it is the b-story.
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"When her brother is killed in an unsanctioned operation under her watch, a no-nonsense Mi-5 agent throws out the rules to take down the killer on the streets of North London."
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Hope that helped, good luck with this!

A woman in some branch of law enforcement fights to apprehend her brother's killer. That's her objective goal, what the story seems to be about. The details that she is "struggling with her emotions" and the "team is on the brink of self-destruction" while useful for the plot proper seem extraneous to the logline.

Hi kbfilmwork,

I think that you mistook people wanting to change the script with people wanting to change the logline. Frankly that logline does not work. It succeeds in being both too long and too vague.
To long, as clearly it exceeds the standard number of words in a logline.
To vague, as some of the very important information is missing. For example, it took me making a reference to the FBI for you to mention that the action takes place in a North-London.
I may be repeating myself but you need to address the following points:

1) The fact that the killed brother was a trainee is irrelevant to the logline. It may be important in the story, but in the logline it is just unnecessary. BTW, I am not sure that the term trainee is correct. Trainees train and learn on campus not on the field. Once they qualify, they are just agents, rookie but not trainee anymore. Agency with short or no formal training have probationary period, in which case they are probees. Still not trainees.

2) Surveillance operator does not mean anything. An operator operates a physical object hence drone operator, crane operator. Somebody dealing with the technical aspect of surveillance is called a technician. However surveillance technician sounds more like a underpaid security guard watching CCTV rather than covert agent.

3) who/what is the killer? A drug dealer, an arms dealer, a spy a terrorist? Knowing the kind of man, your protagonist is hunting set the scenes. It also infer the kind of skills set, he may have. A drug dealer may have connections in an North London estate than a sleeping cell terrorist may not.

4) what do you mean that the team is self destructing? Do you mean that internal fights between the leader and some members? Or do you mean that the team is going rogue and refusing to obey orders from its hierarchy?

5) you seems to associate the Mitty gritty aspect of spy/action movies with the script itself. "Ronin" and "French Connection" scripts are not brand new exploration of different genre. They were just shot in a naturalistic look to make you feel like it is reality, when everything is stylised. Clothes, cars, places, lighting, persons all look like working class people. Used leather jackets rather than suits. Neck warmer instead of shirts. Every day cars instead of James Bond's Aston Martin. Dodgy bistros instead of expensive restaurants. None of that transpires in your logline.

6) Contrarily to what you stated, even if you have a Michael Bay's budget, you movie should always be about the characters. The inciting incident is that the bad guy killed her brother, now we feel for her and we want to know how she react to that. If she were to just go about her work without being affected by it, then there would not be any tension.

on a final note, if you want to shoot an action movie guerrilla style in some a North-London estate, then you should hire hire some parcours specialists, or athletic runners. It is the easiest and cheapest way to get high energy on screen without blowing your budget on bad car chases. Cheap car chases tend to look very cheap and nasty.

Hi Tony Edward,

I do like those ideas but I'm happy with the script as it stands for at least two reasons. 1) I've written this as a cat-and-mouse action movie with no room for character work that takes us to new locations that are not part of the action plot; hence the emotional storyline: the loss of a much-loved team mate and the resulting fallout, etc. 2) I've not written this in hope of making a big budget studio-type picture. I've limited myself to what I know is cheaply and readily available for a Guerrilla-style shoot. Think 'El Mariachi' and 'Blair Witch Project'.

Hi kbfilmworks,

I like both Richiev's and dpg's reworkings -- particularly dpg's. To set it in London all you would have to do would be to change 'FBI' to 'MI5' (and without reading your script I have no idea if the target/ killer is a terrorist or not...) -- but what they both have done is hit the core 'hook' of your story, without any of the trappings, that I'm sure could play well in the screenplay, but which don't need to be added if this 'hook' (which I agree with dpg would be the fact that she's a 'by the book' agent that goes rogue...)is put front and centre ...

So, IMO, you don't need 'struggles to deal with her emotions' (6 words), or even 'manage a team on the brink of self destruction' (9 words)... Again, things that go down in your screenplay, but the fact that the hero(ine) is the head of a surveillance team that convinces her crew to go rogue to catch the killer of her brother, well, I think that's drama enough...maybe ensuring to make it clear that the team is with her is enough to imply that they are all gonna be dealing with some serious sh#t from their employer and surely would at some point come close to breaking...I don't know...

Anyway -- best of luck with it, can see the potential. Below is my spin:

The head of MI5's most elite surveillance group convinces her team to go rogue to catch the killer of their youngest member, her brother, who was killed whilst under her command.

The operation is not necessarily illegal. For me, unsanctioned means unauthorized or unapproved. I suppose the issue here is who has power of sanction, etc. It could be a government or could be the private sector. I like 'Ronin' because it focuses on the mechanics of the operation, the characters and the group dynamic - that is until the end which I think kind of ruins it. Personally, I get bored with high-stakes MacGuffins and acronyms. I'm sure many would disagree.

"unsanctioned operation" -- does that mean it was illegal or not officially authorized through the chain of command? Or both?

Thanks guys. Sorry but can't be flexible on basic elements. Script's written and it's set in London.

Revised logline:

"When a trainee surveillance operator is killed by the target of an unsanctioned operation, his sister, as team leader, struggles to deal with her emotions and manage a team on the brink of self-destruction as they track the killer on the streets of North London."

dpg, I agree, I like a by-the-book-agent throwing out the rules:
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"When the botched arrest of a terrorist results in the death of her brother, a by-the-book FBI agent throws out the rules to capture the killer."
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When her team botches the arrest of a terrorist that results in the death of her rookie brother a guilt-ridden FBI agent must throw out the rule book to capture the terrorist.

[Note: Implied in "must throw" is that initially she plays by all the rules only to realize, in despair and frustration, that she can't capture him playing by the book.]

'trainee surveillance operator' seems too long. just 'trainee' maybe?
then maybe use 'his sister, as team leader, struggles to deal with her emotions and manage the elite team as they track the killer on the streets of north London."
overall it gets the message across, just might have too much info.

I have a couple of questions:

1) Do you mean off the book rather than of duty operation? An operation un sanctioned by the hierarchy.

2) what is a surveillance operator? Is it a police officer or FBI or any other Federal agency such as DEA, ATF agent doing surveillance?

3) why is the team on the brink of self destruction?

4) why was the killer under surveillance in the first place? Drug dealer, arms dealer, spy, terrorist?

5) if the operation was just an operation of surveillance why the shoot out? Botched arrest?

When her team botches an unsanctioned arrest of a suspected terrorist that result in the death of her rookie brother, an FBI agent struggles to restrain herself when hunting the killer.

Although I have seen the "French Connection" and understand the reference, I think it's better for loglines not to reference other movies. Save that for the pitch.