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Cursed by an Indian medicine man, a badass rocker must overcome the curse, to find the love of his life.
What is the curse?? What incited the medicine man to curse him?? The logline needs to be more specific on these details.? What is so? "badass" about the rocker -- what is the character flaw that earned him the curse?? And what his his m.o., his game plan, for overcoming the curse?And for that matterRead more
What is the curse?? What incited the medicine man to curse him?? The logline needs to be more specific on these details.? What is so? “badass” about the rocker — what is the character flaw that earned him the curse?? And what his his m.o., his game plan, for overcoming the curse?
And for that matter, why must there be a deus ex machina? plot gimmick in the form of someone who curses him?? What isn’t his character flaw sufficient ground in itself? for the cause of his dramatic problem?
See lessA clever teenager hacks a military computer to play a nuclear war game only to trigger the computer into preparing to “play” a real nuclear war.
Nir Shelter:I need to clarify? my demented thinking in regards to "the steak" versus "the sizzle".? (Actually sparring with you over this film has clarified my thinking? on an aspect of loglining that has simmered on the back burner of my brain? for some time. So thanks.)I think we're on the same paRead more
Nir Shelter:
I need to clarify? my demented thinking in regards to “the steak” versus “the sizzle”.? (Actually sparring with you over this film has clarified my thinking? on an aspect of loglining that has simmered on the back burner of my brain? for some time. So thanks.)
I think we’re on the same page on the primary purpose of a logline. However, in my case I also read from an extra page. ?I employ two loglines for my stories.
1] A?”steak” version to organize and clarify my thinking — the development phase. It’s a straight forward road map laying out the basic plot elements.
2] A?”sizzle” version that I use pitch the plot to others — the promotional phase.. This version puts an emphasis on the hook of the finished product.
My impression is that most loglines posted here are about story ideas in the development stage.? So you are absolutely correct to focus on what is needed to produce a “steak” logline with the essential plot elements as outlined by Karel under “The Formula”.
But I believe when it comes time to promote a finished product, a writer ought to consider whether there is a need for a “sizzle” version. If a writer can compose one logline well suited to the purposes of both phases (development and promotion) — great! But I have not found that to be the case with my own scripts.
Loglines are a tool.? And sometimes the tool may need adjusting, depending on the purpose, the task at hand.
fwiw
See lessA clever teenager hacks a military computer to play a nuclear war game only to trigger the computer into preparing to “play” a real nuclear war.
Nir Shelter:For the record, my responses in this? thread? are based on a re-view of the movie.? Twice. (It's? in my DVD collection.)>>but that?s universally recognised as a symptom of youth? and as such, it?s not so much a flaw as an essential part of being a teenager.So is recklessness, impruRead more
Nir Shelter:
For the record, my responses in this? thread? are based on a re-view of the movie.? Twice. (It’s? in my DVD collection.)
>>but that?s universally recognised as a symptom of youth? and as such, it?s not so much a flaw as an essential part of being a teenager.
So is recklessness, imprudent risk taking — which David is? certainly guilty of.? The fact it’s a salient attribute of the teenage psyche does not disqualify it as a character flaw.? ?A flaw is a flaw? because of its negative?consequences .
[Actually, I think that most of the principals in the film — David, Falken, McKittrick in particular — suffer from hubris, in the classical Greek sense? of excessive behavior, an imbalance of values.? David is too? impatient to wait and too clever at hacking – – and has too little respect for boundaries. McKittrick suffers from too much faith in computers.? Falken? suffers from too little faith in humans to avoid nuclear catastrophe.)
David is McKittrick’s unwitting nemesis, the poetic punishment of McKittrick for putting too much faith in computers.? If McKittrick hadn’t persuade the military to take humans out of the loop, the problem that David unwittingly creates by being too clever would have been manageable; humans would have provided the breaker fuses in the circuit to avoid a nuclear catastrophe.]
Anyway, I see no prospect at arriving at a consensus about David’s character flaw.? Let us agree that we disagree.
The meta issue for me is this: the only flaw that qualifies to be in a logline is one that the protagonist must overcome or else he will fail to achieve the objective goal.? He will fail to solve the dramatic problem.?
Too often,? it seems to me, writers insert a character flaw into a logline? because they have read that the character should have one — but overcoming the flaw in the logline is not directly related to the solution of the dramatic problem.? ?If the outcome of the plot doesn’t pivot on overcoming the flaw in the logline,? the flaw? doesn’t belong in the logline.
I believe that in “War Games” the outcome of the plot does not pivot on David overcoming his character flaw — whatever it may be.? ?(If it does, I would like for someone to cite me the scene, dialogue and action beat that indicates otherwise.)
The outcome unambiguously does pivot on Falken overcoming his.
(Oh, and I still believe that the most important element in a logline is the hook.? It’s the sizzle — not the steak — that gets scripts read.)
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