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After returning to the same hotel they met 30 years ago, a married couple struggles to attend the same teenager events from their first summer together in order to restore their love.
Who is the target demographic for this story? ?Who will want to pay to see this movie??(Go ahead and take offense that I should be so indiscreet and crude as to raise the profane issues of money and audience appeal. ?But those are the 1st questions any movie producer worth his Beverly Hills mansionRead more
Who is the target demographic for this story? ?Who will want to pay to see this movie??
(Go ahead and take offense that I should be so indiscreet and crude as to raise the profane issues of money and audience appeal. ?But those are the 1st questions any movie producer worth his Beverly Hills mansion are going to ask about this logline. )
?Answer: not likely teens and young adults — why would they care about characters as old as their parents?
So that leaves the 40+ demographic as the most likely audience.
Maybe that’s what young screenwriters imagine how the 40+ crowd think and act, ?that they believe the way to regenerate in middle age ?is to regress and recapitulate the “glory days” of their youth.
Well, maybe some of them do. ? But when I look at the box-office for movies that work that schtick, I am dubious.
fwiw
See lessDesperate to save his famous family farm, a proud cowboy tries to win $50,000 at the state rodeo, only to find out that his biggest rival is the college-indebted woman who stole his heart. (My idea with this logline is that the cowboy has a problem to lose against a woman in the first place. But he actually loves her. This tension drives the characters and the story forward.)
Stole his heart or broke his heart? What is the status of their relationship at the time both sign up for the rodeo?
Stole his heart or broke his heart?
What is the status of their relationship at the time both sign up for the rodeo?
See lessWhen she falls for an old flame at a student reunion abroad, an engaged CEO must decide whether to break off the engagement for the affair and move overseas without job and friends.
>>>and move overseas without job and friends.1] She's a CEO and she can't find another job? ?Or start her own venture? ?That doesn't seem to be a credible obstacle.2] And in the age of email, Skype, Instagram and Snapchat ?she doesn't have to utterly forsake contact with her friends. ?So thRead more
>>>and move overseas without job and friends.
1] She’s a CEO and she can’t find another job? ?Or start her own venture? ?That doesn’t seem to be a credible obstacle.
2] And in the age of email, Skype, Instagram and Snapchat ?she doesn’t have to utterly forsake contact with her friends. ?So that doesn’t seem like a credible obstacle either.
3] What about the poor schmuck she’s going to stand up? Isn’t he a greater complication than either the issue of job or friends?
4] The logline commits the common error of construing a “gotta decide” narrative as a plot.
It isn’t.
A logline should describe a plot. ?And a plot is about the consequences of a decision the protagonist?makes?–?not about the process of making the decision, or whether to make a decision.
Yes, a dramatic dilemma should arise as a result of a decision made — but that dilemma becomes a major issue way down the road, late in the 2nd or 3rd Acts. ?
And loglines are not about what happens later in the story. ?Loglines are primarily about the 1st Act: ?an inciting incident that motivates the protagonist to commit to an objective goal that entails struggle, conflict and opposition.
What this logline needs to tell us is what she does about her situation. ?Not whether she should decide — but what she decides to do (for better or worse) to solve her problem.
So, what is her decision? ?What becomes her objective goal — not her dramatic dilemma — but her objective goal??
And what is the biggest obstacle to her realizing that goal?
fwiw
See less