1. Posted: March 24, 2017In:

    A military bioweapons collector attempts to cover-up an accidental release of a deadly, new strain of flu by destroying the project’s hard drive before his Russian counterpart can prove the CIA’s involvement.

    dpg Singularity

    The reason for the general rule that a logline should spotlight one character is a matter of ego, cash, cathexis and group dynamics.Ego and cash: ? It is often the case that a script only gets the green light and financing to become a movie after a major star "attaches" to the project. ?And major stRead more

    The reason for the general rule that a logline should spotlight one character is a matter of ego, cash, cathexis and group dynamics.

    Ego and cash: ? It is often the case that a script only gets the green light and financing to become a movie after a major star “attaches” to the project. ?And major stars prefer to attach to scripts where they can shine as, well, the star, the actor who gets top billing, the most scenes – and the most money.

    Cathexis: ?a 50-cent word that means “emotional investment”. ?It’s a psychological truism that its easier for a ?viewer to emotionally invest — to empathize with and root for — one character than to spread the same amount of emotional investment among an ensemble. ?Having to spread all that “psychic love” so widely dilutes the emotional experience for a viewer. ?What Joseph Stalin said about his policies and purges that led to the enslavement, torture and death of millions applies to drama: “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.”

    Group dynamics: ?In ensemble situations in real life, there is usually an alpha character, a 1st among equals, who stands out as the one with the charisma to lead the rest. ?Ditto in reel life where one character more than the rest drives the story. ?Whoever drives the story in terms of decisions made.actions taken is the one to feature in the logline.

    Takeaway: ?a deep bench, a colorful ensemble of characters is always a plus for the script. ?But for a logline, ?less is more.

    No doubt, you can think of movies that are exceptions to everything I’ve said. ?But exceptions are ?outliers in the distribution curve; they don’t invalidate the general tendency. And I bet that most of the exceptions you can think of are by writers who were already established insiders, not outsiders trying to break in like we are. To break the rules, we first have to show we can play by them.

    fwiw

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  2. Posted: March 25, 2017In:

    Less than a year after being raped by her owner, a 14-year-old slave girl is a reluctant mother to an infant. When given the opportunity to escape, she’s forced to either bond with the child, or abandon it in the desert.

    dpg Singularity

    >>>abandon it in the desert.What is the general setting? Where does this take place? When?And loglines are not about characters being trapped between the horns of a dilemma, having to make a difficult choice. Loglines are about , the choice made and the action that follows.

    >>>abandon it in the desert.

    What is the general setting? Where does this take place? When?

    And loglines are not about characters being trapped between the horns of a dilemma, having to make a difficult choice. Loglines are about , the choice made and the action that follows.

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  3. Posted: March 6, 2017In:

    ?A cop and his K-9 companion unintentionally hijack a billion dollar drug shipment from a ruthless cartel that will stop at nothing to get it back.

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    dpg Singularity

    Can you strip your concept down to a hook, the "secret sauce" that differentiates your story from all the other cop versus drug lords movies that have already been made? ?As I presume you are all too well aware, there is a surfeit of them. (The last one to impress me was "Sicarrio")Which triggers meRead more

    Can you strip your concept down to a hook, the “secret sauce” that differentiates your story from all the other cop versus drug lords movies that have already been made? ?As I presume you are all too well aware, there is a surfeit of them. (The last one to impress me was “Sicarrio”)

    Which triggers me to ask: have you thought of making the cop a kick-ass female, reverse the rescue role: she has to save her boyfriend?

    (When I reversed roles on a cop story I’ve been working on — don’t worry it’s not about drug lords or drug dealing — made the protagonist a female, the story just exploded with new possibilities. ?Possibilities that worked so much better for a female protagonist. fwiw.)

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