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A fame-obsessed actress with more ambition than talent uses the craft to hide her involvement in her fianc?’s murder.
OrdinaryDreams:Yes, but...Chicago was pre-tested and pre-sold as a successful musical play. ?I would argue that the hook that sold the project as a movie was the music, the spectacle of song and dance set pieces, ?not the plot, the box office receipts as a Broadway musical. (And it's pedigree goingRead more
OrdinaryDreams:
Yes, but…
Chicago was pre-tested and pre-sold as a successful musical play. ?I would argue that the hook that sold the project as a movie was the music, the spectacle of song and dance set pieces, ?not the plot, the box office receipts as a Broadway musical. (And it’s pedigree going back to the legendary Bob Fosse.)
Stories adapted from another medium, a book or play or musical or comics or graphic novel, are sold by a different set of criteria. ?That other medium pre-sells the concept. ?If it’s a best-selling book, a smash play, Hollywood ?is hooked. ?Even if it never makes it to the silver screen, most likely there will usually be a sale of the movie rights.
Ditto if the project comes from someone already established in the business. As was the case with Vince Gilligan, the author of “Breaking Bad”. ?I seriously doubt he needed a stinkin’ logline to get his pilot script read. ?He already had the credentials, an established track record, and industry contacts to get his script read without a logline.
But wannabes with no track record, no contacts are selling their scripts as cold calls. And that is what the conventional logline ?is designed for, cold calls.
See lessBorn in the 70’s to a young and offbeat anti-war activist, a roubled woman recounts her spiraling descent into adulthood while baking an apple pie.
What does "descent into adulthood" mean? ? And what is her dramatic purpose -- her objective goal -- in reminiscing about it while baking an apple pie? ?What has baking an apple pie got to do with being an anti-war activist or reminiscing? ?What is the cause-and-effect relationship among those storyRead more
What does “descent into adulthood” mean? ? And what is her dramatic purpose — her objective goal — in reminiscing about it while baking an apple pie? ?What has baking an apple pie got to do with being an anti-war activist or reminiscing? ?What is the cause-and-effect relationship among those story elements? ?IOW: ?what’s the plot?
The baking may work as a framing device for the narrative — but it doesn’t work for the purpose of a logline. ?A logline is a concise statement about a plot. ?And a plot is a cause-and-effect relationship between ?an inciting incident and a course of action towards an objective goal.?
Your logline needs to answer the questions:
See lessWhat is the inciting incident?
?What is the resulting action toward what objective goal?
And implicitly or explicitly what are the stakes? ?Why does it matter? ?What is to be gained or lost by her baking the pie, or reminiscing, or protesting against wars or anything else?
Based on real events, in 1984, when a black, gay political activist is arrested, facing painful rejection from within his own party, the death penalty and HIV; he lobbies the ANC to include a clause to the new Constitution, making it the first and only African nation to ban discrimination based on same-sex sexual orientation.
I agree with Nir Shelter that a logline for this story should focus on one primary objective goal. ?I also agree --somewhat -- with Dkpough1 on inciting incidents.After several years of methodical, analytical study of loglines, including compiling a database of over 700 loglines for existing moviesRead more
I agree with Nir Shelter that a logline for this story should focus on one primary objective goal. ?I also agree –somewhat — with Dkpough1 on inciting incidents.
After several years of methodical, analytical study of loglines, including compiling a database of over 700 loglines for existing movies and doing over 3100 reviews here, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most important element, the sin qua non, ?is a great?hook.
And that, yes, most of the time, a logline should have an inciting incident. ?But not always. ?There can be rare exceptions. ?But there can be no exceptions about having a strong hook. ?A logline without a strong hook is DOA.
In the script, Gstar will have to include an inciting incident. ?Of course, ?But in the logline, I think the hook is strong enough to sell the story without extending the length of the logline to include the inciting incident.
However, if Gstar feels he must include an inciting incident, the entire length of the logline should not exceed 40 words. ?As I’ve mentioned before, in my database of 700+ ?loglines, there isn’t one that exceeds 40 words. ?So that’s my red line number: 40 words max. ?Which can be difficult to do — a frustrating constraint — but ?we live in an era of short attention spans. ?Movie makers want?concise loglines and IMHO it’s unrealistic and self-defeating to expect them to slog through more than 40 words.
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