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Desperate for independence from his workaholic parents, a smart but lazy teenage boy starts his own business but discovers he must take risks to succeed.
Thanks Nir, valuable comments. I'm really struggling with this one as it is a low stakes dramedy. There are lots of seemingly disjointed elements that I avoid mentioning so as to not confuse. And to top it all off the character lacks a really specific goal until the midpoint. Which I know can spellRead more
Thanks Nir, valuable comments. I’m really struggling with this one as it is a low stakes dramedy. There are lots of seemingly disjointed elements that I avoid mentioning so as to not confuse. And to top it all off the character lacks a really specific goal until the midpoint. Which I know can spell story death. But I believe in the story and really want to crack the best possible logline for it.
I have looked at similar movies and their loglines aren’t compelling either, so it’s going to be a difficult task.
There are many similarities to THE WAY WAY BACK, which is summed up as:
Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
Crossed with RISKY BUSINESS:
A Chicago teenager is looking for fun at home while his parents are away, but the situation quickly gets out of hand.
In both of them the main character has very little in the way of specific goal. Yet the stories work in their own way.
Nir, I’d love to pick you brains on this one. The basic story elements are as follows:
– Teenage kid is smart, but would rather goof around with friends and his sister.
– But he needs a car and a place to do this.
– He asks his parents, who are the opposite of him as they are highly-driven workaholics. They won’t give him anything, but say if he comes up with a business proposal they’ll back him financially.
– He goes into business with his lazy attitude, thinking it will be easy, but finds out it’s not.
– The business spirals out of control and ends up being all sorts of things, including a strip club (but this doesn’t happen until after the midpoint so I am reluctant to include it.)
To complicate things there is another big story element I skipped over – His parents decline is business proposal, but then he catches them cheating, and blackmails them for the money to get the business rolling. Not sure if this element is relevant enough to the main story to include without adding confusion.
Maybe something like:
See lessTo gain independence from his workaholic parents, a teenager turns his Model Train Club into a business, but to make a profit he must be willing to break all sorts of rules. (I still don’t like how vague it is!)
A female terrorist forces the son of the president of the U.S. to help her in finding her sister, Lilith, who was abducted by the U.S. government because of Lilith's Godly telekinetic powers.
I agree with Nir. Even without restructuring, at the very least you can cut out all the repeated and unnecessary words. "A female terrorist forces the son of the president of the U.S. to help her in finding her sister, Lilith, who was abducted by the U.S. government because of Lilith's Godly telekinRead more
I agree with Nir. Even without restructuring, at the very least you can cut out all the repeated and unnecessary words.
“A female terrorist forces the son of the president of the U.S. to help her in finding her sister, Lilith, who was abducted by the U.S. government because of Lilith’s Godly telekinetic powers”
Would become:
“A female terrorist forces the son of the president to help her find her telekinetic sister who has been abducted by the government.”
But it still lacks stakes and an implied ending. Maybe something more like:
“A desperate woman forces the president’s son to help rescue her sister, before the government can use her god-like telekinetic powers to take over the world.”
See less(or whatever their end goal is).
When a deadbeat wakes up trapped in a alternate reality, he is shocked to discover he's there to help a small resistance take down an alternate version of himself who rules with seemingly God like powers.
I like it. But you could even cut a few more words in the middle: When a deadbeat is transported to an alternative reality where his alternate self rules with tyrannical god like powers, he must lead the resistance to safe the people. I like this idea. Just going off this logline I would be interestRead more
I like it. But you could even cut a few more words in the middle:
When a deadbeat is transported to an alternative reality where his alternate self rules with tyrannical god like powers, he must lead the resistance to safe the people.
I like this idea. Just going off this logline I would be interested enough to read the script. So that’s a job well done.
My only suggestion would be to include one more specific and interesting detail about the hero. A deadbeat what? Give us more of a clue of what kind of battle this will be. A deadbeat space engineer/computer hacker/cat burgler – something that indicates what skill he will need to use, and therefore what kind of battle it will be.
See less