A first ever! Scriptshadow reviews… a logline???
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
Here was the entry:
Title: PARASAIL
Genre: Thriller
Writer: Arthur
Logline: After the speedboat operator pulling their parasail apparently collapses and dies beneath them, a honeymooning couple find themselves speeding hundreds of miles out to sea, suspended 400 feet in the air, in a passage of water known as ’Shark Alley’. (FALL meets THE SHALLOWS).
Let me ask you a question. How does one make a logline review 1500 words long?
Not sure that’s possible.
So, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll first review the logline. Then I’ll extrapolate on a direction for the script itself, so we can see what this logline could be.
A few of you pointed out that Parasail was just “Open Water” but on a parasail. Well, that’s EXACTLY what you should be trying to do with a logline. You want to find successful movies and then you want to unleash a new spin on them. If you can make the spin just familiar enough and just new enough, you’ve got yourself a winner. And that’s what Parasail was. Which is why it won!
You see, the end game here is MAKING MOVIES. Screenwriters forget that sometimes. They get lost in weird, quirky, or small ideas that can be fun to read but don’t feel like movies at all. So, when you build your concept on top of something that’s already been proven in the marketplace, you have a way better chance at selling it.
Now, is this the most original idea? Of course not.
But you don’t have to be super-original to write a great logline. You just need a good movie idea – and by that I mean, ‘a movie you truly believe people would pay to see.’ Parasail gave us that. I can imagine people paying to see this movie.
A couple of things stood out for me here. If two things were not in the logline, I probably wouldn’t have picked it. To illustrate what the logline would’ve looked like without those things, here ya go: After the speedboat operator pulling their parasail collapses and dies, a honeymooning couple find themselves speeding out to sea, suspended 400 feet in the air.
The two things that are missing are “hundreds of miles out to sea” and “Shark Alley.” One of the things that sucks me into a story is IMPOSSIBLE ODDS. So, when you say these two are stuck HUNDREDS of miles from land instead of DOZENS of miles from land, the first thing I think is, “They’re dead. There’s no way to survive that.” That’s exactly what you want the reader to think. That the odds are IMPOSSIBLE. That’s what draws us in – to see how our heroes will overcome the impossible.
Then you have “Shark Alley,” which hints at what’s going to happen later in the script and how it won’t be pretty. Sooner or later, they’re going to have to go down. And they’re in a strip of water that’s all sharks. You also gain a lot of story value from that plot point BEFORE they get in the water. Because it’s going to be so suspenseful reading this knowing that, even if they can find a way down, they’re still screwed.
Do I have any concerns about the script?
Of course.
Anything contained is going to have challenges regarding plot. Is there enough plot to flesh out an entire 90 minute story? I’m struggling to answer that question with a ‘yes’ here.
But let’s break it down. See if we can create a preliminary outline that lasts 90 minutes.
You probably want to spend 10-12 pages setting up the parasail situation. This is where you would meet the characters. Figure out what’s going on with them in life. You would introduce the speedboat operator. Foreshadow by describing him as looking a little sick. He explains the rules. And then up they go.
This next part would be the most challenging part of the script because, not many people know this, but parasailing is more ‘casual’ than ‘thrilling.’ I’ve done it before. Once you’re up there, it’s very slow and peaceful. So, how are you going to make that entertaining for the audience?
You could go with the typical “problems in marriage” gambit to create conflict up there. But something tells me, with a concept this simple, that would be boring. If you have a simple concept, you have to make up for it with the characters somehow. So, if you were going to introduce conflict, it shouldn’t be the obvious kind.
Since we’ve probably got 10-15 minutes up here of talking, we need something for them to talk about!
Then, you can cut to the operator slumped over, dead. From there, you should be okay for this script if you use some version of the Sequence Method. You’d have 6-7 sequences, all around 10 pages long, where the characters are attempting to achieve a goal in each. That goal will be what drives the sequence and keeps it entertaining.
So, the first sequence goal might be, figure out how to get down. Their driver is dead and they’re moving further and further away from land. They need to get down somehow. But how? Figuring that out will be fun to watch. And, when you have two people pursuing a goal, always have them feel differently about the solution. That creates even more conflict.
The midpoint would be something along the lines of: they’ve constructed a plan to both get down to the water AND get on the boat. It requires cutting some wires but not others – doing it quickly – so they fall down to the water, but are still pulled on the remaining rope by the boat so they can pull themselves up to it, get on it, and turn around.
This would be your big set-piece and, obviously, a lot would go wrong during the plan. One of their ropes snaps and they get left behind. The other has to decide whether to go with them or continue to try and get to the boat. They try to get to the boat but, at the last second, something catastrophic happens (maybe his rope gets caught on the rotor and chopped off) and there goes the boat.
He then has to swim back and find his wife. That could be a sequence. As long as you have a goal with real stakes attached to it, you can build an entire 10 page sequence out of that. Finding his wife is a big goal.
He finally gets to her. By this time, they’ve seen the sharks. They know they’re in trouble. So they’ve got to come up with another plan. Maybe, when they were up in the parasail, they saw some distant tiny island ahead. I’m talking like a 10 feet by 20 feet patch of land. So maybe their goal is to get to that.
It’s getting darker. More dangerous. The sharks are getting closer. But they keep pushing along, trying to swim to this island, even though they can’t really see it from water level.
At some point, they would hear a boat motor. They would realize that it was their boat, coming back around. They know the operator is still dead. It’s just that the boat did one giant circle and is now randomly coming back near where they are. They then come up with a plan to try and get in its path and grab onto it. To do so means they have to travel outside the path to the island and therefore further away from safety.
But they do it anyway, and that can be your second set piece. Build the suspense for this boat coming. And they have to figure out a way to grab onto it and get up in it. As they’re getting into position, that’s when the sharks start nipping at their toes and we know that, if this doesn’t work, they’re dead meat.
Yeah, I think that’s a movie there.
What about you?
Does anyone have any improvements for the plot?
