GALE by Taylor Hamilton!
Congratulations to Taylor. I’ll be reviewing his script on Friday. You can read the script yourself here.
I noticed frustration in the comments from some of you about the concepts that were picked. I understand where you’re coming from. But something you have to keep in mind is that everyone submitting here is, basically, an amateur screenwriter. And when you have strictly amateurs submitting, you’re not going to get a lot of world-beating loglines. That’s just the facts.
I wish it wasn’t. But there’s clearly a process writers need to go through in order to understand what a good idea looks like. Part of that process is simply sending out all those early script ideas, not getting requests, and realizing that the bar is higher than you thought it was.
Another part of it is that we all have a personal attachment to our ideas that clouds our ability to see them objectively. That confuses us when other loglines, which we feel are inferior, get chosen above ours.
A third component is coming up with an actual story to go along with your idea. You have to come up with the central conflict. You have to come up with a strong way into your idea. This is what fleshes your idea out into a full-fledged story.
Once you get better at these things, you start to come up with better ideas. It’s not surprising to me that the script that finished with the second highest number of votes comes from a writer who’s had the script optioned by a legit company. That “pro” perspective was a big reason he was able to come up with the idea in the first place.
The truth is, with all of the entries I received, Gale and Weekend Warriors were the only ones that had the trifecta. They could be classified as “high concept,” they were actually good ideas, and the construction of the logline was professional. Every single other entry had problems in one, two, or all three of these areas.
Let’s take a popular entry from our very own Mister Laurie. A few of you were surprised his script, Call of Judy, didn’t make the top 5. Full disclosure, his script did make the top 10. So it still did really well. It made the top 2%. It just didn’t make the top 1%.
For me, Call of Judy’s biggest strength was its title. However, the further I went into the logline, away from that title, the less interested I became. And that’s not good. It needs to be the opposite. The title should get you excited. And then the logline should get you even more excited.
“When a shy, chubby console kid wins first play of a wild, new VR-games machine but gets lost in its digital limbo, his Xbox-phobic single Mom stumbles to the rescue by completing four videogames designed just for him.”
Let’s take a look at this. First of all, it’s too long. Why does “too long” matter? It denotes a writer who overwrites. That’s been my experience when I’ve opened up these scripts. Not a script-killer. But a red flag. From there, I don’t like the term “console kid.” It’s a weird way of saying a kid who plays video games. I don’t like the term, “digital limbo” either. It’s too vague. You don’t want vagueness in loglines.
But the absolute killer was the last part. “…by completing four videogames designed just for him.” It’s not an interesting enough exploration of the concept, for one. What’s interesting about the mom having to complete video games for her son? It would be more interesting if she had to complete four video games created *by* her son. But even that doesn’t feel like enough. And why “four” video games? Feels like too much. Jumanji didn’t have four video games. They were just sent into a video game and had to get out. It was simple.
That’s what I feared when I read this logline. I feared an overwritten script that’s not going to be simple. And that’s why I didn’t pick it.
I would go with something more like this:
“When a shy kid gets stuck in a new virtual reality game, the only person who can save him is his mother, who’s never played a video game in her life.”
It’s not perfect but notice how much cleaner it is. Notice how you immediately understand the movie. Whereas in the original logline, you’re sort of squinting and reading it twice, trying to make sure you understand all the parts. You eventually figure it out, but not without straining. And that can never be the case with loglines. The reader should never ever strain to understand them. Even a little bit. If they do, your logline is toast. People don’t care enough to figure out a problem that you created. They expect you to figure out all the problems yourself, fix them, so that when the product is presented to them, all they have to do is enjoy it.
I want to improve this issue. Cause it’s obviously a problem for a lot of writers. So I’ve decided that in 2023, we’re going to add a new Scriptshadow feature. On the third weekend of every month, I am going to post 5 loglines from submitted screenplays. Not the full scripts. Just the loglines. You guys will then vote on your favorite over the weekend, just like we do with Amateur Showdown. And then, at the end of the following week, I’ll review the winner.
This will give us once a month to really dive into loglines – what hits, what doesn’t, why something works, why it doesn’t. And you’ll also be able to see the resulting scripts from those loglines, which will additionally teach you about concepts and loglines. Because, almost invariably, the problems you see in a logline are present in the script as well.
This will be an ONGOING submission process. You can submit your script any time of the year you want. And your script will then be in the running for the logline showdown that month. Even scripts that didn’t make the cut for this past showdown could pop up in the January Logline Showdown. So, definitely something to look forward to!
Also, before I go, one quick movie suggestion for everyone. Watch Stutz on Netflix. If you’re anything like me, you had no interest in this doc that Jonah Hill made about his therapist. But someone recommended it to me and it turns out that this therapist is amazing. What I particularly liked about him was that he has keen insight into the battle artists go through and he’s come up with some amazing concepts to combat those internal struggles all artists deal with.
One of his concepts I loved was something called the “string of pearls.” And it essentially addresses the artist’s need to do everything all at once. Write the script (for writers), make the movie (for directors), produce the movie (for producers) – and how we, as artists, get so lost in achieving the big final product that we become overwhelmed and end up doing nothing instead.
“String of pearls” recommends that all you need to do is add the next pearl. Just focus on adding the next pearl. Not the 50 pearls after that one. Just focus on the next one. That’s all you can do. And, eventually, you’ll have a necklace.
He also talks about something called Part X, which is that part of yourself that tells you you can’t do it. It was illuminating when he pointed out that every single person has this. And it never goes away. But there are ways to manage the Part X so it doesn’t sabotage you.
On top of that, you get this secondary storyline of Jonah Hill’s struggles when he was at the height of his fame and battled depression (mainly having to do with his weight) and how this guy basically saved his life. If you’re in a rut right now, this is a great watch. It will inspire you. It will teach you. It’s sort of the perfect motivator to get you in the right artistic head space going into 2023.
See you guys tomorrow!
