The box office is so dead right now that the biggest story in Hollywood is Sydney Sweeney doing Hot Ones and the 500 memes that have already been born out of her episode. Of course, you’re not going to get any argument from me. The more Sydney Sweeney on the internet, the better the internet becomes. That’s indisputable math. I checked with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I am happy to see that The Beekeeper is still buzzing along, though. The underrated flick with the honey-sweet script dipped just 17% from last week to reclaim first place. That’s good news for screenwriter Kurt Wimmer, who may have laid claim to the stash that every screenwriter dreams of – a franchise.
But since there’s nothing else to talk about on the box office end, I thought, why not jump right into “Why Your Logline Didn’t Make the Cut?” This Thursday is reserved for a “Start Your Screenplay” post. Friday we’ve got a review of this weekend’s Showdown winner. Today is about teaching writers the value of a strong concept and logline.
Title: Safe Space
Genre: Thriller
Logline: From her bird’s eye point of view, an alcoholic crane operator on probation races against time to piece the clues together to prove a murder happened in an apartment before she becomes the killer’s next victim.
Analysis: I actually thought this logline had potential. It’s one of the more unique contained thrillers I’ve seen. But this is a great example of how the message of a logline can be lost due to the absence of a few words. I *think* this all takes place in the crane. But the logline doesn’t make that clear. “From her bird’s eye view,” is just vague enough to make us wonder. When it comes to loglines, don’t get cute. You need to actually say: THEY’RE IN THE CRANE THE WHOLE TIME. Cause otherwise it’s too easy to misinterpret it. I’d also want to know why they’re in the crane the whole movie and why that’s relevant. These things are not clear enough in the logline.
Title: Bunker Mentality
Genre: Zombie comedy
Logline: A group of high-ranking government officials struggle to manage the emergency response – and their own survival – after they accidentally lock themselves inside a secret military bunker at the outset of a zombie apocalypse.
Analysis: This one has a similar issue. It’s unclear what we’re actually going to experience in the movie. We get locked in a bunker at the outset of a zombie apocalypse. Considering that being outside WITH THE ZOMBIES is a much worse scenario, my assumption is that this is a good thing! A movie idea is supposed to pose a problem. Not a solution. I did e-mail the writer, pointing this out, and he said that there are going to be zombies in the bunker that they’re stuck in. Well, that needs to be in the logline then! Also, I’d think that military bunkers could be opened from the inside. So I don’t know how you lock yourself in. That last part is a minor question but it’s the kind of thing that goes through a potential reader’s head when they’re deciding whether to request a script or not. You don’t want that. You don’t want there to be any questions. I hate to use these breakdowns to pimp my logline service but seriously, I could help you get rid of all of these problems. carsonreeves1@gmail.com
Title: The Love, The Bend & The Break
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After an aspiring cyclist’s thoughtful birthday gift sparks his wife’s affair, his curiosities lead him to confront her lover, as he unlocks a fury that even he would never have imagined.
Analysis: I’m beating a dead horse here but, again, we’ve got a logline that’s not giving us enough information. When some of the readers of the site complain that the loglines posted aren’t good enough, you have to understand that more than half of the entries are like these listed above where they don’t give you enough information to even make sense. That’s not to say the script isn’t good. But the logline needs to reflect all of that in a way where we can understand the movie you’re pitching. A thoughtful birthday gift sparks a wife’s affair. What does that mean? Why would a gift do that? It’s such a specific cause and effect that we need to know what the gift is in order for it to make sense to us. From there, the rest of the logline is platitudes and you guys know how much I hate platitudes (“unlocks a fury,” “he would never imagine”). Platitudes are phrases that sound important but ultimately mean nothing because they don’t provide the reader with enough information to understand what’s happening. They are particularly harmful to your logline on the back end of it. You’re supposed to be leaving us with a big exciting climax to your logline that makes us want to read the script! Instead, we get platitudes, which creates the opposite effect.
Title: the secret recipe.
Genre: black comedy
Logline: A frustrated 32 year old man kidnaps the chef from his favorite burger restaurant after repeated failed attempts to get the recipe. He finds out real quick that the chef may not be who he seems to be.
Analysis: For starters, no capitalization on the title or genre. You’re toast right there. Nobody in Hollywood is even going to read your logline after they see that. Show appreciation and care for the language you’re using to tell your story. It’s not only professional but it shows that you care about attention to detail. The first part of this logline creates some sense of a movie. But the logline is destroyed by its second sentence. He finds out the chef’s not who he seems to be. What does that mean? Is he secretly a woman? Is he a vampire? Is he a used car salesman? Is he an alien? Is he a vegetarian determined to destroy the meat industry from the inside? Every one of those options tells a different story. So if you don’t give us that information, we don’t know the story. This is a constant theme with people sending me loglines. They play it too coy. They hide information that they should be giving the reader. One of the best pieces of information I can give everyone writing loglines is PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO. NOT LESS.
Title: Cutie Pie
Genre: Defiled Rom-Com
Logline: When a disturbed female chef falls for a bent cop who’s getting married tomorrow, she cooks up a diabolical plan to win his heart and stop the wedding.
Analysis: I’m going to say this as plainly as I can. THE DIABOLICAL PLAN IS THE MOVIE! Therefore, IT NEEDS TO BE IN THE LOGLINE. One of these days I should livestream myself reading these loglines because all I do, 99% of the time, is either throw up my hands in exasperation or my head falls into my hands in frustration. Cause these problems are fixable yet writers keep making the same mistakes over and over. Why keep the most critical part of your story a secret? It doesn’t make sense to me yet SO MANY WRITERS think it’s the right thing to do.
Title: PHANTASMAGORIA SUCCESSION
Genre: Horror
Logline: After becoming trapped in a logic-defying mansion, a newlywed fights to stop a centuries old supernatural vendetta that will ensure her new family’s global empire and enslave her for eternity.
Analysis: With this one, the issue is more specific. It’s not clear, upon the initial reading, what the “strange attractor” is. A “strange attractor” is the unique thing about your movie that isn’t in any other movie. It’s what sets your movie idea apart and will make people want to read it. I read the logline again and saw, “logic-defying mansion” and decided that that must be the strange attractor. Except here’s the problem: Nobody knows what a logic-defying mansion is. Whatever it is, is the hook of the movie. So it needs to be explained in the logline or else your logline sounds like every other movie where people go to a big house and crazy stuff happens.
Title: Do You Fear What I Fear
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Logline: There will be blood… Elf blood! When a masked killer out for revenge goes on a rampage at the workshop, only Santa’s pissed off, recently-fired daughter Karen can save Christmas.
Analysis: The tagline here is fun. But I need to make something clear to screenwriters everywhere. I’ve read a million and one versions of this logline. For whatever reason, half the screenwriters out there have a Christmas horror script. It *seems* clever but it’s a surprisingly common idea. Also, I just don’t think it works. I get the irony (evil on Christmas). But, at least for me, Christmas is a good time. The Christmas scripts I like celebrate Christmas. — By the way, I’m not saying other people won’t like this. Everybody’s different. But you probably don’t want to send *me* one of these ideas unless it’s honestly the most clever version of this sub-genre ever written.
Title: “LAST BREATH”
Genre: Horror
Logline: When a group of college students discover how to get possessed by inhaling the last breath of people who died, they become hooked on the new thrill, until they go too far and unleash terrifying supernatural forces.
Analysis: I know a few of you liked this one, which is why I wanted to include it here – so you know why I passed. What tripped me up was the logistics of it. I couldn’t understand how they did what they did. Did they just look for people who were dying, hang out nearby, wait until it looked really bad for them, then go kiss them at the last second and hope, during the kiss, it was their last breath? How did they time it? Unless they’re killing these people to create the last breath. In which case that needs to be in the logline. Cause now we’re watching a bunch of serial killers. It just seemed a bit too wonky to work. That’s why I didn’t include it.
Title: Not Alone
Genre: Horror (Found Footage)
Logline: On a cutthroat wilderness survival show, a contestant vanishes. The shocking recovery of her bodycam footage unveils a harrowing encounter with a hermetic clan of inbreds that turns her quest for victory into a desperate fight for survival.
Analysis: I played with the idea of including this one but here’s why I didn’t. If you’re going to revive a dead genre (found footage), you need to bring it back in a way that either reinvents the genre or covers a subject matter that’s never been in that genre before. This feels too familiar. That’s one of the frustrating things about writing scripts. You may have a PRETTY GOOD idea. But oftentimes, “pretty good” is what causes a reader to NOT request a script. “Not Alone” looks like it could be pretty good. But hermit inbreds? I’ve seen that before.
I may do more of these another day. But this gives you an idea of the types of loglines I’m pitched. For the most part, they’re not bad. But they aren’t exciting enough to pull the trigger and feature them. What do you guys think? Did I make a mistake not including any of these?
