A couple of weeks ago, I saw a Christopher Nolan interview where he said that Ben Safdie and Nathan Fielder’s show, “The Curse” had no comp in television history. It was *that* unique. Combine this with an overall frustration in how bad television has been lately and I was seriously considering giving The Curse a chance. Why was I resistant to do so in the first place? Let’s check the tape, shall we? That is correct. I gave The Curse the lowest rating a Scriptshadow-reviewed pilot can get. A “what the hell did I just read?”

So, what happened between then and now? How did The Curse become the first TV season I finished in over a year? Let’s find out.

If you have no idea what The Curse is, let me pitch the entire package to you. Benny Safdie is one half of the best new directing team since the Coen Brothers entered the filmmaking scene. Bennie and his brother, Josh, made two of my favorite indie movies of the past decade, Good Time and Uncut Gems (Adam Sandler).

The directing duo were primed to take over Hollywood when Benny Safdie started pursuing an acting career. He was in the Obi-Wan show as well as Nolan’s Oppenheimer. His brother, Josh, started to get annoyed. And, just like that, the two canceled their next film together.

Benny befriended comedian Nathan Fielder, who is the king of awkwardness. His comedy is all about things being awkward and uncomfortable to watch. They came up with this idea when a homeless person said to them, “I curse you.” That sparked them to wonder, “What if that curse were real?”

They then did what everybody in Hollywood does when they have a new project – they go to the A-List. Everybody asks the A-List if they’ll do their movie (or show). And 999 times out of 1000, the A-Lister says no. But, to their shock, Emma Stone said yes. And all of sudden, they had a buzzy project on their hands.

The concept of the show is kind of complex so hang with me. A husband (Asher) and wife (Whitney) are making one of those HGTV shows. Whitney, whose parents are millionaire slum lords, is trying to erase the mark her parents have left on the world by doing the opposite of them.

Using their money, she buys out a lot of real estate land in a poor remote California community in order to build “passive energy” houses. Passive energy means that the house uses no energy whatsoever. It has zero imprint on the planet.

Whitney is determined to use the local Native American community to bless these homes and decorate them, particularly with local Native American art. All Whitney cares about is being good to the community and making up for the horrors that white people have put others through over the centuries.

Don’t worry. This show is not woke. It’s actually making fun of woke people. Whitney is a parody. In reality, she doesn’t care about these people at all. She cares about the way it makes her feel to “right” these “wrongs.” It’s purely selfish, although she’s not self-aware enough to realize this.

Asher, meanwhile is the beta “nice-guy” husband who, deep down, understands that his wife has gone way too far with all of this. But he’s so infatuated with her and holds her up on such a high pedestal, that he just goes along with all of it. He thinks, as long as I do what she says, she’ll stay with me.

Benny Safdie (Dougie) plays their showrunner. Dougie is destroyed by a fatal drunk driving accident he was involved in years ago. This has made him unable to fully cope with the world. He’s also kinda weird and acts odd at times. But, in the end, he just wants this job to keep going so he can get paid.

The “curse” part happens in the first episode. Asher gives a little homeless girl money for the show (so it can be captured on camera). He then takes it back after the camera stops filming, and that’s when the little girl looks him deep in the eyes and says, “I curse you.” This makes its way into the story because when things start falling apart for Whitney and Asher, he wonders if it’s because they’ve been cursed.

So, why did I change my tune on my “What The Hell Did I Just Read” rating?

Just like Christopher Nolan said, this is unlike anything you’ve watched before. And for someone like me, who’s watched everything, that’s exciting. Cause boy do Safdie and Fielder push the limits of subverting expectations.

I’ve never seen a show or a movie where the writers will purposefully set something up to deliberately not pay it off. I see bad writers do this all the time. But the reason they don’t pay their setups off is because they’re either too lazy or forgot about it.

Safdie and Fielder do it for a different reason: To ensure that the viewer has NO IDEA what’s coming next. They want you twisted and turned and upside-down so that they are always in control of how the story arrives in your brain.

Even casual TV watchers will be 30 minutes ahead of an average episode of television these days. They’ve seen too much TV. So they know where you’re going.

But that never happens here.

One of these setups is Dougie’s drug-driving backstory. In order to make sure he doesn’t drive drunk again, Dougie always carries a digital breathalyzer in his glove compartment. We see him, time and time again, take the breathalyzer out while he’s driving, blow on it, and then check the results – which usually come back close, but never over, the limit.

Safdie and Fielder will then spend an inordinate amount of time in the car, in silence, with Dougie driving at night, and we just KNOW that a car crash is coming. Cause it has to come, right? We get so many setup scenes to let us know it’s coming.

But it never does.

That singular subplot is the poster child of how this show works. We, the viewer, are being yanked around and played with. We can’t figure out where the story is going so we stop trying.

Another thing this show does a bang-up job of is scene-writing. When I tell you guys how important scene-writing is, the point I’m always trying to make is that a scene should be able to entertain you on its own. It shouldn’t just be a vessel to set up later plot elements.

Every scene here is entertaining on its own. And not in the way you’d expect. Safdie and Fielder do this unique thing where they try to create the most awkward situation and then make you sit in it.

Not for a few seconds. But a few minutes. They really sit you down and don’t let you escape the second-hand embarrassment, the awkwardness, the frustration you have for the characters on screen. Almost every scene is built like this and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it before. It’s so unique that it’s almost like its own language.

For example, there are multiple scenes where Whitney, who’s just an awkward person in general, is desperately trying to befriend Cara, a local young Native American artist. Whitney wants Cara to be the face of the art in her renovation of this community.

But Cara sees Whitney for who she is. She’s a fake. She’s pretending to care. But all she really cares about is feeling good about herself. So Cara is having a hard time signing the rights away to her art so it can be on the show. She keeps putting off signing that waiver. The problem is, 70% of the show has already been shot and Cara’s art is everywhere. So Whitney really needs her to sign that waiver.

We then get this scene where Whitney comes over to Cara’s to pin her down and finally get the signature. Whitney is avoiding being pushy because she wants to be friends with Cara (as well as not ‘exploit’ her as a white person). Cara is trying to be cordial as she continually changes the subject whenever the request to sign the waiver is made.

Safdie and Fielder WILL NOT LET YOU OUT of this totally uncomfortable dance between these two. They sit in the awkwardness way longer than you’re comfortable with and, by the end, you’re crawling out of your skin.

There are 4-5 of those scenes in EVERY episode. These guys are brilliant at it.

Now, you may have heard some rumblings about the final episode of The Curse and its “WTF” climax. I’m not going to spoil it for anyone. But, keeping in line with what I said earlier – it is impossible to predict. I tried to predict it. But I was nowhere close. That, alone, is reason to celebrate this show. When have you ever watched anything where you could take 50 guesses at what will happen in the final episode and not come close with any of them? I don’t think that’s ever happened before.

With that said, this is still not in the same league as White Lotus. The writing does get loosey-goosey at times due to the fact that the narrative and writing-style are so odd. But the good stuff still outweighs the weak stuff by a wide margin.

I don’t know if I would recommend this to a casual viewer – like a family member. But I recommend it to everybody who reads this site because it teaches writers how to stay ahead of the reader. It teaches you how to make offbeat choices. It teaches you to always question whether you’re being too obvious the moment a major plot beat comes up. And it teaches you how to write characters into very uncomfortable situations. It does this last part better than any movie or show in history.

Be sure to let me know what you think once you’ve watched it. :)

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the watch
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

Week 6 of the “2 scripts in 2024” Challenge

If you haven’t been present on the site lately, here’s the deal.  I’m guiding you through the process of writing an entire feature screenplay. Then, in June, we’re going to have a Mega Screenplay Showdown. The best 10 loglines, then the first ten pages of the top 5 of those loglines, will be in play as they compete for the top prize. So far, I’ve helped you choose a concept, sculpt your outline, and build your characters. Last week, we wrote our first ten pages. Here are the links if you’re late to the party…

Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
Week 4 – Outlining
Week 5 – The First 10 Pages

One of the things I baked into this challenge was making this ACHIEVABLE. I mean, all you need is one hour a day. Who doesn’t have that? So, if everything is going according to plan, you should have ten pages written by now. Two pages (aka one scene) for five days a week, with two extra days in the week to catch up, make adjustments, or rewrite.

Now that we’re headed into our second ten pages of the script, that means we’re hitting one of the most important beats of the entire script. I’m talking about the inciting incident.

The inciting incident is built out of this idea that, before the crazy stuff starts happening in your story, we have to get to know your character. We have to see them in their “normal” habitat. The reason we want to see them in their normal habitat is so we have something to contrast them against when they’re thrown on this big journey.

In that sense, the inciting incident (which typically occurs between pages 12-15) is a divider. It divides the past life (pages 1-14) from the future life (pages 16-110). My favorite way to think of this “divider” is the event that causes the “problem.” The problem is the thing that your hero must now deal with for the rest of the movie. The problem also creates the goal because the act of solving any problem is a goal. If I wrote a story about a guy whose car broke down on the way to a date with the girl of his dreams, the car breaking down is the event, which creates the problem (I no longer have a car to get to the date anymore), which creates the goal: do whatever needs to be done to get to the date.

One of my favorite examples of an inciting incident is War of the Worlds. In that movie, we see Tom Cruise’s everyday life as a construction worker and a family man and then BOOM, the event is sprung on us. And boy is it a good one. Alien tripods come out of the ground and start killing everyone! This creates a problem: Tom’s family (half of it) is in danger.  Which creates the goal: Reunite with family.

Like all classic story beats, inciting incidents work best when you’re using the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is when a character is content (but unknowingly unhappy) living a mundane life. And then: BAM! Something happens to shake them out of that existence, sending them off on a life-changing journey.

But inciting incidents can be tricky when they don’t fall under the classic Hero’s Journey template. That’s when I hear writers complain and say, “These forced plot beats are restrictive and ruin the art of creation! They are evil, Carson! Eviilllll!” Watch, you’ll see some commenters make that argument down below.

Look, no one’s saying you have to use an inciting incident. But it’s such an organic part of every story, it makes your story better 99% of the time. Think about it. If you told a friend about your day, you’ll include an inciting incident without even thinking about it. “I was at work, minding my own business. Then Sara comes up to me and says I’m responsible for our biggest client canceling their order.” Sara coming up and saying you screwed up the order IS THE INCITING INCIDENT of your story.

But yes, it’s true that some scripts don’t allow for organic inciting incidents. Take yesterday’s script for example: Neobiota. In that story, Melanie’s “normal life” occurred before the script even began. The inciting incident, technically, is the plane crash that placed her in this position. That created the problem that our hero had to solve.

But Mikael actually did something clever here. He made the “life in her normal habitat” section of the script her life on the beach after the crash. We spend 10 pages of her getting acclimated to her new surroundings before we introduce a new problem, aka the inciting incident: one of the dead passengers stands up and starts moving.

Another movie that has a non-traditional use of the inciting incident is Star Wars. In that script, we don’t even MEET the main character until 15 pages in. That’s when we start Luke Skywalker’s “normal life.” The inciting incident doesn’t come for another 15 minutes when Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed. This motivates Luke to head off on this journey to save the galaxy.

What’s interesting about Star Wars is that it has an earlier inciting incident as well. But, in order to understand it, you must understand that the first fifteen minutes of the movie has a different protagonist: Darth Vader. Yes, Darth Vader is the “protagonist” of the first segment of the movie. The reason he’s the “protagonist” is because he’s the one with the goal: Recapture the stolen Death Star plans.

That’s why he barges into the ship. He needs those plans! The inciting incident for Darth Vader’s story, then, is R2-D2 escaping in a pod and heading down to nearby planet, Tattooine. This is the “problem” that gives Darth Vader his goal: Retrieve that droid. Some people might even call this the “actual” inciting incident of the movie as it happens near the traditional “inciting incident” point (12-15 pages in). But the real inciting incident is what motivates your *real* protagonist, which is why Luke’s aunt and uncle being murdered is the more accurate representation.

A lot of people get the inciting incident mixed up with the break into the second act (pages 25-30) and it’s understandable why. Once your inciting incident happens, your hero should technically be thrust on their journey, which is where the second act begins.  But what’s supposed to happen in the traditional Hero’s Journey is that your hero feels safe in his world. He likes his world. Then this inciting incident comes around, creating a problem he must solve. But guess what? He doesn’t want to solve it. Solving it requires going off into this new strange scary world that he doesn’t want to go into. So what does he do? HE RESISTS. That’s what the space between the inciting incident and the beginning of the second act is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be the section where the character resists.

The reason this resistance matters is because it conveys something important to the audience: that your hero has a weakness. Their refusal to change conveys that they have growing to do. If the problem occurred and the hero was just like, “Yeah, let’s go! Woohoo!” Then your hero is already internally strong, which isn’t as interesting. The resistance shows that growth is required.  And growth is the whole point of a journey.

Another reason why the resistance after the inciting incident is important is because it’s similar to real life. In real life, nobody wants to change. We’re all resistant to it. So when we see our hero resist, we relate to that. This is a key reason why stories work so well. When our hero finally does take on the journey and ultimately change, it’s a reminder that we can change too! So it invigorates us, gives us hope, sends us back out into life with a pep in our step.

Now, as some of you might’ve caught onto, certain scenarios don’t lend themselves to this. Take War of the Worlds. The attack of the Tripods is so intense and in your face that you don’t have the opportunity to sit around and resist. “Hmmm, I don’t know if I want to go on this journey. It’s too difficult.” No, the journey has come to you! You have to go on it!

But you can still create resistance in how your hero reacts. A hero only truly goes on a journey when they take action. So you can create that resistance by having Tom Cruise run away a lot, hide, resist. Then, when he realizes he has to save his freaking family, he takes action and you’re thrust into your second act.

Star Wars had its own issue with the resistance period. It had used its first fifteen minutes on a bunch of characters other than its hero. So when Luke experiences his inciting incident of his aunt and uncle dying, we’re already 30 minutes into the movie. We don’t have time to dilly-dally so Luke takes a beat then says, “I’m ready. I want to go on this journey.” And off they go.

Now, Lucas and his writing crew did a sly job here because they incorporated an earlier scene after Luke and Obi-Wan escape the sand people where Obi-Wan tells him, “You need to help me out.” And Luke resists then. He says, “Nope.” So that resistance was retroactively built into him in a way where he could say “I’m ready” the second his aunt and uncle are murdered. That’s important to note. Each inciting incident has its own potential issues. It’s up to you to figure out how to solve them.

Some of you may want to say that the real inciting incident in Star Wars is Leia’s message to Obi-Wan Kenobi but it isn’t. That message is not meant for our hero. It’s meant for Obi-Wan. Let me make this clear. The official inciting incident is the thing that sends YOUR HERO (not any of the supporting characters) out on their journey.

By the way, this is why important plot beats such as the inciting incident get complicated in big ensemble pieces (Star Wars movies, Avengers, Fast and Furious). In those movies, each character has their own journey, which forces you to motivate all of them. In some cases, this requires you to create a bunch of mini-inciting incidents, like Star Wars does. A lot of writers will solve this problem by treating the group as one character (Avengers). Give us a Thanos trying to destroy the world and everyone’s problem and subsequent goal is the same.

Also, with Avengers, or serial killer movies with detectives, or Indiana Jones, you often don’t have that resistance period because the problem is their job. Indiana Jones doesn’t resist because his freaking job is to find ancient antiquities. The Avengers don’t resist because they’re superheroes and saving the world is their job. Same with detectives and cops. When they get a new case, they don’t usually resist (although in some situations they will and I actually find those stories to be better because of that) because it’s their job.

The main thing to remember here for these next ten pages is that you want to introduce a big problem in your hero’s life and then, if it fits your story, show them resisting it afterward. A character journey is almost always more powerful if they, at first, don’t want to go on it. This shows the audience that they’re not yet ready and that change is needed. That way, later on, in your third act, when they finally are ready to change, it will be more powerful. This is why they say that if you have a problem in your third act, it’s usually because there’s a problem in your first act. Not properly showing that resistance could very well be that problem.

Friday = write 1 scene
Saturday = write 1 scene
Sunday = write 1 scene (you should be near your inciting incident here)
Monday = write 1 scene (should be an inciting incident day)
Tuesday = write 1 scene (the beginning of your hero’s resistance)
Wednesday = go back and correct any issues with your five scenes
Thursday = go back and correct any issues with your five scenes

Week 5 of the “2 scripts in 2024” Challenge

We’ve chosen our concept. We’ve prepared our characters. We’ve written our outline.

Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
Week 4 – Outlining

It is now time to write our first screenplay of 2024. I’m going to guide you through the whole process, making crafting a screenplay as easy as mixing a smoothie. You know, I once tried to go on an all-smoothie diet?  Big mistake.  Biiiiiiiigggg mistake.  Let’s just say I’ll never drink another smoothie again.

Hey!  Focus, people.  Stop getting distracted.

I’ve thought long and hard about how to approach this and I decided I wanted to go with the most realistic approach possible. So I’m not going to put you on some crazy-fast pace where you get left behind the second you run into trouble. I’m building “running into trouble” into this process because I realize that screenwriting is trouble-shooting.

It would be nice if you never had to look back – if every choice you made was perfect. But a screenplay is a living breathing thing and, just like we make mistakes in our lives, a screenplay “makes mistakes.” You might have screwed up the main character and have to replace him with a different character. You may discover that there’s a better way into your story. You may go down a road in your script that leads to nowhere and have to back up. This type of stuff happens all the time.

Which is why I’m going to set a leisurely pace here. You only have to write one scene a day. I’m also giving you TWO FULL DAYS during every week to go back and correct any issues with the other five scenes you wrote.

For those who don’t know, an average scene in a script is around 2 pages, which means that most scripts have between 45-50 scenes. At 5 scenes a week, we’re going to finish our first draft in 10 weeks.

So, to be clear

Friday = write 1 scene
Saturday = write 1 scene
Sunday = write 1 scene
Monday = write 1 scene
Tuesday = write 1 scene
Wednesday = go back and correct any issues with your five scenes
Thursday = go back and correct any issues with your five scenes

Simple, right?

Does this mean you can only write one scene a day? Of course not. You can write two, three, four, five, ten scenes. However many you want. The more scenes you write, the more time you’re giving yourself to correct problems that will pop up. But, at the very least, no matter what, you have to write one scene. Even if you don’t have any ideas for a scene, you still have to write one.

“But Carson, I don’t want to write a bunch of bad scenes and put them in my script.” Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. You are going to have a second Final Draft document open whenever you’re writing. This will be your “scrapbook” document.

Scrapbook documents are ideal for perfectionists, worrywarts, and writers who will do anything to not write. If you can’t make yourself write a scene into your script, you still have to write a scene in your scrapbook. The advantage of this is that there’s no pressure to write this scene since it isn’t actually in your script. Therefore, if it’s beyond terrible, you just erase it. But if you like it, you can always copy and paste it into the main document.

But just to reiterate, you must write a scene five days a week no matter what.

Again, if you struggle, you have those extra two days a week to catch up. So if you write a scrapbook scene on Monday that you hate and discard. If you write a scrapbook scene on Tuesday that you hate and discard. Use those final two days of the week to catch up.

“What if I want to write 30 pages right away?”

Back in 7th grade, I’ll never forget our P.E. teacher taking us outside and telling us that he was going to time us all for the mile. We had to run around this big blacktop in front of the school six times in order to equal a mile. We all, eagerly, asked what the world record was and he said 4 minutes (or something) so we of course were all determined to break that record.

We lined up, he yelled out, “On your mark, get set, go!” And you’ve never seen 40 kids sprint as fast as we did…. for about half a lap. By lap two, we were all jogging. By lap three, we were walking. By lap four, some of the kids had started throwing up. And by lap 5, most of us were writhing on the ground in pain a la Michael Scott during his Rabies Run.

Of course you’re going to write a ton at first. Those first 20-30 pages are the easiest to get through. But then the length of your story will hit you and that’s when the doubts start.

I’m a big believer in “momentum writing.” When you feel that momentum, ride it as long as you can. Just know that it’s not going to last the whole screenplay. You will come to a screeching halt at some point. Once that happens, come back to these posts I’ll put up every week and use them to go back to this simpler output of one scene a day for five days a week.

That way, if you get a 40 page head start, you’ll just finish before everyone else, which will give you more time to REWRITE. Any extra time you have during this process, I want you to use it to rewrite. We’ll get into the specifics of rewriting in another post. But the basics are:

1) Assess what the major problems in your script are.
2) Write down solutions.
3) Execute solutions.

Okay, now that we have our daily goals set, let’s talk about these first ten pages you’re going to write. You’re free to write the script however you want, of course. But the advice I would give you is don’t fall into “Setup Mode.” “Setup Mode” is when, all you do, is set things up. Here’s my main character. Here’s why he’s a good guy. Here’s his flaw, which is why he hasn’t fulfilled his promise in life. Here are a few more characters you need to know. Here are some setups I need to establish which I will pay off later.

If you write this way, you are not writing a story. You are writing a checklist of things that the reader needs to know.

Instead, use the power of storytelling to ENTERTAIN THE READER as they’re learning all of this information. The act of entertainment should always be priority number one when writing a screenplay. Because, guess what? If the reader isn’t entertained, it doesn’t matter how well you set everything up. We won’t care. Why should we care if we’re not pulled into your story in an entertaining manner?

Think of scenes like mini-stories. Each one should have something that grabs us in some way, or pulls us in, or asks an interesting question that needs to be answered. With Barbie, it was, “Why am I having thoughts of death?” It’s like: BOOM! We have to keep reading cause that question doesn’t sound right in the Barbie World. Or go watch The Killer. Each scene is built to entertain you. Even that first scene, which some people had a problem with, creates this question that needs to be answered – when will he assassinate this person across the street? And then we get that great reversal of him missing and now we’re off to the races.

And don’t feel like your scenes need to be 2 pages each. You’ll find that, when you embrace this “each scene is a story in and of itself” approach, your scene-writing will be longer. It’s okay! You might only have 30 scenes in your movie. It will be based on your writing style and the kind of movie you’re writing. If you’re writing The Hangover, then you’ll write a lot of 2-page scenes. If you’re writing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you’ll be writing 6-page scenes.

Okay, I’ve given you enough to get started so, what are you waiting for? Time to begin your screenplay. Good luck!

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?

It’s the first Showdown of the year. And boy is it a weird one!

I think some of you are starting to figure me out. I saw a lot of alien-centric loglines this month. But as you’ll see from this set of loglines, it appears my taste has transcended into an obsession with… animals? Animals just caught my eye this month. It makes about as much sense as the owners of Chick-Fil-A (closed on Sundays) putting one of their restaurants in a football stadium (games on Sundays). But isn’t that Hollywood? You send your script out there and have no idea what the person reading it has going on in that noggin of theirs.

If you’ve never played Logline Showdown before, it’s simple.  Read all the loglines and vote for your favorite in the Comments Section.  Whoever gets the most votes gets a script review next week.  It’s helpful if you explain why you liked the logline and, if you have the time, why you didn’t vote for the others.  Your constructive feedback may help them improve their logline so it’s battle-tested the next time it goes out.  Have fun and let’s find a great script!!

Title: The Rhythm Police
Genre: Buddy Cop Musical
Logline: During the scorching English summer of 1989, a grieving police chief recruits a neurotic young officer to help him stop the illegal rave parties that are destroying a generation, but finds himself having to protect his protégé from falling in love with the music that constantly surrounds them. 

Title: Sleigher
Genre: Thriller
Logline: An aging sheriff investigates the brutal murder of a champion dogsled driver on the eve of the state’s annual dog sled race.

Title: The Glades
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A freak hot air balloon accident strands a young family deep in the treacherous Florida Everglades where they must fight for survival against an enormous bloodthirsty Crocodile.

Title: Death & Dacquoise
Genre: Whodunnit
Logline: A timid young woman is thrust into the role of investigator following a murder on the set of a popular amateur baking show.

Title: The Incredible Frog Boy Is on the Loose Again!
Genre: Dramedy
Logline: An ambitious journalist for a cheap tabloid returns to his hometown where he’s forced to cross previously burned bridges with friends and family while investigating claims of a giant frog creature terrorizing the town.