Most useful logline info ever!

May 1, 2010 – Hefty credit for this content goes to Phil Rockwell of Santa Paula, CA, who posted the “Six Formats to a Logline” to Scripped.com.

For those who don’t know, a “logline” is a one-line description of a creative property, in this case a script.  Often called a TV Guide blurb, it’s the most concise way to present a concept.  It’s also supposed to “hook” the reader into wanting to see, or read, the thing it describes.  It isn’t your entire storyline, but, it should set up the “who” and the “why” – who is the movie/book/comic about, and why you’d want to see more of it.

Rockwell’s post proves helpful because it gives you solid examples of several styles of logline.  With these examples to choose from, you should find one that works well for your project.  If none of these work, you may not have as firm grasp of your project’s focus as you really need.

FORMAT 01– revolves around two words: ‘must’ and ‘before.’  What ‘must’ the person with the most to lose do ‘before’ what dire thing will happen.

For example:

Raiders of the Lost Ark is an action/adventure about Indiana Jones, a procurer of lost artifacts, who must travel to Egypt and find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis unearth it and use it to take over the world.

Turin Clone Conspiracy is a drama-adventure about Dr. Mary Young, a newly-hired geneticist, who must stop a conspiracy between a powerful Vatican Cardinal and her company’s Director of Clone Research before the Vatican Cardinal can oust the Pope and take over the Roman Church.

FORMAT 02 – is a fill-in-the-blank way to find the project’s focus.
A movie
is about one person
trying hard to accomplish a definite goal
against difficult odds
to stave off disastrous consequences.

(a movie)
Turin Clone Conspiracy
(is about one person)
is about geneticist Dr. Mary Young’s
(trying hard to accomplish a definite goal)
struggle to stop a conspiracy to clone DNA from the Shroud of Turin
(against difficult odds)
bankrolled by a powerful Vatican Cardinal through her new employer
(to stave off disastrous consequences)
in a plot to replace the Pope with the clone.

Format 2 is, incidently, a great tool to poke holes in your idea BEFORE you start writing!  As this format does tend to create a huge run-on sentence, be choosy with your details.

FORMAT 03  This one will also create a longer-than-one-line description if you include a lot of detail.  It does, however, create a pretty good “elevator pitch.”  The elevator pitch is slightly longer than a logline, meant to be delivered in the fifteen to thirty seconds you might have someone’s attention between floors! 

1. Describe the main character
2. What’s this Character’s Plan
3. What Crisis does the Character face
4. What Risk does this character face

For example, LOGLINE FOR RAIN MAN:

1. A self-centered hotshot returns home for his father’s funeral and learns the family inheritance goes to an autistic brother he never knew he had.
2. The hotshot kidnaps this older brother and drives him cross-country hoping to gain his confidence and get control of the family money.
3. The journey reveals an unusual dimension to the brother’s autism
4. that sparks their relationship and unlocks a dramatic childhood secret that changes everything.

LOGLINE FOR SOME LIKE IT HOT:

1. Two male musicians accidentally witness the St. Valentines’ Day massacre;
2. to elude the mobsters who pursue them, they dress in drag and join an all-girl band headed for Miami.
3. One of them falls for a sexy singer and poses as a Miami playboy so he can woo her; his pal has to dodge the amorous advances of the nearsighted Miami playboy he impersonates. Love conquers all –
4. till the mobsters show up at the same Miami resort for a convention.

FORMAT 04

One logline model goes like this:
Hero – flaw – opponent – life changing event – ally – battle – goal

Let’s apply this to Rocky and see what we get:

A boxer (hero)
with a losers mentality (flaw)
is offered a chance by the world champion (opponent)
to fight for the title (life changing event),
but with the help of his lover (ally)
must learn to see himself as a winner (battle)
before he can step into the ring (goal).

FORMAT 05

As a starting point, try this:
(title)
is a (genre)
about (protagonist — one guy, no proper names)
who must (goal)
or else (disaster that will happen if he doesn’t succeed).

This format is also a useful shorthand for noting ideas on the fly – those occassions when the ideas are there, but you’re short on time, or paper, to make extensive notes.  It catches the line of a story until you can flesh it out later.

Incidently, for those scriptwriters who haven’t found it yet, Scripped.com is a web-based software tool for creating scripts in proper format.  It’s free.  There’s a Pro version with some very nice additions.  In addition to the script formating tool, the site also offers discussion forums and monthly writing contests.  A very convenient feature of this site is that you can access your script from anywhere, any time.  Staying with friends who don’t happen to have Final Draft on their computers?  Have an unexpected hour at an internet cafe?  Have a library handy?  You can work from anywhere! 

Psst.  You could even work on your script from your day job — on your lunch hour or break, of course!