Pitchpatch
Rollercoaster on fire
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« Reply #9 on: January 06, 2014, 09:05 AM » |
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PART ONE: JUMP THE QUEUE, YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
Wherein I choose the BL2013 loglines that most excite me. These original loglines get the job done with skill, swagger, and style. They stride into the room, kick you back in your seat, and double dare you to say "what" one more goddamn time. These LLs are my bet for first into production.
Let's pause to remind ourselves that my comments are entirely subjective, sometimes heavily biased, and I mean no disrespect to the works examined. These Black List 2013 writers created memorable, satisfying stories. Some of these will become movies. Some will become successful movies. That's the second battle. The first battle is won: these stories found an audience on the page.
Here we go, in no particular order.
SOVEREIGN
Geoff Tock, Greg Weidman
A man goes to space to destroy the ship that, upon going sentient, killed his wife.
COMMENT: Silence. And silence. The studio guys glance at each other. More silence. Exec #1 rises shakily to his feet, then wonders why he stood up. Embarrassed, he sinks back into his chair, his eyes blank, like somebody just hit the FORMAT button in his brain.
Exec #2 realizes he hasn't breathed since you pitched your logline. He gasps explosively, sucks in big, desperate lungfuls of air, as if he just got sacked by a 300-pound quarterback. He is very pale.
Not taking his eyes off you, Exec #1 reaches slowly for the phone. He's watching you the way a non-believer watches the snakes at a spirited Pentecostal sermon. A line from the bible flits through your head: "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions!" His quivering hand plucks the phone from its cradle. "Sir? Sorry to disturb you. We have a Code 3301. Yes, sir, I have the checkbook. Thank you, sir."
The door CLANGS as a deadbolt shoots into place.
Exec #2 has some color back in his cheeks. He smiles nervously. "Congratulations. By the way, we own you now," he says.
Exec #1 returns the phone, folds his hands, and says, "For at least the next two years. Welcome to rewrite hell."
INK AND BONE
Zak Olkewicz
When a female book editor visits the home of a horror writer so he can complete his novel, she finds that all of his creations are holding him hostage.
COMMENT: Sometimes the premise is so blazingly fully formed, so bright and clear and beatific, like here, there's nothing left to do but drop the mic, slash a vertical double line through the 'S' in ALIENS, and slam the door on your way out.
DIABLO RUN
Shea Mirzai, Evan Mirzai
While on a road trip to Mexico, two best friends are forced to enter a thousand-mile death race with no rules.
COMMENT: And you thought it couldn't get more compact than the INK AND BONE logline. Well, shit just got real... compact. Really compa-- forget it. Dare a writer to formulate a logline using ONLY the inciting incident and, if they're good, you'll get something like this. One time I saw this logline sprint into Times Square, drop to its knees skidding across the grey tiles, slide an open briefcase toward the crowd and scream, "ONE MILLION DOLLARS!" I forget what happened next.
LINE OF DUTY
Cory Miller
Macbeth meets The Departed in the modern retelling of Shakespeare's play, focusing on the tragic rise and fall of NYPD officer Sean Stewart, a heroic narcotics detective pushed to the dark side of police corruption by his scheming wife and a well-timed prophecy.
COMMENT: Like Shakespeare is wont to be, this logline is a tad overwrought. And like Shakespeare that's perfectly okay. "Police corruption" sets the scene. "Scheming wife" ratchets the tension. "A well-timed prophecy" seals the deal. But frankly you had me at "detective pushed to the dark side."
CAPSULE
Ian Shorr
A young man's life is turned upside down when he mysteriously begins to receive metallic capsules containing messages from his future self.
COMMENT: What messages? What would you do? This logline is the original Voight-Kampff test.
FULLY WRECKED
Jake Morse, Scott Wolman
An R-rated talking car from the '80s is brought back into service and teamed up with the son of his former partner, a befuddled cop looking to earn his stripes.
COMMENT: Add 20 mil to the box office for the obligatory Hasselhoff cameo. Add 50 million if you get Dan Harmon to do a script polish.
EXTINCTION
Spenser Cohen
A man must do everything he can to save his family from an alien invasion.
COMMENT: Another clever "drop the inciting incident and run" logline -- this one on a grand scale. We know it's not an alien "abduction" movie. Nor an alien "visitation" movie. The word used is "invasion." When aliens invade they don't want a piece of us; they want the whole damn pie. So, this is a big story canvas. Or maybe not. Maybe it's a small, intimate story confined to one tiny dot on the canvas. Maybe it's not a big-budget summer movie. We won't know til we read the script, and that sparse, intriguing logline guarantees it.
CLARITY
Ryan Belenzon, Jeffrey Gelber
What if a world woke up tomorrow to scientific proof of the afterlife?
COMMENT: I think this is the only logline in this year's Black List using the what-if teaser format. It's a doozy.
AMERICAN SNIPER
Jason Dean Hall
Based on Chris Kyle’s autobiography American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper In U.S. Military History.
COMMENT: Who doesn't want to get inside the head of an elite sniper? You're taking lives to save lives: that's the classic wartime conundrum. What pulls us into this story is a more gruesome version of the fascination we hold for elite sportsmen and sportswomen. You probably heard the circumstances of Chris's tragic death. It drapes the logline with an unspoken poignancy -- although maybe the writer chose to end the script on something else, an earlier moment.
Spot quiz: what's the number to beat to claim Chris's title?
160 confirmed, 255 claimed.
THE LINE
Sang Kyu Kim
A corrupt bordercrossing agent must decide what is more important — saving his soul or inflating his bank account — when he discovers a young illegal boy who escaped a cartel hit on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
COMMENT: A setting that seethes with conflict. A clear and understandable character conflict. Hard decisions to be made. A formidable enemy. This is a movie. It will hit screens in a few years, surely.
NICHOLAS
Leo Sardarian
With the Roman Empire on the brink of collapse, a fourth century bishop takes up arms to lead the armies of Constantine the Great into battle against the ruthless emperor, changing the face of Rome and begetting one of the greatest legends in history.
COMMENT: The money men will do much hand wringing over this one. Nonetheless, if the script delivers the promise of the premise then it has a shot at pegging down a summer actioner slot. With the success of SPARTACUS on TV, somebody's gotta be thinking about the next GLADIATOR.
DIG
Adam Barker
After his villainous father-in-law kidnaps his daughters, Sol, a tough-as-nails mountain man, travels across the frigid Appalachian mountains seeking vengeance.
COMMENT: This logline screams "endurance." Sol's headed for a series of grueling challenges. He'll have to prove to us he's tough as nails. It's a given he gets his vengeance. What we dread is what form that takes. In your list of preferred executioners, a mountain man who's more animal than man is, like, Number 7. Definitely not in the top five.
FREE BYRD
Jon Boyer
After being diagnosed with dementia, a retired fifty-something stunt motorcyclist sets out to perform one last jump.
COMMENT: Two powerful ticking clocks: his body and his brain.
I wonder if this shouldn't be a guy in his late 60s or early 70s. That would put him right there in his prime in the 1960s and 1970s, and it would raise the stakes higher. But hey, guy in his 50s will do. Let's not forget he's got dementia. The stakes are there.
It's hard to figure the tone. I can't imagine no comedy woven throughout. Despite the preposterous premise, there's a seriousness to this logline, a nobility. More so, as I said, if the guy is older still. I know guys in their 50s who could still jump a motorcycle if they've tossed back enough rum and viagra.
BEAUTY QUEEN
Annie Neal
An unhappily married woman and her best friend go on a road trip to Las Vegas to compete in the Miss Married America competition.
COMMENT: This logline sells two things: "unhappily married woman" and "Miss Married America competition." Those opposing forces guarantee a lot of laughs.
LAST MINUTE MAIDS
Leo Nichols
Two lovable losers run into trouble after they start a service cleaning up the stuff you don't want your loved ones to find once you die.
COMMENT: This could play out lots of ways. Chalk that up on the board at your next creative writing class and watch the story veer off in wonderful and surprising ways after the first act.
I remain a little bit frowny over the authors not giving us their take on where it goes. But never mind. The premise is a clever one.
PART TWO: WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY. YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US
Wherein I choose the BL2013 loglines that excited me, but didn't quite sell me. Although to my mind these need more cowbell, they're scripts I'd pick up based on the LL alone. It would take a pretty big fumble for any of these to turn out less than awesome.
SHOVEL BUDDIES
Jason Mark Hellerman
Over 24 hours, four teenage friends try to complete the “Shovel List” (a will/bucket list) left for them by their best friend before he died of Leukemia.
COMMENT: It just struck me: would this have a really cool ticking clock if they have to do it BEFORE he dies? Like, the friend has at most 24 hours to live, and the buddies want to complete the list and get back to his bedside with the triumphant news they succeeded. That way, they're truly doing it for him, not for themselves. Anyway, just musing. As long as the list is fascinating and challenging, this could make a great movie.
SUPERBRAT
Eric Slovin, Leo Allen
Temperamental tennis champion John McEnroe is sucked into a dangerous and ludicrous law enforcement sting during Wimbledon in 1980.
COMMENT: This story won't bag a four-quadrant audience, but if done right it will have wide appeal. If the story sells "a temperamental tennis champion gets sucked into a sting during a tennis championship" rather than the McEnroe angle then it could be an ace. I'm in the demographic that remembers McEnroe's antics, so I get how funny this movie could be.
BURN SITE
Doug Simon
After a young teenage girl is murdered, her stepfather falls back on his dark and violent past to find her killer.
COMMENT: One of the leanest loglines here. The story teases "his dark and violent past" like a question mark dripping blood. As with the logline for FROM HERE TO ALBION, the premise promises a dark, confronting, stomach-churning ride.
THE MAYOR OF SHARK CITY
Nick Creature, Michael Sweeney
When a difficult film shoot spirals hopelessly out of control into a living nightmare, an ambitious young director must face his greatest fears to turn a troubled production into the biggest movie of all time. Set on Martha’s Vineyard during the summer of 1974, this is the untold story of the making of Jaws.
COMMENT: They wrote this script for me. Don't tell them, because they have other ideas. There are some outstanding free fan-compiled documentaries on the web about the making of JAWS. If you've seen one or read about the production, you know what a fascinating story it is. Right up there with Coppola and APOCALYPSE NOW.
Compare this logline to the one for THE SHARK IS NOT WORKING and it's clear why this one wins.
A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Alexis C. Jolly
Set in 1950s Manhattan, Fred Rogers journeys from a naive young man working for a NBC to the host of the beloved children's TV show, Mr Rogers' Neighborhood.
COMMENT: Alternate title, THE MAKING OF MR ROGERS. (Don't actually use that.) Naive man becomes beloved children's TV host. There's gotta be dirt in that story somewhere, right? Don't you want to know? If this is a rosy portrait of one man achieving his dreams without paying an awful price, you'll get whiplash when I yank the logline from this list.
THE BOY AND HIS TIGER
Dan Dollar
The true story of Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes.
COMMENT: I admit this logline requires knowledge of the subject, otherwise it will not resonate.
How many creative types have the stones to refuse to merchandise their successful creations? Imagine SOUTH PARK with no merchandising. It would need to thrive on the strength of its TV episodes alone. Would it be the same global phenomena without merchandising? I don't know. We'll never know. But in Bill Watterson we do know what happens when a cartoonist fights for the integrity of his characters and his art.
THE CROWN
Max Hurwitz
In exchange for a lighter prison sentence, a young hacker goes undercover for the FBI in a sting operation to find and steal a super computer virus with the help of a team of unsuspecting hacker.
COMMENT: An almost lazy high-concept story. But hacking is a hot topic, one that won't fade away any time soon. Your grandma won't be buying a ticket to this one, but those from 15 to 50 will give the poster a second glance. This movie will be fast and slick, with SKRILLEX shredding up the soundtrack.
TCHAIKOVSKY'S REQUIEM
Jonathan Stokes
A conductor investigates the great composer's seemingly unnatural death and unlocks the mysteries of the man himself while preparing to debut Tchaikovsky's final symphony.
COMMENT: This movie will be fast and slick, with SKRILLEX shredding up the soundtrack... (needle skip, VVVRRRRRRRRTTT!)
The logline tells us the story is two-pronged: the investigation into the composer's suspicious death, revealing unknown aspects of the Tchaikovsky's life; and preparing the final symphony. With twists and turns along each path, surely this must be enthralling entertainment. It's on the Black List, so that's a given.
SPOTLIGHT
Josh Singer, Tom McCarthy
The true-life account of the Boston Globe's breaking of the Catholic priest scandal in 2003.
COMMENT: Big, contentious subject wrapped in layers of conflict -- the very outer one labeled "GOD." I see no happy ending in store other than grim relief at having the truth come out. This is not a logline that entices a reader. It's a logline heralding a script that must be read.
SUGAR IN MY VEINS
Barbara Stepansky
A 14-year-old female prodigy finds companionship for the first time when she befriends a handsome older man.
COMMENT: I vacillated over this one. There's no conflict or struggle included, yet there's an innate fascination programmed into it. I feel the logline doesn't earn its place here, yet here it is.
MAKE A WISH
Zach Frankel
A 14-year-old boy with terminal cancer has one last wish — to lose his virginity — and convinces his reluctant football star Make-A-Wish partner to help him score.
COMMENT: Can you say "feel good movie"? Can you say it while crying a river of tears? Can you laugh through your tears? Thank you. That's the audition. We'll be in touch. On your way out please tell Sandra Bullock we're ready for her.
This movie is a home run. I don't need to read it. My god, the title. A home run.
FROM HERE TO ALBION
Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani
A tragic accident in a coastal English town sets off a chain of violence when a malevolent assassin attempts to punish all involved, including a dirty cop who is intent on covering up the truth.
COMMENT: I'm here for the explosive violence. I won't lie to you. My stomach will be in my throat for 90 minutes. I'm sure of it. My heart will be on a treadmill. That town coroner needs to make a fresh and generous order of body bags, right now.
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