TLLjournal Names Top Loglines for June/July 2014

[Pitchpatch]

An article from the screenwriting news feed caught my eye.

http://www.moviebytes.com/NewsStory.cfm?StoryID=4787

"TTLJournal.com has announced the top six loglines of their June/July 2014 Logline Contest."

Let's discuss, because "best in show" proclamations invite close scrutiny.

Asshat duly dusted and pulled down snugly over my ears.  Joyless demeanor affixed.  Air of pomposity assumed.  Dickishness dialed to eleven.  And we're RRREADY TO GRUUUMBLE!


Screenplay title: A Ghost Story Of Christmas
Written by: Eddie Yaroch
Genre: Family
Logline: "A Christmas Carol" meets "The Conjuring" when a modern-day Scrooge hires professional ghost hunters, one of them his former fiancee, Belle.

Not a logline.  Nope.  Nothing more than a concept.  "Belle" parachutes in like she's supposed to be a narrative bombshell.  She's not.  There's no narrative thread connecting her to Scrooge, so why should we care?  Did she dump him at the altar?  Did he dump her?  Give us something, some seed of conflict that helps us understand why it's a big deal she's his former fiancee.

Title needs spicing up, or some basic tightening, like: CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY

-----

Screenplay title: The Executioner
Written by: Jean-Marie Mazaleyrat
Genre: Black comedy/Thriller/Mystery
Logline: When a series of murders with obscure motives stain with blood a small kingdom just after the abolition of the capital punishment, the police end up suspecting the former last executioner to work on his own.

This is almost a logline, but it wobbles and whips and careens out of control by the end, at which point the logline imploded and my brain exploded.  After doing all that exhausting word gymnastics, I dare you to parse any clear and unambiguous meaning from everything following the comma.  I double dare you.

"Police" feels wildly anachronistic for the times.  Let's find something suitable.

Making sense of it:

"After a fairytale kingdom abolishes capital punishment, a series of bloody murders leads the Sheriff to suspect the King's now unemployed executioner."

Much better.  Instead of a faceless police force we focus on one Sheriff as the protagonist.

I don't know if Jean-Marie wrote this as fantasy or medieval reality.  Both possibilities suggest a fantastical world for this Jack the Ripper-styled executioner to inhabit.

Once untangled I like what's revealed here.  I want to know more.

-----

Screenplay title: Just in Time
Written by: Jim Jackson
Genre: Coming of Age/Action/Sci-Fi
Logline: When a nerdy college student wakes up on a train forty years in the past, he's mistaken for a spy, finds romance, and discovers the fate of his long lost father - a government agent.

Another almost-logline.  And, phew, what a relief nothing bad happens when our protag gets mistaken for a spy.  For a half second there it looked like shit might just get real -- real exciting.  Instead, we get the thumbnail of the movie all the way to FADE OUT, sweeping away any curiosity about what happens next.  

Can we do something with this?  We can try.  But first, the title.  Hoot and holler all you like, but I'm calling this one JUSTIN TIME.

"When a college nerd wakes up twenty years in the past and gets mistaken for his secret agent father, he begins to investigate how his dad disappeared -- and why."

I warped that, sure, and it's a teensy bit BACK TO THE FUTURE with a twist, but hot damn, doesn't that sound cooler with him being mistaken for his own father at the same age and using that opportunity to solve the mystery of what happened to his real father the spy?

-----

Screenplay title: Purpensula
Written by: Debra Johnson
Genre: Family/Fantasy
Logline: Maddie and Timothy Petrolly journey into the mysterious world of Purpensula, and with the help of the Whurples, they fight the giant monster Whiggats to rescue a cousin they've never met who is trapped in Purpensula. They must complete their task in three days or remain in Purpensula forever!

I imagine Hell is being trapped inside this logline forever.  Whurples and Whiggats waging war in the weird world of Whurpensula!  YES, I CHEATED.  Loglines fall apart under the crushing weight of names.  Especially whimsical ones.  The logline somehow manages to be so generic that even a bunch of onomatopoeic words can't inject color into this word sludge.

-----

Screenplay title: Guess Who?
Written by: Sue Romansik
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Logline: A newly engaged woman thought she was over a fiancé who left her at the altar, until she woke up in his wife's body.

HELLO, MRS HIGH CONCEPT!  Now here's something we can work with: a body-swap concept, and a good one.  This is a pedigree of logline you have no choice but to allow past the velvet rope, because it's brash and bold and empty-headed and exciting.  It's not really a logline, but give it a hard shove in the back and it'll bump into one.  Has the idea been done?  I don't know.  I don't see a lot of romcoms.  But it feels like something with huge potential.  Dropping that coin of an idea into the slot and pulling the lever makes those picture wheels spin and spin and spin with flashing colors and strobing images.  We don't really need any elaboration.  The unwritten story gathers speed like a rolling boulder the longer we think about it.

I'd like to work with the logline a little.  My main concern is, it seems like a good thing for the jilted woman (who still fancies her ex) to wake up in her ex's wife's body.  It can't be something she secretly desires.  That's too easy and sucks the conflict out of the room.  What about...

"A woman who jilted her devoted but obnoxious fiance at the altar keeps waking up in his new wife's body."

Now we've got conflict.  He worships her; she can't stand him.  She escaped him once, and now this.  GROUNDHOG DAY meets WAR OF THE ROSES, maybe.  Or, let's go dark:

"A woman divorces her violent husband but keeps waking up in his new wife's body."  We've shifted from fun and funny to thrills and spills.

Repeating: not a logline. This is high concept.  This is the detonator cap ready to be pushed into the dynamite.

"A woman who jilted her obnoxious fiance at the altar keeps waking up in his new wife's body and must convince him to set her free."

There.  One small step toward a complete logline.

Title: playful, cheeky. A good match.  I like it.

-----

Screenplay title: The Dummy
Written by: Alan S. Ferguson
Genre: Drama
Logline: For most people getting shot would be the worse day of their life. For this bullied young man, it's the best day of his life.

Never mind the eye-stabbing "for most people getting shot", here's what the logline gives us: "A bullied young man gets shot and everything turns out great."  I don't know what to call photobombing a logline list, but that just happened.  If Alan wasn't here tossing this logline photobomb at us, he'd be out there swooping in front of a roaming news camera to snatch the anchor's mic and shout "FHRITP!"

Unfortunately, the title casts an accidentally ironic shadow across this smoking crater of a logline.