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Spike

Spike

They say this longline business is important, so it probably is. But it seems, to me, stupid. Anyway, here's mine:

A music loving Prince from a backwater German principality assembles a dream-team orchestra and hires, as music director, a man of other-worldly talent, but political and familial pressures will force him to choose: responsible royal or friend and patron to the greatest musician who has ever, who perhaps will have ever, lived.

I hate it. I don't even want to write the thing now.

And I have a better one, one for all purposes:

Some stuff happens.

anyway :)
 
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Lol. I like it. But no, this would be called, I suppose, a "period piece." Not a biography in intent, but biographical.

In 1730, J.S. Bach wrote this to his friend, Georg Erdmann:

"You know the course of my life from my youth up until the change in my fortunes that took me to Cothen as Kapellemeister. There I had a gracious Prince, who both loved and knew music, and in his service I intended to spend the rest of my life.”

To say that this prince knew, that is, understood, music, coming from Sebastian, is heady praise.

“It must happen,” he continues, “that the said Serenissimus should marry a Princess of Bernburg, and that then the impression should arise that the musical interests of the said Prince had become somewhat lukewarm, especially as the new Princess seemed to be an amusa.” -- "Amusa" meaning opposed to the muses, unmusical, a, perhaps vulgar, philistine.

Anyway, this is the story, trouble in the paradise that created the bulk of Bach's secular instrumental music, including The Brandenburg Concerti, and the solo works for keyboard, violin, and cello.
 
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Excellent, but could still be a musical, the orchestral component would really bolster that as well. I'm saying this and I'm not even into musicals. LOL!
 
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Historical drama works, and I do imagine it as kind of a long music video, featuring performances, from the dream-team, of the Brandenburg Concerti (and I have a little story around each) and some other stuff. Prince Leopold, not a bad musician himself, for example, can play this:



(It is not impossible that it was written for him to play. )


And I'm beginning to feel a little silly, pretending this is a real thing, lol.
 
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Spike said:
And I'm beginning to feel a little silly, pretending this is a real thing, lol.
Click to expand...
I find talking out movies helps with writer's block and procrastination.

I've even been put on the spot and when someone asked "What's your movie about?" I spit out some quick nonsense, that ended up not being nonsense at all, and I was "writing" on the go lol, figuring my own movie out.
 
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Historical Genre​

The historical genre can be split into two sections. One deals with accurate representations of historical accounts which can include biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. The other section is made up of fictional movies that are placed inside an accurate depiction of a historical setting.

The accuracy of a historical story is measured against historical accounts, not fact, as there can never be a perfectly factual account of any event without first-hand experience.

Historical Event​

The historical event genre focuses on a story that creates a dramatized depiction of an event that exists in popular accounts of history. This is different from a biography in that it focuses on an event.
Ex. Apollo 13 (1995), Lincoln(2012)

Biography​

A biography (or biopic) is a story that details the life and is told by someone other than the subject. A biography will often span a large portion of the subject's life, but in some rare cases, it may focus on the time period where that person’s life had the greatest effect on history and society.
Ex. A Beautiful Mind (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Historical Epic​

A historical epic is the dramatized account of a large scale event that has an attached historical account. They often feature battles, romance, and journeys, and will commonly revise history or provide assumptions that fill in gaps in the account of the historical event.
Ex. Ben-Hur (1959), Troy(2004)

Historical Fiction​

Historical fiction takes place during a historical time period, and will often take a more liberal approach to representing history for the sake of drama and entertainment. Historical fiction may use real-life events and people to build context, but they’re meant to be accepted as a supposition rather than serve as an accurate historical account.
Ex. Spartacus(1960), Titanic(1997)

Period Piece​

The difference between a period piece and historical fiction is slight, but the main difference is a general omission or a lack of necessity for real-life characters or events to provide context. Period pieces are merely defined by taking place in, and accurately depicting the time period as opposed to specific lives, events, or accounts.
Ex. The Age of Innocence (1993), Barry Lyndon (1975)

Alternate History​

Alternate history is defined by the rewriting of historical events for the sake of speculative outcomes. These movies commonly focus on important, highly influential moments that often lead to alternate futures. Some of these movies may even include supernatural elements. Ex. The Man in the High Castle (2015), Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Source
www.studiobinder.com

90+ Film Genre Examples for Film & TV

Complete list of movie genres and sub-genres with examples including action, comedy, drama, fantasy, horror, sci-fi, thriller, and western.
www.studiobinder.com www.studiobinder.com
 
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Ahh . . . Historical Fiction, then. Christoph Wolff, the preeminent Bach scholar, would certainly roll his eyes at much of this stuff, but I would hope that he wouldn't storm out, saying something like, "I can't watch this crap." :)
 
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When a cultured young prince from the German countryside builds his dream-team orchestra, royal obligations interfere.

or maybe: . . . royal obligations will interfere.

or

A cultured young prince from the German countryside builds a dream-team orchestra, but royal obligations will interfere.

(Christ. Enough already :) )
 
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Yup. "Interfere" is week. Not wild about "royal obligations" either, lol. But closer. I like the sound of "de-rail," as well as the degree of specificity, which I'm beginning to see, is the hallmark of a good longline and the downfall of a bad one.
 
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What is the conflict he is facing between the two? Is he being asked to do favors, something illegal, is it something he sees, knows of, what? What is at stake? His reputation, his honor, his relationship with his family? Try to think of that and put it into as few words as possible so the above has a little more sizzle.
 
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The main conflict, according to Bach himself in the above quoted letter, is the cooling off of the Princes's musical interests, which Sebastian attributes to the influence of the Prince's new wife, the "amusa." This is a good dramatic conflict for the story--a kind of bitchy bride (sorry, ladies), jealous of the Prince's attention to Sebastian, and indignant at the amount of money he spends on his kapelle.

Christoph Wolff thinks Bach is scapegoating, or perhaps venting, a little, here, and lists other factors in the indisputable cut, according to extant court records, in the musical budget. For example, Frederick William I, the Prussian "warrior king,"--an amusa himself--thinks the Prince should contribute more militarily.

I think, though, (and I don't really know) that it might be best to just somehow hint at this rather than release this particular cat from bag.

I don't know. Maybe something like "family troubles?"
 
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It just dawned on me if this is Historical Fiction, why not use some real names of people, towns, etc?
 
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Yup, I do. Prince Leopold is real, and Bach would have been called Sebastian, and all the locations: Weimar, Kothen, Leipzig, are accurate. Also there are cameo appearances by Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, etc. :)

What's cool, to me, is that we even know the names and reputations of members of the dream-team, and the virtuosity needed to perform the Brandenburg Concertos, and the suites for violin and cello, is tailored to specific musicians--the trumpet, for example, in Brandenburg 2, was written for Johann Ludwig Schreiber, a member of the Kothen Kapelle, and perhaps the only person around who could play it.
 
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I mean in the logline, we have no idea that's what this is.

Two star-crossed lovers fall in love on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and struggle to survive as the doomed ship sinks into the Atlantic Ocean.

The slave Spartacus survives brutal training as a gladiator and leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman Republic, as the ambitious Crassus seeks to gain power by crushing the uprising.
 
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(Also, indietalk, I posted in the screenwriting section earlier, several chunks of the story to date (now about 50 pages) but I killed the links, because I started to get a little embarrassed about a lot of people I didn't know looking at my . . . junk, lol. But if you get intrigued, I can send you a link.

I am absolutely, by the way, not asking, but am just saying, just in case. :)
 
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