Workinf on one sentence description of film- Feedback, please

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danielsemel

'A comedy about two friends struggling with failure, and boredom, as they medicate themselves with pot and other drugs.'


Judging from the above sentence, what do you think the project is about and is it something you'd be interested in watching.


thanks!
 
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An aimless graduate spends his last day in town, before leaving to join the family business, dreaming of adventure while coming to terms with the harsh realities of the adult world he knows so little about.
 
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'An aimless college graduate spends his last day in town with two high school friends, before leaving to join the family business, retreating from the harsh realities of the adult world dreaming of adventure and escape.'
 
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the film is not about finding out friends are more important than success which sounds kind of trite.
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That's an example intended to help you see where your logline was lacking, rather than a suggestion -- so calling it trite is just incredibly bad manners. :no:

The bottom line is this -- you're trying to force a high concept logline onto a film that isn't high concept and to be perfectly honest this is work that you should have done before writing the script, let alone before undertaking principle photography. The reason you can't get the film into one line is fundametally because your film HAS NO PLOT! --- Let me repeat this -- your film has NO PLOT, NO STORY, NO CHARACTER ARC, NO CONFLICT or any of the other things that most people consider pretty important to a piece of drama. Now that may make you a great artist and above all us mere mortals who turn out "trite, formula" movies, but it doesn't make for a gripping logline.

So instead of trying to do the impossible, why don't you just work out what it is about the film that would persuade someone to spend 90 minutes and $5 to watch it.

So far you've convinced no one. :yes:

I'm done here.
 
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Is it possible to either see the movie or get a copy somehow? So we can focus this better. Loglines tend to be for selling movies. Most indie fare on the lower end is about learning visual story telling. When you made the story to begin with were sales one of your priorities? Or was it just a story in your head you felt like getting out? Or possibly just a "I want to make a movie" impulse. All of which are valid, but have much different audiences/expectations for them at the outset.
 
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Oh.. ooops! lol I must have forgotten about that one.

I know as a beginning filmmaker, I write the story and make the film. But there's a lot more to it than that. I've written scripts before, they worked, but there's always a better way to write.

One of the first things to answer is: "What is this film about?" If you can answer in a short sentence or two, then you've got a good grasp of things. However, if you personally don't know, then there's a problem. If you don't know what the film is about, and you wrote the script, then how is anyone else supposed to know what it's about.

There are people here who are trying to help you make the best out of your promotional/marketing/etc. seeking as possible. Let us help you.

Knightly seems willing to check out what you have and help you come up with a logline.

To tell you the truth, I've never done one. I've also never packaged any of my films for anything other than the internet. With that said, if I was having problems I would first of all come here, and most definitely take the advise and all the help I could get.

"Retreating from the realities of the future, three high school friends turn to drugs dreaming of adventure and escape on one of their last days in town, before leaving to join the family business. "

whatchu all think?
 
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I think an avoidance of the drug/stoned angle will make the movie easier to sell. The getting high then becomes something that happens rather than the whole oint of the story. Unless it is something of a morality play, or you want to target a specific audience (limiting your potential sales).
 
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True, I believe I said that myself in an earlier post... lol

"Jim is back in his home town from colledge. He and two high school friends spend their last night together dreaming of adventure and escape before he's supposed to leave and join the family business. "
 
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First of all, I would like to say that I really appreciate the help I've gotten here and I already feel my logline has improved dramatically as a result. I would like to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

on my most recent update of the logline.

'An aimless college graduate spends his last day in town with two high school friends, before leaving to join the family business, retreating from the harsh realities of the adult world dreaming of adventure and escape.'

I left out any mention of drugs because I guess I was giving people the impression that it's like that 'White Castle' movie. I'm fine with abandoning the stoned/drug angle. The above sentence definitely needs to be tightened up. I going to take some more stabs at it in a bit.

Here's where I am at with the film. I have a 87 minute cut with mixed sound and a finished film score, but parts of the film really are not working. I'm going to spend the summer re-cutting the film. This is my first film and I actually spent time thinking it out but I've never sold anything or marketed anything before. I've been working on this for 2 years so it's hard to sum up in a sentence. I'm also sick of it and at times can't stand thinking about it because I just want to move on, but there is SO much more work ahead of me.

This is a rough synopsis of the film that a friend wrote, but I really don't like it but it provides some info. I think it sounds cheesy.

'Early on a Sunday morning, Johnny pounds on the front door of his friends, Sid and Natalie. He’s frantic: “I need to use your phone!” It is his last day in town, his phone is already disconnected, and he’s desperate to get the call he has been waiting for from the comic book company he hopes will hire him and put him on the path to his creative goals. If he doesn’t get the call, he’ll be forced to cow-tow to his parents’ wishes and move to Utah to suffer a soul-crushing job in his uncle’s paint factory.

So begins the story of an anxious day in the life of three young adults wrestling with dreams and responsibilities, love and lust, euphoria and paranoia. Waiting for the crucial call, the trio begin to regale each other with their various experiences in the adult world: Johnny suffers the daily humiliations of serving an aging and eccentric novelist; Sid can’t keep a job, even a good one; Natalie, the perpetual over-achiever, chides them both on their shortcomings and can’t help sharing her various schemes for success. As each of their stories evolves, we come to learn of the utter dysfunction of Sid and Natalie’s co-dependent relationship, the crush Johnny has harbored for Natalie ever since high school, and the deep-seated fears of both Johnny and Sid reflected in the hallucinations brought on by their repeated boredom-induced bong-hits.

As the day draws on, Johnny begins to accept the inevitable: with nothing left to lose, he attempts to confront Natalie about his feelings; examine the career demands and expectations his parents have laid on him and he has accepted up to this point. Whether he decides to go to Utah or not, one thing has become crystal clear – he must face his future alone.'
 
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Another tweak.

'An aimless college graduate spends his last day in town with two high school friends, before leaving to join the family business, retreating from the harsh realities of the adult world as they dream of adventure and escape.'
 
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I was reading this thread through again and three points hit me:

1) Isn't this film a comedy? And if so, why does the logline make it sound like a straight coming of age drama?

2) The word "aimless" in the logline is misleading, because the protagonist has a very real goal and aim "To get the comic book job"

3) The piece is character driven, so the logline needs to reflect that dynamic - this maybe why the current logline is so weak -- you're trying to sell the plot and frankly there isn't one.

What many people don't appreciate about loglines is that there isn't one "right" one -- a film can be described in a mulitplicity of ways.

The way that spec script writers deal with this issue is to write ten or twenty different loglines, from different perspectives and then send them out to friends to see which one really light's their fire.

It's s humbling process because often the thinbgs you think are the strongest turn out to be the weakest.

The other thing is that you might send a different logline to different distributors, depending on what their "niche" market is.

The other way you might approach it is to ask a few of the lead actors what they think the film is about -- peopel with a little distance often have more insight.
 
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Sorry to double post, but I had a shoot for client to do before I could get back to this.

I thought it might be an idea to give some examples of how different perspectives can be written for the same film.

So all these are logline's for my spec script True:

A young American, looking for a hedonistic weekend of drugs and sex, becomes the victim of a sadistic reality show: a show which fools him into believing that a group of psychotic gangsters and the police are hunting him for a murder he didn't commit.

A heartbroken New York musician tries to lose himself in sex and drugs … only to fall victim to a sadistic reality show.

A naïve young man’s sex holiday becomes a nightmare when he’s framed with the murder of a powerful gangster.

A New York musician’s holiday in a European red light district becomes a nightmare when he tries to save a prostitute from a brutal gangster.

A naïve young man partying in an infamous European red light district is drawn into a dark world of violence and crime.

A young musician, bankrupted by his ex-wife, tries to drown his sorrows in an infamous red light district, where he falls in love with a vulnerable young prostitute. To rescue her he will have to outmanoeuvre the violent pornographer who has chilling plans for both of them.


When his boss fires him and his ex-wife bankrupts him on the same day David thinks life can’t get much worse, but when the offer of a free holiday puts him in the clutches of a sadistic reality TV show, David is forced to discover whether he’s prepared to kill for love and revenge.


As you can see with each one I've looked at different elements, and yet they are all true of the screenplay.

The trick is to remember that shorter isn't always better and the upper limit on most loglines is sixty words.
 
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'Before joining the family business, an aimless college graduate spends his last day in town with friends retreating from the realities of the world by dreaming of adventure and escape.'
 
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