2015 Black List Word Cloud Logline Challenge: Winners!
It started here:
It’s simple. Every year after the annual Black List is released, we take the loglines from each of the Black List scripts and create a word cloud. Here is this year’s version:
Then I invite anyone and everyone to participate in the Black List Word Cloud Logline Challenge.
Two days of entries: Here. Here.
The judge? Hollywood movie producer extraordinaire Max Millimeter.
The prizes?
* 5 Semifinal Winners: 1 free Craft class I will be teaching next year through Screenwriting Master Class. There are 8 of them: Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling, Story Summaries: From Loglines to Beat Sheets, Handling Exposition, Scene Description Spotlight, Character Development Keys, Create a Compelling Protagonist, Write a Worthy Nemesis, and The Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling. Each winner gets their choice of one class.
* 3 Finalist Winners: Free 1 script read + 1 month script hosting via the Black List website.
* 1 Grand Prize winner: Free 2 script reads + 2 months script hosting via the Black List website.
And it all ends up here with the announcement of this year’s winners. Here is a transcript of a voice mail Max Millimeter left me:
Hello. This is Willard, Mr. Millimeter’s yard guy. He ain’t doin’ so great this morning on account of he says he’s sick or somethin’.
[Sound of Max throwing up in the background]
[whispers] Personally I think he got liquored up last night. Back yard’s a mess, bottles everywhere. [sniffs bottle] Phew! Musta been some kinda party.
[More Max blowing chunks]
Anyways Mr. Millimeter’s asked me to read these, uh… long lines…
[Max yells] Log lines.
Uh, log lines. For movies, I guess. Hey, he’s slipped me an extra twenty, so whatever. Okay, here we go.
[clears throat]
When the POLICE, CIA and FBI fail to SAVE a YOUNG BOY from an OLD, KILLER AGENT, a desperate FATHER MUST commit his FIRST-EVER CRIME of MURDER to lure and FACE the man responsible for the DEATH of his SON.
Huh. So this is good ‘coz…
[Max yells] Revenge. Easy sell. Death Wish. Taken — [hurls]
Yeah, I could, ya’ know, see that guy, uh, Liam… Liam… Nielson —
[Max yells] Neeson.
Yeah, that guy. I could see that. Huh. So this is what you guys do in the movie business, huh?
[Max yells] Pretty much. [pukes]
Awright, then. Number two on the list: In an alternate TIMEline 2013, when TWO NAZI ASTRONAUTs threaten to ignite a WORLD WAR, OLD SCHOOL CIA AGENT JOHN WATERCAR MUST TURN to the ONE KILLER HE’S always feared WORKING with: the ENIGMATIC, mass MURDERer turned FBI informant JIM LIFESON.
Uh, seems kinda confusing to me…
[Max yells] Two words: Nazi. Astronauts.
Nazi astronauts. Got a nice ring to it. Okay, next on the list: FIVE FELLOW ASTRONAUTS MUST SAVE the WORLD from a KILLER virus.
Oh! Oh! It’s like that movie with Bruce Willis and what’s his face, the pretty boy, and what was it called… Army Getting.
[Max yells] Armageddon.
Yeah, that one! Blowing up the asteroid. So this story is those guys taking on a killer virus. Maybe like turns people into cool ass zombies and shit.
[Max shuffles up] Now you’re talkin’, kid.
You okay?
[Max]: Yeah, ya’ know, damn flu.
Flu… right.
[Max]: Read the next one.
Sure, sure. All hell breaks loose when both FATHER JOHN and FATHER JIM FALL for SISTER MARTHA.
Two priests…
[Max]: And a nun.
They fall in love…
[Max]: And shit hits the fan. It’s Grumpy Old Men meets Sister Act.
Wow, that’s pretty genius.
[Max]: What’s next?
Okay, uh, When a YOUNG POLICE Captain, JOHN DAYS, FALLS for the lone survivor of an attempted MURDER, he MUST SEARCH and TRY to FIND ANSWERS and SAVE a WOMAN deeply in threaded Neo NAZI lore, and FACE a DANGEROUS FIVE MAN CREW inclusive of her FATHER and SISTER who hold the KEY to a BOOK, a DATE, and UNIT of the CIA who will start the next world WAR. Hm, not sure…
[Max]: Don’t sweat it. That cat wrote a crapload of loglines, I just picked one ‘coz the guy wore me down.
Okay, then. Next: JOHN, a serial KILLER, unable to MURDER the baby BOY of the FAMILY he HIT, FINDS himself with a SON. TWENTY YEARs LATER, JOHN MUST FACE both the FBI and his SON looking for ANSWERS. Lemme guess. Serial killer adopts boy he can’t kill, then —
[Max]: — shit hits the fan.
So that whole shit hits the fan thing, that’s kind of a big deal in movies, right?
[Max]: Spoken like a true producer. Next.
Awrighty… FAMILY MAN FINDS DANGEROUS BOY KILLER BEHIND HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK DEATH GAME. Oh, yeah, this one rocks. I can see the poster: “Yearbook Death Game”.
[Max]: Now you’re gettin’ it.
So, this is what you guys do all day?
[Max]: Work all day, party all night.
Sweet!
[Max]: Next.
EVENTS START to TAKE a TURN for the worst when TWENTY YEAR OLD STAR FBI AGENT JIM WATERMAN FALLS back into a RELATIONSHIP with his OLD CRIME FAMILY HITMAN BOYfriend: FIRST he FINDS out almost his entire FAMILY (his SISTER and FATHER) are PITTING themselves (BASED on their NEWly INDOCTRINATED religious beliefs)… is this guy kidding… against anyONE who PUTS his MAN-UNIT into anything other than a WOMAN; then LATER HE’S on a WORKING DATE with an ENIGMATIC WOMAN ASTRONAUT his own AGE and FINDS she has a TRUE STORYBOOK written by FREE CAR salesman JOHN JOHNSON… let me catch my breath… that ANSWERS KEY questions BEHIND a famous WORLD WAR TWO NAZI MURDERer’s SEARCH to FIND a better way to GET HIGH. It’s a LIFE and DEATH struggle, and with only TWENTY minutes left to SAVE his mother MARTHA’S HOUSE from a river of burning OIL and FACE his KILLER lover’s CREW of DANGEROUS FELLOW Mafioso’s… holy crap, seriously… TIME is running short on possibly the most complicated and endearing romantic comedy EVER.
[Max]: Kitchen Sink Award. Give it to somebody who throws in everything. But read the last one.
Okay, the big winner. Exciting! BASED on the NEW TRUE STORY, an OLD, ENIGMATIC movie producer invites a YOUNG WOMAN, MARTHA — SISTER of Heather and Heidi — to his HOUSE in Laurel Canyon for her FIRST EVER GAME of around the WORLD, only to FIND LATER she is a DANGEROUS, stone-FACE KILLER who LIVEs LIFE to the max as she LEADs him to within a millimeter of DEATH. Hey, that sounds like —
[Max]: Me, that’s right. And any writer who’s got the smarts to butter me up like that… I’m gonna butter them up.
Ha! Think I’m gettin’ the hang of this business, Mr. Millimeter.
[Max]: Great, now hand me that bottle. Need a lil’ hair of the dog that bit me…
Wait, don’t —
[Max swigs… gags… spits] What the hell —
Tried to tell you. Think one of your guests last night peed in that bottle —
[Max stumbles, bottles clanking as he stomps toward bathroom… and major hurling]
Okay, well, uh, Willard signing off. ‘Coz I got me an idea for a movie. Nazi. Zombies. Hollywood screenwriter, here I come!
There you go! The semifinalists who win one free Craft class:
lucketta
December 17, 2015 at 1:17 AM
xwingpilotred1
December 19, 2015 at 1:06 AM
marygoldman
December 17, 2015 at 1:17 PM
dwallace
December 17, 2015 at 2:57 AM
Erick C. Allen Sr.
December 17, 2015 at 1:31 AM
The Finalists who win 1 free script read + 1 free month script hosting via the Black List website:
Haris Leventi
December 17, 2015 at 4:33 AM
KarlGerhardt
December 17, 2015 at 9:48 AM
joshbarkey
December 18, 2015 at 5:00 PM
And the Grand Prize winner who gets 2 free script reads + 2 freemonths script hosting via the Black List website:
Bell206
December 18, 2015 at 10:58 AM
Winners, please email me for details. Thanks to all for participating! Let’s do this again next year!
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