Story Ideas: Get my [bleeping] attention! — The Sequel
First an update on “Go Into The Story: The Quest”:
Number of individual submissions up to the time of this post: 868.
Number of loglines: 1100+ [estimated].
For background on “The Quest,” the opportunity for up to four writers to do a 24-week Screenwriting Master Class workshop with me for free, go here.
You may email me loglines per these submission guidelines through Friday, June 8, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time [U.S.]. So you have 3 more days to enter.
Going into this project, I wanted to create a process whereby everyone would benefit, even if they didn’t get selected for “The Quest.” That was the reasoning behind my decision to give each person who submits a logline the opportunity to take a free 1-week Core or Craft course with me through Screenwriting Master Class.
In addition, I figured we could engage in a conversation during the submission period about story concepts and loglines. That’s why I have posted these:
“The Quest”: Why is story concept critical to your success?
“The Quest”: Why do you need to think in terms of genre?
“The Quest”: Why is your passion for your story important?
“The Quest”: How should you write a logline?
And that’s why I have been posting this series:
Story Ideas: The two most important words are ‘what if’
Story Ideas: Halliwell’s Film Guide
Story Ideas: Test your concept
Story Ideas: Challenge yourself
All this to underscore how critically important a story idea is to the success of your script. To read some thoughts on the subject of loglines from Max Millimeter, hit the link.
Today a transcript of a recording I made up at Max Millimeter’s Laurel Canyon home.
Okay, here’s the deal with loglines… if this thing really is recording. There is nothing more important than getting my fucking attention. And by ‘my,’ I mean everybody who’s anybody in Hollywood. We’re all of us so damn busy. Think L.A. is laid back? Wrong! It’s breakfasts, calls, meetings, lunch, meetings, more calls, drinks, screenings, even more goddammed calls. Like when you look at me, and you think you see me, you don’t see shit. ‘Coz while on the outside, it may look like I’m looking at you, inside my mind’s a blur, okay? I mean I can sit there with my eyes wide open locked on you, nodding my head, smiling every so often like I’m hanging on your every word, and the whole time, my mind is off in West Covina somewhere, thinking about that shitty draft a writer just turned in or how my Amgen stock is doing or whether a goddammed recorder can actually record without a goddammed tape.
So get my attention. That’s the name of the game. And when it comes to loglines, that should be the name of your game.
It’s like baseball. You’re the pitcher, right? Get it, you’re pitching me, right? And I’m the batter. So I go through all that crap a batter does, you know, rubbing my hands together, messing with the bat, tugging at my crotch, the whole nine yards. Finally I step into the box. I’m looking at you, okay. You see me looking at you, but for all you know, I may be in Amgen city.
Whaddya do? I’ll tell ya’ what you do. You give me the high heat, right at my goddammed chin. Up and in, one hundred miles an hour, go head hunting with a bullet. Boom! I hit the dirt, okay. Now you got my fucking attention! Amgen? I don’t give a rat’s ass about my stocks or that shitty script or even if this damn recorder is working or not. All I care about at that precise moment is you just knocked me on my fat ass with a goddammed dot.
That’s what a killer logline does. You gotta bring the high heat. You gotta make every damn word count. You gotta have a story concept that’s gonna go like a pill right at my chrome dome, you hear me?
That’s why I have the six-word rule. You got six words… count ‘em… one, two, three, four, five, six… six words in your logline to get my attention. If six words in your logline don’t come right at me, high and hard, and knock me on my keister, then you ain’t getting my attention. And your story? That’s a big fat Pasadena.
Now the loglines the Desk Jockey gave me yesterday, there were a few I made it all the way to the end. They were kinda maybe interesting, we’ll see. But a lot of ‘em… well… no use beating around the bush. They stunk. I mean this with all due respect ‘coz I know how goddammed hard it is to come up with a good story.
But the thing is, we’re talking movies. Over a hundred years, Hollywood’s been making movies, stories that make you go, wow. That get in your heart, get in your soul. How you can be just walking down the street one day, and bam! Suddenly outta nowhere, you’re seeing that scene from a movie you saw twenty years ago. You see the faces, you hear the dialogue, you remember it like yesterday. I mean, you can’t even remember what you had for breakfast this morning, and here you are reliving this scene from something you saw in a two-bit theater when you were a snot-nosed kid. Movies can do that, it’s like magic. There’s nothing… nothing like movies. A good movie, when you see it, you forget about anything else, it grabs your attention and won’t let you go.
You see where I’m going with this? The story idea is the key to the whole thing. It’s the guts of the movie, it’s a fastball that comes in high and hard, and knocks a person on their ass. And you know where this is most important? Marketing. Computers and online and social damn media, that idea just whips out of all that noise and goes right at your head. Bang! You’re laid out. Wow, I gotta go see that movie!
That’s your story idea, that’s your logline, it’s the high hard one, it’s the dot coming right at my head, up and in.
You got six words. Six. To knock me off my feet. You do that? You got my fucking attention.
And maybe I’ll even forget worrying about if this goddammed recorder is working or not.
I know what you’re thinking. Max can’t even read one whole sentence? You have a point. But that’s Hollywood. I saw an article recently about a studio exec who was quoted as saying they read script coverage on their smart phone while waiting in line at Gelson’s. That’s the reality. So when Max says a logline has to get someone’s attention, he’s absolutely right.
Now let me be clear: I am reading all your loglines and all of the words in your loglines, but I’m looking for the same thing. Is there something compelling, unique, provocative that grabs my attention? Even if it’s a character-driven story, a logline has to convey something so dramatic or weird or funny, I just have to know more.
You’ve got three more days until submissions close for “The Quest.” Use all those tools I’ve given you in the links above. Use that intuitive understanding you have from seeing all those movies in your life. Use your imagination and creativity, opening your mind even to the craziest ideas.
Good luck in getting my [bleeping] attention!
UPDATE: This is worth pointing out. A comment from Ammar Salmi:
“You got six words… count ‘em… one, two, three, four, five, six… six words in your logline to get my attention.”
Does he mean the first six words of the logline? If so, I’m officially scared right now. I know you don’t agree with him on this, but does he really mean the first six?
My response:
Not the first six words. And of course, once you get to know Producer Scott, his bluster can often be the result of his instinct for hyperbole. But the main takeaway about the importance of concept and the way it’s articulated in a logline is spot on.
An example is K-9: “Stubborn policeman partners with police dog.” That’s the conceit of the movie. Six words and you get it.
Not all stories can be reduced to that, of course. And again I’m not looking at the loglines that way. But the six words is a good touch point to really challenge yourself [and by yourself, I mean everyone] to come up with a tight, compelling central story conceit.
You never know what may be the one piece of advice that can shake loose your creative inspiration. Maybe “six words” will force you to drill down to a conceit or nugget that becomes the foundation of your story. Perhaps not. Maybe it works for your story. Maybe not. But what Max Millimeter is suggesting reflects a type of mindset that does exist in Hollywood, the type of thing where execs cover their script coverage. They’re all super busy and they all want to be wowed. Not saying everyone in Hollywood is like that, but one of the enduring reasons high concepts continue to have the presence they do in the movie business.
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