The Quest Initiative: 14 days and counting
You can go here to see the original announcement I made about The Quest last year.
You can go here for a post about this year’s Initiative.
Now this important note: I am pushing back the start date for the logline submission period to Wednesday, May 22.
I WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING ANY LOGLINE SUBMISSIONS BEFORE WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013. PLEASE RESPECT THIS SCHEDULE! IF YOU SEND ME A LOGLINE BEFORE MAY 22, IT WILL GO INTO MY TRASH!
For background on The Quest Initiative and my thoughts on the importance of your story conceit, I’ll see you below the fold.
As you go about preparing your loglines, I want to talk about what I call the story conceit. Here is how I define that: The central premise of the story.
With the movie K-9, it was the premise of a human cop teamed up with a dog cop. With Inception, it’s the premise that people can enter into other people’s dream states. With Groundhog Day, it’s the premise that someone has to relive a day over and over again.
Frankly much of what we do when brainstorming possible story concepts is wander in the world of story-conceits. A good example is the movie Back to the Future. One of its screenwriters Bob Gale describes how he came up with the story-conceit:
The inspiration for making the movie, for coming up with the story is that I was visiting my parents in the summer of 1980, from St. Louis Missouri, and I found my father’s high-school yearbook in the basement.
I’m thumbing through it and I find out that my father was the president of his graduating class, which I was completely unaware of. So there’s a picture of my dad, 18-years-old, and I’m thinking about the president of my graduating class, who was someone I would have had nothing to do with. He was one of these “Ra-Ra” political guys, he was probably Al Gore or something. Captain of the debate team, all this stuff. So the question came up in my head, ‘gee, if I had gone to school with my dad would I have been friends with him?’ That was where the light bulb went off.
The conceit: What if I had gone to school with my dad? In working with that idea, Gale and co-screenwriter Robert Zemeckis hit on the notion of time travel to create a circumstance in which they could put the conceit into a narrative…
Therefore a high concept is one with a story idea that can be summed up in 1–2 lines. Writers can start that creative process by coming up with a story-conceit. And often it’s that conceit, that central premise that provides the hook that grabs a Hollywood reader’s attention.
Wisdom from Terry Rossio, screenwriter of Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean and many other hit movies:
As a screenwriter, your choice of film premise is your calling card. Not your witty dialog, not your clever descriptions. Not your knowledge of structure and subplot and subtext.
The very first decision you make as a writer — ‘what is my film about?’ — will define your creative instincts in the eyes of the industry. Like actors and directors, you will always be known by the projects you pick (or in this case, by the projects you initiate). You must — you MUST — choose well.”
You can spend days… weeks… months laboring over a logline, but if the underlying story conceit is weak, no matter your efforts, it probably will not make the cut.
I am looking for story conceits that feel like a movie. Want another example? Here is a THR article that ran recently about The Hangover. An excerpt:
It was called What Happens in Vegas. In 2007, screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore came up with a novel pitch: a bachelor party comedy that would play out as a mystery, with increasingly bizarre reveals leading to the location of the missing groom [emphasis added]. New Line Cinema executives loved the idea but were dead set on that title and couldn’t secure rights, so they passed. Others weren’t interested. But Lucas and Moore wrote the script anyway and slipped it to fellow CAA client Todd Phillips. At the time, Phillips’ Starsky & Hutch and School for Scoundrels recently had disappointed, and he had left Borat during shooting because of creative differences. Fortunately, he still had an overall deal at Warner Bros., which in October 2007 snapped up the script — now titled The Hangover. What followed is the most successful R-rated comedy franchise of all time. The first Hangover, made for only about $35 million with barely-known stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis, shocked Hollywood by grossing $467.5 million worldwide in 2009. Its 2011 sequel outgrossed the original with $586.8 million. The third and final installment — which ditches the blacked-out mystery concept and adds Melissa McCarthy as a love interest for Galifianakis — hits U.S. theaters May 24.
Bachelor party. Wasted. Lose groom. That is the story conceit. And that is a movie. I said that in a September 26, 2008 post when the movie went into production, based simply on the story’s premise.
So as you work with your loglines, ask yourself: “What is the story conceit?” What is it about your story — the hook — that will grab my attention and make me see the movie in your story? Can you boil down the essence of the story to six words?
I should tell you one of writers I am working with from The Quest 2012 had me hooked from their title. It was five words.
Five. Words.
I love indie movies. I love complex stories. If I’m successful with The Quest as a producer, I hope to be able to work with writers who have great indie ideas and nuanced narratives.
Not now. I am placing a premium on strong high concepts. And that almost necessarily means a killer story conceit.
What you need to know about “The Quest Initiative”
Cost: Free.
How many participants: Up to 4.
Who may apply: Any aspiring screenwriter who is not a member of the WGA or equivalent professional writing organization. Writers do not have to live in Los Angeles, and may be located in the United States or internationally based. Writers may be any age, gender, race, etc.
When will the workshop run: July 14-December 28, 2012.
How will I determine who gets accepted: There are three key standards. (1) Story concept: I am looking for strong story concepts that I believe when executed as a script can get set up as projects in Hollywood. In other words, I am almost exclusively interested in commercial high concepts. I will make exceptions if the story elements make me think the project is a marketable one, but the concept has to be extremely strong if it is not high concept. (2) Writing ability: I will ask applicants who make it past the first cut to send me a sample of their writing, as well as a detailed description of their background as a writer and a statement about why they want to be a screenwriter. (3) Personal interview: I will have a one-on-one conversation with applicants who make it past the next cut in order to assemble a group I feel will be compatible with each other.
How do you apply: A simple email with the word “Quest” in the subject line, then a logline of your story in the text. That is all I want, nothing else. “Quest”. Logline.
When may you apply: I will be accepting loglines from May 20 through June 8, 2013. You may send them to me at: GITSblog at gmail dot com.
If you are selected as one of The Quest participants, you must be willing to do the following three things:
1. You have to commit yourself fully to the workshop. That means active participation in constructive criticism and feedback, all writing exercises and assignments, and most importantly pledge you will finish the first draft of your original screenplay.
2. You have to write a weekly journal entry about your experiences in the workshop. As part of The Quest Initiative, I will be doing something akin to reality programming in that each week, I will post something on GITS about the group’s progress including excerpts from your journals. This is a great way for the GITS community to track how you are doing, something of what you are learning, see the ups and downs of the writing process, and so on.
3. If you write a script I believe has strong marketable potential, I have the right to attach myself as an executive producer. At that point, I will take you on into rewrites and we will officially be in producer-to-writer mode. Once your script is finished, I will take the lead in getting it to managers and agents, and try to get the project set up and you established in Hollywood.
You may only submit three [3] loglines!
Last year some folks sent me dozens of loglines. As a result, I ended up reviewing over 3500 loglines. An overwhelming majority of them were not — in my opinion — commercially viable.
So if you are serious about wanting to have a chance to participate in The Quest, I encourage you — with extreme prejudice! — to raise your game. Give me your best shot. That means you have to set the bar high for what you submit to me. You need to ask: Is this really a movie? Can this story concept compete with what is currently out in theaters? Is this something I think Scott will respond to?
Here are genres I am most interested in reading: Action, Comedy, Thriller. Second tier: Drama, Family, Horror.
Cross genres like Action-Thriller, Drama-Comedy, Action-Comedy, those are fine, too.
Here are genres that will be tough sells: Fantasy, Science Fiction.
I love Fantasy and Science Fiction, but if you submit an idea that requires massive and complex world-building along with huge CGI requirements, I’m not in a position to do anything with that.
That said, if you have a truly great story idea that is either Fantasy or Science Fiction and it is low-to-mid-budget, that might work. A big idea with a contained environment like Moon, something along those lines.
Will I offer a free class for every entrant like I did last year? No!
I may be crazy, but I am not insane. There were 1500 entrants last year and a majority of them have received a free Core or Craft class through Screenwriting Master Class. It was a nice gesture on my part, but I simply don’t have the resources to make that offer again.
How should I submit my logline(s)?
I would prefer this: Title, Genre, Logline. If you don’t have a title, that’s okay.
If you are not sure of the genre, take your best guess from the following: Action, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller.
If you have a cross-genre movie like an Action-Comedy or sub-genre movie like a Romantic Comedy, that’s fine. But if you put down: Action Comedy Mystery Adventure Contained Thriller? That suggests this story has not found itself yet.
If you have multiple loglines (remember: no more than three entries), please put them into one email.
In the subject heading of your email, just put QUEST LOGLINE or QUEST LOGLINES depending on if you are submitting one or more (NO MORE THAN 3!!!)
Email your submission to: GITSblog at gmail dot com.
Up to 4 writers will have what I believe to be an incredible opportunity, not only to write an original screenplay aided by other writers and myself, but also a chance to learn how to think and write like a professional. Because my goal with writers who go through The Quest is to educate and train them so they have the best shot possible not only at breaking into the business, but succeeding month after month, year after year. That’s one of my guiding principles with The Quest: solid screenwriting theory matched with solid screenwriting practice.
14 days and counting. What are you doing to prepare for The Quest Initiative?
If you have any questions, please post them in comments.
Onward and upward!
NOTE: I WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING ANY LOGLINE SUBMISSIONS BEFORE WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013. PLEASE RESPECT THIS SCHEDULE!
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