“Up”: High concept or not?
I’m currently teaching Core II: Concept and one of the participants Debbie Moon, creator of the U.K. TV series “Wolfblood,” raised a question about whether the Pixar movie Up could be considered a high concept or not, her question arising from this fact: How do you craft a decent logline for the story? My response:
Here is some evidence to support your sense, Debbie, that Up may not be — at least for some people — all that much of a high concept, the current logline from the movie’s IMDB listing:
“By tying thousands of balloons to his home, 78-year-old Carl sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years younger, inadvertently becomes a stowaway.”
That’s pretty much a mess and, of course, does not mention anything about Ellie.
That said, if we were to drill down to the conceit of the story, the single thing that would hook a reader, it’s this:
That is the most essential narrative element of the story, the image, literally scratched out on a napkin, that grabbed the Pixar ‘brain trust’ at a lunch one day. Everything sprang from that.
As far as the logline is concerned, you’re right, it’s problematic. Just track all the narrative elements in the story:
* Carl, grieving widower
* Ellie, dead wife
* Russell, problematic stowaway
* Paradise Falls, promised goal.
* Muntz, obsessed rival
* Kevin, desperate mother
How to fit all that into one clean sentence? You can’t. Nor should you if you were pitching it as a story to a buyer.
I’ve grown fond of the Six Word Test that I discussed here with screenwriter Daniel Kunka. Distill the story down to six words, its very essence. Here is my shot at Up:
Despairing widower. Balloon house. Troublesome stowaway.
Does it tell the whole story? No. Does it even bring in the Nemesis which effective loglines typically do. No. But it conveys something of the core essence of the story.
That said, the fact we’ve had to spend this much time trying to wrangle Up into a high concept logline suggests that it really isn’t the cleanest high concept. Which by the way also proves that you don’t need a high concept to have a great movie [like you, Up is my favorite Pixar film].
But even if it isn’t the ‘best’ high concept, just take a look at the image above, and right there, I think you hook an industry insider’s attention.
My reference to the word ‘hook’ is intentional as that is one of my screenwriting principles: Concept = Hook. When we, as writers, brainstorm potential story ideas, the good ones will rise to the top because they have something that will hook a Hollywood type’s interest. And honestly at the most basic level, that is what we want a logline to do: Enable us to get our foot in the door so we can get an opportunity to present an extended version of the story, either as a pitch or script.
Can you think of successful movies that aren’t high concepts or just don’t work very well as loglines? Let’s head to comments and kick that around.