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Day 1 Assignment
Reply to post your assignments.
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63 Replies
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Military Family Deployment Blues.
Logline: Four disenfranchised spouses from two unrelated military reserve families on the verge of divorce begin to find solace from the other’s family spouses before the deployment turns deadly.
A complex drama, character-driven script that inadvertently and unbeknown to each other’s spouse humorously begins to find solace from the other’s family’s spouses before the deployment turns deadly.
As a spouse from each family, Bill, Mary’s husband, and Samantha (Sam), Tom’s spouse. Deploy to Honduras for their yearly active duty commitment as reservists, leaving Mary and Tom home. Mary and Tom do not know each other, but not for long.
While back home, child daycare provider and preschool teacher Mary struggles with her three children and a loaded grocery cart in a snowstorm. She gets help from a handsome stranger with an enticing cologne, “Tom,” Sam’s husband.
Both families are on the verge of divorce and very emotional that each military family member’s not home very much, so they can be a family.
Both couples are humorously unaware; their spouses know the other spouse, as all four have temporarily taken up with each other during this deployment that starts out innocently enough with honest intentions to simply help each other.
However, instinctively all four spouses begin to size up their new potential future spouses. Both new relationships experience growing sexual tension that produces nervousness and emotional guilt as they find themselves losing their will to stay faithful to their marriages.
The deployment is suddenly cut short when both military spouses are injured in a deadly ambush. Both are medevaced back to their home station hospital with minimum information about their physical condition being shared with their worried families back home.
While rushing to the hospital independently, Mary and Tom realize they may still have feelings for their spouses. A humorous grand reveal occurs as all four spouses meet in an embarrassing situation as a spirited, seasoned hospital Chaplain quickly appears to take control, then helps them seriously reevaluate their plans for divorce.
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Subject: Neil W Logline and One Page
As Neil’s concept and basic structure.
What I Learned doing this Assignment. I again have found more ways to succinctly express my story idea to a producer.
Military Family Deployment Blues.
Logline: Four disenfranchised spouses from two unrelated military reserve families on the verge of divorce begin to find solace from the other’s family spouses before the deployment turns deadly.
A complex drama, character-driven script that inadvertently and unbeknown to each other’s spouse humorously begins to find solace from the other’s family’s spouses before the deployment turns deadly.
As a spouse from each family, Bill, Mary’s husband, and Samantha (Sam), Tom’s spouse. Deploy to Honduras for their yearly active duty commitment as reservists, leaving Mary and Tom home. Mary and Tom do not know each other, but not for long.
While back home, child daycare provider and preschool teacher Mary struggles with her three children and a loaded grocery cart in a snowstorm. She gets help from a handsome stranger with an enticing cologne, “Tom,” Sam’s husband.
Both families are on the verge of divorce and very emotional that each military family member’s not home very much, so they can be a family.
Both couples are humorously unaware; their spouses know the other spouse, as all four have temporarily taken up with each other during this deployment that starts out innocently enough with honest intentions to simply help each other.
However, instinctively all four spouses begin to size up their new potential future spouses. Both new relationships experience growing sexual tension that produces nervousness and emotional guilt as they find themselves losing their will to stay faithful to their marriages.
The deployment is suddenly cut short when both military spouses are injured in a deadly ambush. Both are medevaced back to their home station hospital with minimum information about their physical condition being shared with their worried families back home.
While rushing to the hospital independently, Mary and Tom realize they may still have feelings for their spouses. A humorous grand reveal occurs as all four spouses meet in an embarrassing situation as a spirited, seasoned hospital Chaplain quickly appears to take control, then helps them seriously reevaluate their plans for divorce.
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Bob’s Logline & One Page Synopsis
What I learned during this assignment was to keep it simple.
Title: Eternal Flame
Logline: When a married couple undergoing training to recognize each other in future lives die prematurely, the reincarnated husband must convince his reincarnated wife she is his soulmate before she marries her fiancé in less than a week.
This is Serendipity meets The Vow.
Synopsis
Martin and Amanda Cole are celebrating their tenth anniversary – one thousandth and tenth according to Amanda as she believes they have been married many times in past lives. Skeptical Martin, eager to please Amanda, engages a psychic/doctor of eastern religions to help he and Amanda recognize each other in future lives. The process involves the completion of numerous rituals designed to have their dying thoughts focused on each other in order to direct their reincarnated bodies in the next life. The process is interrupted when the couple are prematurely killed in a traffic accident.
Twenty-five years later, Martin, reincarnated as Jeff Ash, meets Rebecca Diamond, the reincarnated Amanda Cole, at her bachelorette party. Jeff can’t shake the feeling that Rebecca is his soulmate, but Rebecca is oblivious. Jeff tracks down Rebecca and tries to convince her she is his soulmate. Rebecca, her best friend and protector Gwen Stewart, and her fiancé wealthy Ken Rivers try to ward off Jeff. Jeff, with the often-reluctant help of his best friend Matt Thompson, gradually piece together Martin and Amanda’s old life, ultimately finding clues to try to convince Rebecca she is Amanda reincarnate.
Rebecca is not convinced and Gwen views Jeff as a stalker, but it is when Ken Rivers uses his power and money to buy off the psychic used by Martin and Amanda that Jeff may have to finally come to the realization that Rebecca may not be his soulmate after all and give her up.
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Hi Robert,
I see some merit in your story and have questions. Would you like to partner up?
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Janeen’s Logline and One Page!
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is that I need to bump up, clarify and overtly state the villain’s story more.
Title: Special Ops Santa (Holiday Action/Comedy)
Logline: A mall Santa rescues the President’s parents from a rogue FBI agent and his mercenaries while their sexy Secret Service agent is in hot pursuit.
Story:
Mall Santa Nick has a serious PTSD problem that leaves him unsure of the ground truth. His PTSD dog, a teacup poodle named Grizzly, always lets him know whether he’s in the real world or a nightmare. She’s his lifesaver.
The President’s parents mall walk where Nick works and he’s been watching the beautiful woman walking with the elderly couple. He finds out she’s Ivy, a Secret Service agent, the second day an FBI agent and his four thugs walk with her.
When the FBI agent tries to abduct the parents, he shoots Ivy who isn’t dead, just unconscious. Nick knocks them all out of commission in the mall, picks up an FBI radio and his go bag, and drives away with the parents.
The parents’ clothes and electronics are filled with trackers so Nick, Grizzly, and the parents change clothes, change vehicles, and dodge or beat up the bad guys several times as they drive from Chicago to a western Iowa resort area where Nick’s aunt has a cottage they can hide in.
Ivy regains consciousness in the mall and hears the FBI guy plans to track and recapture the parents because the mall Santa has taken them. She has her own means of tracking Nick and secretly helps him escape a few times while trying to decide if he’s a good guy or worse than the thugs.
Ivy follows Nick and the parents to Iowa, but keeps her phone which the bad guys track to the cottage. Nick’s aunt has house keys for her many friends’ cottages so Nick and Ivy move the parents from cottage to cottage to escape the FBI agent and his thugs.
Nick learns to trust himself and Ivy during all this while little Grizzly helps in some way in nearly every fight making them a dynamic team.
Traveling by snow blade, snowmobile, dinghy, car and hippie van, Nick and Ivy keep the parents safe. With a holiday fight at every stop, they manage to capture all of the bad guys and fall in love as they work together with the parents to vanquish the thugs.
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Kathy’s Logline and One Page! What I’ve learned doing this assignment is not much yet!
PASSPORT TO PERIL, a woman-in-jeopardy thriller set in Georgia
Logline: A naive newlywed must fight to save her house and her life after she discovers that her husband is a dangerous conman.
Summary: Simone, an office manager in her 30’s who longs to travel to Paris, waits for Ben, a balding forty-year old executive from Savannah. He wines and dines her whenever he’s in town. A few months later, Simone accepts his proposal and soon is a newly married woman, in love, but alone due to Ben’s many business trips. He becomes more distant and cold.
At a holiday dinner, Emily, Ben`s cousin, reveals that Ben had two wives which Simone didn’t know. At a convention, Ben plays tennis with his lover Marcie, hiding her from Simone. Marcie hits Simone with a tennis racquet, giving her a concussion, but Simone remembers nothing. Beth, Simone’s friend, wonders if he’s having an affair. Simone decides to go to Savannah to investigate. She walks into Ben’s office, ambushing him. That night, while Simone sleeps, Ben loosens her tire lug nuts. Simone wakes, explores the condo, and finds two of Ben’s CDs. She drives home and her tire flies off, but luckily she isn’t hurt. Back in Atlanta, Beth opens the discs, finding photos of women and their houses. Simone confronts Ben: either therapy or a divorce. Marcie, in disguise, sideswipes Simone, who falls and fractures her elbow. After weeks of therapy, Ben wants Simone to go on a sailing trip and she agrees. Before the trip, Ben secretly loosens her house porch railing. Josh falls but isn’t hurt.
Simone meets Marcie on the sailboat. After Marcie jibes the sail, Simone falls and cuts her knee. She goes below, looks around the cabin, and finds the ship’s logbook. Marcie owns the boat and Ben has been lying. Ben and Marcie leave Simone alone after dinner. After they return, an argument starts. Ben ties up Simone then knocks her out. Ben and Marcie head for the bedroom. Simone wakes up and climbs onto the deck. She frees her hands, locks the hatch and radios the Coast Guard. Ben sees the floodlights, tries the locked door, then shoots at the lock. Simone grabs a fire extinguisher. As the door crashes open, Simone swings the tank and hits Ben who falls backwards into the cabin onto Marcie. Ben and Marcie shoot at Simone and the boat catches on fire. Finally, a Coast Guard boat arrives and an officer handcuffs the pair.
In court, Marcie divulges Ben’s affairs and his plot to take Simone’s house. They are jailed. Simone divorces him and gets on a plane to Paris, sitting next to a handsome Frenchman who asks her to tour the Louvre with him. Her passport sticks out of her bag.
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Do you need a partner? I’m available to exchange feedback.
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Title: Catch Her if You Can
Genre: Romance Drama
Logline: A gay private investigator is asked by her boss to track his wife, whom he believes is having an affair, but when the investigator discovers that the wife is also gay, their relationship develops into something very different from what her boss had envisaged.
Story Summary
Lauren, a gay private investigator, still getting over a breakup with her partner, is asked by her boss, Cal, to track his wife, Sylvia, an architect, whom he believes is having an affair with another man.
When Sylvia realizes what’s going on, she confronts Cal and walks out. Cal has Lauren fired.
When Lauren’s father, Cliff, a construction manager, who knows Sylvia through work, tells Sylvia what her husband did, she is mortified. She goes to Lauren’s apartment to apologize.
Cliff confides to Lauren that Sylvia is gay, and that Lauren’s mother was also gay, although it took her years to come to terms with it. He tells Lauren he believes that Sylvia is a very decent person, despite what happened.
Subsequent social contact between Lauren and Sylvia reveals a growing mutual attraction, but it’s impeded by the years since Sylvia had an intimate relationship with a woman.
Compromised safety standards by the developer on one of Cliff’s projects lead to his injury in an accident. At his hospital bed, as Lauren and Sylvia share their relief at his speedy recovery, the emotional barrier between them begins to fall, but awkwardness still remains on Sylvia’s side.
That awkwardness seems to begin to abate until Cal turns up uninvited at Sylvia’s apartment with some papers to sign, on the very evening that she’s invited Lauren over. Lauren and Cal have an awkward encounter in the elevator lobby as he’s leaving and she’s arriving. Lauren is so unsettled by the encounter with Cal that her meeting with Sylvia goes off track and the two of them part on quite uncomfortable terms, with Lauren having concerns that Sylvia is planning to reconcile with Cal.
Lauren subsequently tells Cliff of her difficulties with Lauren.
After Cliff arranges for his deceased wife’s gay partner to counsel Sylvia on coming to terms with her sexuality, the emotional barrier between Lauren and Sylvia finally falls.
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What I learned from this assignment is that the one pager is far more interesting that the actual script and hence, I guess I’ll have a lot of work to do.
“Plans”
Log Line: A Jewish woman grad student from Boston plunges into the drastically different culture of living on an army base in the deep south and must find purpose for the six years of her black husband’s contract.
One Page – “Plans” – Tom Adams
A recent Masters graduate from Smith College in Boston, Maggie Stein, lively, opinionated, and Jewish, travels into the deep south with her new black husband, Captain Andrew Westbrook, a medical doctor who owes six years of service to the Army in exchange for their paying for his education. In route, they discuss their life plans into which they will leap the moment Andrew is discharged. Maggie is already seeing Ft. Benning, Georgia, in her rear-view mirror.
On their way to their officer housing on base, they see a small child having a seizure. As Andrew is a pediatrician by specialty, they instinctively jump out of the car and aid the boy, and soon after learn that that’s not the way things are done in the Army.
Word quickly travels up the ranks to Major Dunbar, head of the base hospital and Andrews’s new commanding officer. Dunbar can hold a grudge forever.
Andrew and Maggie move into what is their first house together, a compact, cookie cutter ranch with a tiny garden. It doesn’t take them long to learn that the couple immediately next door, Grace and Hawk, are quite possibly the most obnoxious neighbors one could have.
While Andrew goes about integrating with the workflow of his job, Maggie does her best to build friends among the neighbors, starting with Grace and Hawk. While some would say that southerners have let go of their prejudices, they seem to still have feelings about Jews and about blacks. But a Jew and a black? Look out sister.
Meanwhile in Africa, an Ebola strain is running rampant and Ft. Benning is to send a medical unit to treat our soldiers and aid the locals. Dunbar assigns Andrew to travel with the team, pretty much to stick it to him. Hawk is part of the mission as well..
Life without Andrew is sheer hell for Maggie, but she makes the best of it. Grace seems to frequently get in Maggie’s way, particularly when Maggie is about to do something really stupid.
Maggie becomes quite aware of poverty-level sustenance many of the military families endure. She organizes an enterprise which creates high paying jobs and it grows quickly.
Overseas, Andrew discovers that the pharmaceutical they are using is experimental and that Dunbar is basing his retirement on the income from the company’s stock. Snooping around, Andrew and Hawk are detected and Hawk is killed protecting Andrew.
Stateside, Maggie tries to console Grace, who runs off drunk. On Maggie’s way home, a truck almost hits her car, but at the last minute, Grace rams her car into the truck to save Maggie, costing Grace her life.
Andrew returns and blackmails Dunbar for an early discharge. He and Maggie are thrilled to be moving on.
In the closing shot, Grace and Hawk move into a new home on Ft. Hood, Texas. We learn that they are merely angels charged with protecting service families, one at a time.
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Tom do you have a partner to share your work with? We both are military and it looks like you have a Christian theme just like my screenplay. My email is NWencourager@gmail.com. I have a heart for military although AF. My son and grandson are Army. If fact I may be moving to San Antonio this spring or summer. Hope we can connect. Cheers Retired MSgt. Neil Werenskjold
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Hi, Neil. Great idea. I follow up tomorrow, I’m in Chicago shoveling snow at the moment.
Thanks for reaching out. tom@thomaswerks.com
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Mary’s Logline and One-Pager
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is more about condensing my story to the most essential details. I had to resist putting more about character and the dynamics of relationships in. I’m sure it can be condensed some more. The one page is 426 words. Also, I’ve worked on this logline so many times. This made me focus on the absolute core.
Title: A Jumble of Time.
Logline
A wannabe kid baker is transported back to 1777, where her attempts to foil a British plot to end the American Revolution jeopardizes the life of her ancestor .
One Page
Hannah would rather play practical jokes on her uncle than help her family with a boring history reenactment. She concocts wild history stories for tourists about exploding cupcakes instead of honoring the family matriarch, Mary Newport, and her legacy as a famous colonial Philadelphia pastry cook. But Hannah longs to be a championship baker, too. Not the screw-up she has been. The joke is on Hannah when Mary Newport’s 18<sup>th</sup> century recipe book reveals a message in Hannah’s own handwriting. The clues send her back in time to the first Independence Day anniversary, July 4<sup>th</sup>, 1777 where her ancestors are hired bakers.
Mistaken for a lost relative, Hannah is taken in by Mary Newport. But her future very great grandmother 12-year-old Lydia is immediately suspicious of Hannah’s intentions. When the family suffers an attack on their shop from American rebels Hannah realizes her pacifist Quaker ancestors aren’t the ardent patriots of family lore.
Soon, Hannah and Lydia discover a Tory scheme to drug their cakes and kidnap the congress to end the American Revolution. Hannah decides it’s up to her to keep the timeline of history intact. Lydia wants no part of this. In fact, she’d like to keep things just as they are and grows more distrusting of Hannah. Because she is clueless about history, Hannah gets both of them into humorous and dicey situations. In her attempts to ferret out the plotters, Hannah mistakenly accuses Benedict Arnold, and is double-crossed by the real culprits.
When Lydia is poisoned by one of the drugged cakes, Hannah has to decide whether to try to save the timeline of history or her own family line and future self. Her wish to replace the drugged cakes with new cakes and to save Lydia seems doomed. She knows little about 18<sup>th</sup> century baking and less about poison cures. Through persistence and help from a young American soldier and a crusty privateer the tide begins to turn.
After they find an anecdote, Lydia recovers. Lydia helps Hannah to keep the rebel leaders from being drugged too. But the banquet is in less than 2 hours. In the end they foil the plot through a baking frenzy, some sneaky pranks and a food fight. But the plotters escape and the would-be kidnapping never becomes recorded history. Hannah and her friends have saved the American Revolution but no one will know. Hannah and Lydia now feel a sisterly bond and Hannah returns to the future with a better sense of confidence and appreciation of the choices people made during the Revolutionary War.
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Hi Mary. Wondering if you would like to partner up? I love your story and time travel movies have always been on my watch list. I have started one of my own after reading a Tom Hanks short story in his book uncommon type. Will you be teaching us some history in your story ? I will have to brush up on my knowledge of the American Revolution. Jeff
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Sure Jeff,
I’d love your comments. I’m especially interested in how this might be shortened. What are the core aspects as you see it. I’ll look forward to looking at yours today (Thurs.).
Also would love comments from whomever would like to give them and I’ll reciprocate.
~Mary
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How many pages do you have so far?
The core aspects are –
-A child Hannah has a baking family with a baking history.
– she finds the secrets of time travel
– she decides to go back to 1777
– she meets a Lydia a relative and they hatch a plan
-the poison plan is not well thought out and Lydia
Is poisoned but a remedy is found
– they foil the plans with food fights
– Hannah comes back to the future and feels she has gained some wisdom
Looking forward to seeing your 9 steps in the next assignment
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Thanks Jeff. It’s helpful to get your opinion on the core elements. The script has gone through a couple of revisions and the “poisoning” is new. Maybe you’re picking up on something that I haven’t expressed as well.
Yes, on to the 9-points!
Mary
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Try this:
When a wannabe kid baker is transported back to 1777, her attempts to foil a British plot to end the American Revolution jeopardizes the life of her ancestor.
wannabe kid baker could be more clear but you’re on the right track. Your story has potential.
ang
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Thanks Angie, I like your rewording of the logline. Not sure if I need to put this character aspect of my main character in the logline as you are pointing out.
Mary
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Hey Mary, haven’t seen your assignments and hoping you are okay.
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Hi Jeff, I’ve posted in the next days assignments (2,3). A little behind on 4,5. Working on a novel as well so I may be a little slower at times.
~ Mary
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Pam’s Logline and One-pager
What I learned: It was really tough for me to gel my story down! My goal was 500 words; I hope the synopsis for TANGLED UP is easy to follow.
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TANGLED UP is a fish-out-of-water Comedy, written in the vein of blockbusters like SISTER ACT and TRADING PLACES.
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Logline: When a top Hollywood hairstylist witnesses a murder, he’s relocated to rural Vermont and works incognito as a dog groomer to evade the dangerous hitman. In his faux world, he meets his soulmate — but can’t tell her who he really is.
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Hollywood hairstylist HENRI BERGER’s career is on a rocket ship. He was featured in a recent style magazine, the planned keynote speaker for the International Hair Show, and a rising star at the prestigious Marc Riche Salon.
But when the salon’s narcissistic owner, MARC RICHE, sends him to Hollywood A-Lister BRADLEY JAMES’ house on an errand, Henri’s career does a complete 180. He witnesses Bradley’s shocking murder, and later identifies the hitman to a police sketch artist. For his protection, Henri must leave his designer world behind until the killer is behind bars. He’s relocated to Vermont, where he becomes — of all things — a dog groomer.
Henri’s Vermont contact, and only other person who knows his secret, is dog salon owner CAMDEN PARKS. Training Henri is an uphill battle. He doesn’t know his Shih Tzus from Shinola, not to mention his distaste for their messy canine clientele. But motivated by fear, Henri adapts to his new world. Meanwhile, he fixates on solving the mystery behind Bradley’s murder, desperate to return to his “real world” and salvage his career.
When Camden’s sister, ACADIA, meets Henri at the local dog shelter, she thinks he’s a bit much. But when a new rescue needs an emergency makeover, she turns to him. Henri researches cutting-edge grooming techniques and uses his stylist expertise to painstakingly tame his tangled, matted fur — revealing the beauty beneath the beast. Acadia sees Henri in a whole new light.
Henri brings his newfound techniques and some show biz flair to the dog salon and manages to impress even Camden, Mr. Conservative. Meanwhile, Camden is concerned that his sister’s falling for a man with a false identity and a target on his back. As they grow closer, Henri longs to reveal his secret to Acadia, but doesn’t risk it.
While he pieces together clues and offers unsolicited advice to the police, Henri eventually comes to a shocking revelation. Bradley James was not the target after all — he was. And Marc Riche orchestrated the hit! But Henri and the police have no real proof.
Before they can connect Marc to the crime, Henri’s furry coiffures accidentally go viral and his cover is blown. Finding himself between a Rotty and a hard place with no place to hide, he must leave town immediately before Marc’s hired guns close in. If he stays, he risks his life and those close to him. If he leaves, he risks losing the love of his life.Henri decides there’s more risk in leaving than staying, and confronts the Bad Guys head-on, defeating them in a David-and-Goliath type showdown. Goons apprehended, he heads to the International Hair Show in NYC for the ultimate face-off, where he publicly humiliates Marc and provides the proof needed to arrest him.
Now free to return to his old world — he doesn’t. Although he was living a lie, he was able to discover some surprising truths and redefine his own success and happiness.
Camden makes Henri his partner — and, after much groveling and ‘splaining — his relationship with Acadia becomes stronger than ever.-
Hey Pamela,
I’m replying as part of assignment 2 and I really love your synopsis! Reads really well love the doggy puns throughout really helps sell the humour and tone of the piece.
No real critiques to be honest I think it’s really strong and clear. The only area that may need a little clarity was the David and Goliath showdown – perhaps an extra few words on how the Goons were apprehended?
Either way, love the story and looking forward to seeing Tangled Up when it’s in the cinema!
Thanks
Johnny
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Hi, Johnny.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback on my synopsis! You made my day.
You’re right — I did kind of gloss over some of the details towards the end. There is so much to unpack!
Basically, there are some law enforcement types who show up at Henri & Acadia’s Doggie Adoption Fair (site of the big showdown), in anticipation of violence. They take away said goons in handcuffs after Henri beans the main Bad Guy with a dog-biscuit-loaded Chuck-It.
— Maybe I just need to indicate that the police detectives are also in this scene, and ultimately make arrests.
I have some thoughts on your synopsis, I will type them up in the morning.
Best,
Pamela
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Johnny’s Logline and One Page.
What I’ve Learned doing this assignment this that relooking at the core of your story with fresh eyes and a new perspective can have a real impact.
Title: Emerald Fist
Genre: Heart Warming Comedy
Logline: An insecure influencer competes with his estranged half-sister to win prize money in a video game tournament to save his crooked step-father from prison.
One Page:
DIARMUID (13), scared, competes in a tournament of two-player co-op fighting game EMERALD FIST. Following stepfather RICHARD’s example to win at all costs, Diarmuid cheats. He’s caught and humiliated.
TWENTY YEARS LATER Diarmuid is a social media influencer… but on the inside, he’s afraid crippled with a deep sense of inadequacy.
Richard’s long-divorced from ALICE, absentee mother of Diarmuid and his HALF-SISTER MAEVE (12). Richard confesses he’s facing prison for fraud and needs money. If convicted, Diarmuid will have to take custody of Maeve.
Diarmuid’s broke but desperate to avoid this, and learns about an Emerald Fist tournament with a huge cash-prize. He must enter… but it’s too late to find a partner. Who will help him without hesitation? Maeve. Diarmuid and Maeve obliterate opponents, bonding while progressing. But Diarmuid lies to Maeve, keeping secret that he doesn’t want to be her guardian.
Diarmuid’s former gaming-partner KEVIN shocks Diarmuid by teaming up with his old rival MARCUS… beating Diarmuid and Maeve. They must fight their way out of the “loser” brackets. Tension threatens to destroy their relationship, and before the finals Diarmuid reveals the truth: “no-one wants her”.
Diarmuid is offered a big-break TV show where he will have to leave Ireland. To make sure she won’t be left alone, Maeve decides to secretly cheat. They face Kevin and Marcus again, and it’s clear Maeve is cheating.
Diarmuid realises its history repeating itself… so claims he is the cheater. He’s humiliated again, but it doesn’t matter: he has saved Maeve. Richard faces the music, but by twist of fate Alice the estranged mother steps in and bails him out. A brief moment of intergenerational forgiveness.
Diarmuid takes custody of Maeve AND Richard. The two half-siblings become presenters on their own successful streaming platform Full Synchronicity.
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I posted this to wrong spot initially, here it is again :0)
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Hi, Johnny.
Here are my thoughts on your Synopsis:
– Looks like a great 4-Quadrant story! And so many opportunities for family tension, plot twists, betrayals and character arcs.
– I have to admit that I know nothing about the Gaming World, or how cheating is possible. But I can see how that will add more layers to the story.
– Your synopsis reads well. The only thing that I’d like to see more of is the Comedy aspect. Your ending is inherently funny — the son having to take custody of the shady father — LOL! But since I have not read your script, I’m not sure where the other funny moments are.
Are your characters quirky, off-beat, or incongruent etc? If so, can you add in more character description (to hint at possible comedic situations)? Or, are there some funny “trailer moments” you’ve thought about that you could include in your synopsis?
That’s all I can think of for now. Great work!
Pamela
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Title. “Love Does It again”
Logline -Three abbeynormal people find love while creating something that changes the world and you are part of this heavenly caper.
A man who has been working on something in his home for two years and nothing else. He is a haired out grooming mess that eats fast food everyday. His community of friends are worried sick and his friend Stan gives him a book that changes everything. He has listened to a book a day for two years since losing his wife but this book turns on something in him. He sets off to meet the writer Bob and meets him on a skateboard in downtown San Diego. Einstein is his nickname and it’s only 2 pages into the screenplay when he says yes to life again. He says yes to Hedgewood, a beautiful cleaning lady who has a compulsive disorder so bad that she can’t hold a job or anything really. The next day Einstein heads to Home Depot and takes a homeless young man home along with his purchase of trash bags and goods he needs. He gives Dude a job for the day and if he succeeds a pool house room for him to stay on awhile. Einstein continues to work on what people are calling his crazy room while helping Hedgewood and Dude with their new life. Einstein dreams with both of them. One on a wall and one on a magical whiteboard. Friends are coming up with a grand celebration of Einstein coming back to life. In the process of creating businesses Einstein has a huge dream that gets everyone involved including you the audience. A game of bigger and better sets the stage for a huge party in the park. Old ways of doing things are changed forever and something great has begun.
What I learned? It’s pretty scary just throwing your idea out there in the world. Something tells me it will pay off and my script will improve.
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THE LAST ROMANTICS (Episode 1, “Father’s Footsteps”)
Note: THE LAST ROMANTICS is a limited series featuring Irish poet WB Yeats and activist Maud Gonne set in 1890s Ireland. For this class, I will be rewriting the pilot episode. In this episode, Yeats and Maud’s narratives are intertwined, and they won’t meet each until the start of episode 2. For ease of reading, I have kept the two narratives separate.
Logline: Disillusioned youth ‘Willie’ Yeats battles his artist father to forge his creative identity as an Irish bard. Maud Gonne, at the death of her father, overcomes her grief to continue his political mission for Irish independence.
Maud’s storyline:
On a cold Dublin night, Maud (20) and her military father, Tommy Gonne, attempt but fail to save the life an old woman evicted from her tenant farm. In response, Tommy declares to Maud he will resign from the army and run for Parliament as an Irish Home Rule candidate. However, Tommy abruptly dies, leaving Maud in the care of her Aunt Mary, who lives in Paris. There, Maud meets Lucien Millevoye, a French journalist involved in high stakes political intrigue. Maud falls for the married Millevoye and pledges herself to a political alliance with him. When Millevoye’s courier is arrested, Maud jumps in to take his place, hoping to prove her courage and value. She boards a midnight train for a dangerous errand to St. Petersburg; she plies her feminine wiles to outwit a Russian diplomat and successfully foils a counterplot. Pleased with Maud’s resourcefulness, Millevoye devises another mission for Maud to serve his own purposes. But Maud refuses: she has her own agenda. She ventures to London to meet with the leading Irish MP in Parliament, who rejects Maud’s assistance on the basis of being a woman. Discouraged but not deterred, Maud returns to Dublin to persuade John O’Leary, top man of Irish letters, that she could assist him with Irish independence. Yet again, Maud’s offer is rejected on the basis of her sex. She storms out of O’Leary’s salon (crossing paths with an unwitting Yeats). O’Leary rushes after Maud and pleads with her to become the first woman member of his club.
Yeats’s storyline:
Son of the famed painter JB Yeats, ‘Willie’ Yeats (21) realizes he is a failed artist and quits the exclusive art school his father enrolled him in. JB berates him for the waste of tuition and questions his son’s prospects. Willie’s mother, victim of dementia, upsets the household when she attacks her daughters with a rolling pin in the family kitchen. After the outbreak, JB announces his plan to send his wife to an asylum, but Willie puts his foot down, increasing hostilities between father and son. To pursue his quest for mystical knowledge and creative expression, Yeats turns to writing poetry on Celtic heroes and Druid sorcerers. JB provides him an entrée to John O’Leary and his Contemporary Club. Yeats impresses O’Leary with his ambitions to become the bard of modern Ireland. O’Leary invites Willie to recite his poems at the next club meeting. Feeling ornery about his son’s dawning independence, JB taunts Willie for taking on his mother’s backward beliefs in seances and spirits. In turn, Yeats calls out his father for sponging off his in-laws. Irate, JB challenges his son to fisticuffs; an icy standoff ensues. Willie delivers a mesmerizing recital for O’Leary’s gathering. His momentary triumph flattens when he returns home to JB’s inquiry, “Home from another séance?” As he mounts the stairs, Willie sees his mother’s bedroom door is open. In the light of a bedside candle, he sees something strange in her room: She’s climbing out her second story window! Yeats dashes in—will he reach her in time?
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What I learned doing this assignment is that the first step is the hardest!
Secretary’s Day
When a macho construction worker has to take a job as an administrative assistant, he is forced to work with the woman he catcalled.
Nick loves his construction job. The money is good, the work is tough and the beautiful women walking by to call out to are plentiful. Besides this great job, he has Julie, his beautiful girlfriend who wants to spend the rest of her life with him. Everything is perfect…
… until the one fateful day when it isn’t. He is told off by the one cute girl who makes him feel guilty about the catcalling, the entire construction crew is laid off because his boss refused to pay his taxes and he’s forced to move back in with his parents when Julie kicks him out of their shared apartment.
On his mother’s suggestion, he visits an employment office and, thanks to his superfast typing skills (his mom made him take typing in high school), he is sent on an interview to a financial firm, thinking he is interviewing for the mailroom. He is instead hired to be the administrative assistant to the firm’s top earner. In an office.
Completely out of his element in a suit and tie, sitting at a desk, and fetching coffee like the secretary he now is, Nick has a further shock: That cute girl who told him off works there. Awkward. Ella is not at all happy to see him and puts into motion a plan of sabotage to rid herself of this male chauvinist pig.
Nick has the grace to apologize to Ella for being a horrible person and proves himself to be a thoughtful, hard worker. But before he can really make amends, he is fired because of Ella’s sabotage. Ella, realizing that she was as closed-minded as Nick was, vows to get him his job back.
But is it too late? Nick’s old boss is back with promises of a raise and Julie is back pledging her devotion and apologizing for her behavior. Can Ella make Nick see that his new life is so much better than his old one?
After getting their signals crossed and letting their imaginations run rampant, Nick and Ella finally get together and take a few tentative steps toward a relationship.
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Mary’s Logline and One Page Synopsis
What I learned during this assignment was to simplify the synopsis and not include so many details.
Title: Don’t Look Away Isabel
Logline: A coming-of-age drama about a small- town high school girl during the time of Covid-19 who is set to marry her boyfriend and embrace her family’s conservative values. A series of events and relationships jar her out of her complacency as she is faced with racism, injustice and a new love.
Synopsis: Isabel Zuccotti is a senior at Walla Walla High School. She dates Tyler Cramer who is the younger brother of her sister’s new husband, Nathan. Senator Cramer is the boys’ father. Isabel’s father is Tom Zuccotti is a wheat farmer. Both of her parents are not vaccinated. They enjoy watching conservative media.
Isabel makes friends with Jackie McCutcheon, a black girl in her history class. Jackie invites her to come to the book club her mom leads, and they read Caste. Jackie plans to attend UW in the fall. Isabel plans to attend WSU. But she is encouraged to apply at UW by Jackie.
Isabel finds out Tyler is cheating on her when he sees him kissing a girl in Senator Cramer’s office. She breaks up with him. Isabel overhears that Ted Cramer is involved in a campaign finance scandal.
A history assignment leads Isabel to a city hall meeting where masks are required. Senator Ted Cramer is there. City Council member Maria Gonzalez asks him to wear a mask. He refuses and the meeting is postponed. Isabel talks to Gonzalez after the meeting and tells her she did the right thing. She tells Isabel that she is running for state senate against Senator Ted Cramer and Isabel wants to help with her campaign. At a town council meeting where Gonzalez is speaking about farm worker rights, she meets Victor Sanchez. He invites her to canvass for Gonzalez’ campaign and they canvass together.
Isabel’s mom Debby Zuccotti gets sick with Covid-19 ad is put on a ventilator and is intubated. Soon after this Isabel loses vision in one eye as she has suffered from a retinal detachment. During recovery she writes a song called “Look Away,” a song about looking away from injustice.
Graduation is held at the racetrack and students have to stay in their car. With summer, Isabel helps out on the farm. Tyler and Nathan steal Maria Gonzalez’s campaign signs and set off an explosive in her campaign office. The brothers grow shaggy beards and become radicalized.
A fire on Tom Zuccotti’s field occurs and Victor helps round up some local farm water trucks as the other fire trucks are already in use nearby as fires rage during a heat spell. Isabel valiantly saves the farm. Victor is arrested.
Victor is released. Isabel gets into UW. Sen. Ted Cramer and his boys are arrested. Victor and Isabel end on a fabulous date.
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Dear Mary, I like your story concept and it is definitely a story for today. Politics, injustice, dating relationships that don’t work are good conflicts to work with.
It all sounds very logical. Good job. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask.
Would you please read mine and share your ideas? Would you like to partner up or do you already have a partner?
Sincerely, Joan Edwards
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“What I’ve learned doing this assignment is…?”
Refining my story will eventually reveal the essence of it on one page. A skill I need to be successful. This logline structure is a little different from the high concept that was created in the Fearless Class. I feel more comfortable with that concept than this one, but I’m keeping an open mind.Subject: John’s concept and basic structure!
Title: The Last Descendant
Logline: A seventeen-year-old atheist is haunted by Satan’s disciples, because she is the last modern day descendant of biblical Job and must die in order to defeat them.
Ava’s grandmother, Lin, paints ominous biblical portraits in distress, because of nightmares. Lin raises her, because Ava’s mother, Sara, is an abusive alcoholic. Ava visits Sara, unaware that Satan’s disciples stalk her as her mother rejects her and commands her to go home. When Ava arrives home, Lin presents her portraits as visuals to explain the story of Job. This confuses Ava, because she’s an atheist.
When Ava discovers they are his last descendants, she faces Satan’s disciples and their leader, an Evil Man. Ava not only endures his attack, she witnesses her grandmother’s torture as a sacrifice. Archangel Raphael interferes, hurls Evil Man into hell, but it is too late — Ava’s memory of the incident blurs and she is oblivious of the evil chimera blood inside her body. Now, she lives with her abusive alcoholic mother and has blackouts, because Evil Man possesses her which causes her pain and suffering. When Ava realizes the truth of the evil inside her she seeks religious help, but fails, and ends up in a hospital for drug abuse.
In hospital, she experiences more cruelty and constantly fails against the evil forces that converge around her. Finally, Ava asks God for help. Archangel Raphael meets her, explains, the evil inside her survives on hate. Therefore, God grants her a short reprieve from its torture to avert the battle ahead. Her task, she must forgive her mother or she will sacrifice something greater for any last descendant to bear alone. The opportunity arises to complete her task. Unfortunately, her jaundiced skinned sickly mother beats her, then sets her free. Ava’s refuge is her boyfriend Eric.
When Ava’s time expires, Evil Man brutalizes her until she dies. Ava’s soul transports to a living/dead plane. There, Ava forgives her mother, Sara, and heals, just in time to help Ava defeat Evil Man. Once Ava wakes up into the realm of the living, she believes her tribulation is over. She enjoys life, marries Eric in church and becomes pregnant.
Evil Man returns, kills Eric, but Archangel Raphael briefly defeats him to save Ava. The final battle begins when Evil Man tries to consume Ava’s soul along with unborn baby. Ava decides she will sacrifice themselves first, only to wake up in bed as Eric dotes over her. Archangel Raphael, invisible to Eric, speaks to Ava in her head, “Your sacrifice has purpose.” Ava questions, when her face changes to shock, her baby is not just one, but twins who also speak in her head. A twelve-year-old boy and a girl tell her, Archangel Raphael speaks to them, because they absorbed Evil Man’s blood to live.
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What I Learnt: The less information I give the better it reads
Longline:
Amid the preparation of her 15th birthday while coping with the loss of her father to murder the Joan of Arc in a Futuristic post Apocalyptic Era, Janelle Montana secretly assumes leadership to protect humankind against a diabolical mind-control plan, an infectious deadly disease caused by moonlight and unseen legendary monstrous enemies residing on 3030 Planet Earth.
One page
Over the last decade, hundreds of children and teens have disappeared. When the leader of “This World” dies the enemies of the new central Government seek to overthrow it by killing his successor.
Jannelle the current incarnation of Joan of Arc.
Her 15th birthday party is at the core of the action. In the midst of “plotting” a birthday party, we learn that there is something greater at stake beyond a teen’s birthday do. The party is the cover of a big Governmental operation to bring her father’s killers to justice and to expose the child snatchers.
The main villain, and suspected kidnapper is the leader of “The Other World” from a race of unseen beasts sea inhabitants descendants, occupying half the planet. They are highly advanced. However, Jannelle has countless enemies within the human domain, the post-apocalyptic world Mafia bosses of the “Human domain Territory” or “This World” who set about gambling the world ‘s assets in a game of poker, there is speculation proposing that Roberto Montana might be alive and secretly pulling strings.
Later all the mafia bosses lose all their current territory and assets to mysterious and unexpected law enforcement raids. During her birthday, Clarisse; a very close friend of hers is also taken. Frustrated Janelle sets off on an unplanned mission to finish what her father started and unfold the mystery of the kidnappings. She suspects of “The Others” and goes full force against them. Skipping the necessary intelligence process. She intents to take The Others by surprise yet the surprise will hit her much stronger than she could have imagined.
Defeated by the Others she is returned home only to find that those betraying her are much closer to home than she thought.
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Hi Sylvia,
I also have sci-fi, though more realistic. We could exchange for feedback still, if you wish.
I do the same, I put a lot of everything into story. Is this just how it ends, she finds who betrayed her, or it continues?
Isn’t fifteen too young for a hero? Won’t it be better if she would be 21?
How does she fights them and how survives when defeated?
When they gamble, who they lost territory to?
Does she uncover a secret, and what follows?
Thank ypu, story is nice still, though dramatic.
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Hi, Johnny.
Here are my thoughts on your Synopsis:
– Looks like a great 4-Quadrant story! And so many opportunities for family tension, plot twists, betrayals and character arcs.
– I have to admit that I know nothing about the Gaming World, or how cheating is possible. But I can see how that will add more layers to the story.
– Your synopsis reads well. The only thing that I’d like to see more of is the Comedy aspect. Your ending is inherently funny — the son having to take custody of the shady father — LOL! But since I have not read your script, I’m not sure where the other funny moments are.
Are your characters quirky, off-beat, or incongruent etc? If so, can you add in more character description (to hint at possible comedic situations)? Or, are there some funny “trailer moments” you’ve thought about that you could include in your synopsis?That’s all I can think of for now. Great work!
Pamela
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Alice’s Logline and One Page
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is…
I’m not sure if I do this correctly, as I give too much of prehistory. It possibly might be incorporated. It is only given by characters description as yet in scenario.
Title: REVOZVRANDER
Everything falls as cardboard box when a small group of casted society descends into underground shelter for a century long snowfall, appearing at the epicenter of destruction of their planet Revozvrander.
Two small in size planets orbit huge sun. Slider has it at Stone Age tribal state. Spinner on another hand has techno society with caste division and genetic problems. These people are last holders of Truth, as they are given higher knowledge by Cosmic Civilization of another planet, went destroyed, doing scientific experiment. Spinner turns so quickly that part of its population turns autistic and is called Mindless. Higher Caste is in its turn divided into Keepers, Maintainers, necessary dark-haired, and Guards, necessary blond, also Females. Some people just belong to Higher Caste.
Periodically, Spinner alleviates so far from its sun that it turns into long winter. This time increases, and now they face a number of centuries of winter ahead. Now all population is to descend into underground shelter to spend it there.
Group of people, consisting mostly of Keepers Quartz and Lime family chooses small shelter at the North. They descend with a number of Mindless they are to guard for, and Disheveled, third caste, despised but necessary to provide medical help.
But as they descend, they meet unexpected obstacle, which is anomaly of the shelter. Their children would neither sleep nor eat. However Mindless refuse to exchange the dwelling, not having discrimination.
Keepers decide to research the subject and install IDENTIFIER, calculating machine, before they where supposed to.
Meanwhile Omnivol of Disheveled works on her scientific “discovery”. She also needs Identifier, to program nanoparticles in magma she connected with plaster, ever expanding matter. Experiment becomes dangerous, and she wants quickly use it, infuse into someone. She’s cautious and chooses one of teens for her aim.
During research she carries, Star finds information on time machine conducted experiment. Future of Revozvrander is impenetrable! Time machine won’t let it through, as that would bring to Paradox. Zones close gradually, and their shelter is amid first areas to close.
Using and creating havoc, Omnivol makes it for her experiment, and hides the ends. But “monster” she created, infusing into dead Diamond is still week.
Keepers send Star with BATTERY info holder to Stone, their friend who resolved to leave Spinner for Slider, so that knowledge would be preserved.
As Omnivol gets investigated, one of Disheveled turns everything out of the planting box. Monster roots into sand floor and rises on the stem up to the shelters ceiling! Mindless insist on Crystallon touch the THING, as he proposed. As he touches it, monster starts growing. It absorbs any organic matter! The Thing springs offshoots and brunches, destroying electricity. Survived group of Higher Caste takes elevator up, running away.
When they descend back, they find Thing fills all free space of underground, and that Omnivol programmed it via Identifier. Lime pulls out programming card, and Thing starts grow fast, destroying underground, planet on top, and penetrating it through. Only logs of ugly brunches now are at the place of Spinner.
But Stone gets to Slider to gradually evolve tribal society into techno one.
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What I learned from this assignment: I really need to solidify Annie’s motivations to enhance her character.
Success
Logline – Annie leaves Topher because his actions remind her of her mother’s worthless boyfriends. They both must succeed on their own, him in business her in love then life, before they can appreciate each other.
Annie leaves Topher and he wants her back. On the theory that rich is never boring, he attends a success seminar where he learns tips such as: Walk fast and carry something. People remember the front end. Posture, your first impression. The seminar teaches him how to look productive. Which makes him more productive. Instead of getting Annie back, Topher lands a job in Memphis, far away from Annie in Charlotte.
Annie establishes new relationships, accidentally visits second base with another woman, catches her boyfriend cheating on her, leaves him naked and alone while she goes drinking with his date. When the bank where she works gets robbed she’s laid off, and her roommates move to the beach. Depressed, Annie visits Topher in Memphis. His new confidence, and new skills in bed slam her trigger in the dirt. When he leaves for a required round of business golf she spends her time with her new love, his excellent bathtub, reading Topher’s book from the seminar.
Shocked, she realizes that she left Topher because his attitude back then reminded her of her mother’s boyfriends. Life shouldn’t revolve around a man. She should be her own woman, so she starts a clown vendor business. She doesn’t sell clowns. She sells lunch from a vendor cart dressed as a silent, sexy clown. Her business grows and allows her to buy part ownership in a restaurant.
Topher’s uncle brings him to Charlotte to offer him leadership of Jones Engineering. A long-time friend takes him to see Annie. They eat watching her work.
After the last straw at his job, Topher moves back and accepts managing his uncle’s firm but doesn’t contact Annie. So, his long-time friend arranges for them to attend a business supper at her restaurant. They reconnect. Topher invites her to a trip, maybe marriage.
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Joan Edwards Logline and One Page Summary
What I learned is that simplicity is important. It is also important to keep the significant ingredients of the story in your screenplay summary.
Romantic-Comedy
I look forward to partnering with one of you!
Logline:
Will Fred be able to restore his marriage as The Perfect Couple when even his mother disowns him when he serves his wife divorce papers on Dr. Bill’s Show on national television on Valentine’s Day?
One Page Summary
Friends nominate Fred and Alicia Silverman as THE PERFECT COUPLE. Fred’s hair is coming out. He’s afraid he’s going to die at 45 like his father did.
Alicia owns Allure hair salon. She refuses to use Fred as her barber and hires young and handsome Marvin to shave men and cut their hair to attract more stars to her salon. She uses their joint savings account to pay for remodeling her salon without Fred’s knowledge.
Fred’s friend, Dan has divorced and seems to be happy with girls all around him in the bar. Fred decides to divorce Alicia.
Rick serves Alicia divorce papers on Dr. Bill’s Show on national television on Valentine’s Day right right after Dr. Bill announces Fred and Alicia as The Perfect Couple.
World-wide media finds out what a rat, Fred is. He loses his real-estate job. His friends won’t talk with him. His own Mother disowns him and takes him out of her will.
Fred stays at the Homeless Shelter. He befriends the homeless: cuts their hair and helps them receive training and clothing for job interviews. Fred starts a realty company to help get inexpensive housing for homeless and sets up a trust fund to help the homeless in the Los Angeles area.
Alicia wins Entrepreneur of the Month with a local business group. Fred dresses as rat begs Alicia to accept him back. Alicia shreds divorce papers. Alicia and Fred renew their wedding vows and spend a week together at home to rebuild their relationship.
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Art’s logline and one page. I learned from this that cutting out a ton of detail improves the read. Also, it seems like quite a few of you folks are working on similar things, universal consciousness perhaps?
THE FUTURE LIES BURIED IN THE PAST
A young career woman, paralyzed by recurring nightmares involving another woman from a far-off time who was raped, gets the shock of her life when her DNA ancestry service informs her of new DNA relatives, and one distant cousin has the same face and name as the rapist from her distant-past dream.
Inherited trauma, MATTIE’S best friend, JENNIFER, a psychologist grad student, calls it. She begs her not to contact this distant relative. Her parents want her to leave well enough alone, too. And the young woman suffers from so much trauma already, she agrees to just drop it.
But the dreams won’t stop. And the curiosity overwhelms her.
She e-mails the man and what she learns stuns her. The past holds a secret. Unraveling it may finally bring peace to the girl in her dreams but may also put her own life at risk.
Mattie’s dream is this guy’s family legend. The dream takes place in the final days of the Civil War. It involves a band of renegade Union deserters who plundered her estate and had with them stolen gold that was lost and never recovered.
The only one who knows what became of the gold is the girl of Mattie’s dreams. Maybe Mattie can unlock that secret, end dream-girl’s trauma and make her rich to boot.
So begins Mattie’s journey. Back to the plantation in Mississippi where it all began. And with the super-friendly nice man who couldn’t possibly be the reincarnation of the man who so violently raped the girl of her dreams. Or could he?
The stuff of dreams just got real.
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Hi Art. I’m Alice. I like movies with hidden part in them, like your story. Maybe we might exchange.
I think, maybe it’s better if main hero would be called Jennifer, and her friend psychologist Mattie? Is woman in her dreams different from her, I guess, or she won’t contact him. It is obvious that story has to repeat itself, but with different outcome? Does she defeats him with her wit, been educated, and would her friend play part again?
And would she find gold? It’s interesting. And then what her adversary would do, unless he’s already in chains?
I pretty much like detective stories. I don’t mind to partner with a number of people for feedback.
Thanks
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Jacqueline Murphy Logline and One Page! February 2, 2022
What I learned? By tuning back into my story and thinking about the “core” it help to fine tune it and see what is important and pare it down. The “separating out” and looking at it in a “new” way, not being so attached but too see how to elevate and rethink what the story really is!
Title: “Sorceress of Hollywood” is a one-hour Serial Fantasy Drama
Logline: A modern day actress makes a Faustian deal with the Devil to go back in time as a successful 1940’s actress, where she stumbles upon who she “really” is AND a hidden talent she has, that allows her to navigate between the past and present and affect the outcome of every era in Hollywood but will she be able to give up her dream of stardom?
In the Vein of La La Land meets Quantum Leap meets Shadow and Bones or Discovery of Witches
It’s about Olivia Spencer, a headstrong and aging, adventuress actress who is triggered into action with the death of her mom. Olivia never knew her “real” dad and Olivia’s mom has gifted her with a family heirloom- a rare “kaleidoscope” from the 1940’s, the only object she has of her dads.
It follows Olivia Spencer, frustrated by the reality of “making it” as a successful actress in modern day LA, she fantasizes about being a glamorous Hollywood movie star from the 1940’s. After losing another major role, she tearfully confides to her best friend Angelica and is overheard by a handsome devil named “ASH” who seduces her with his magical tarot card readings and his charms. Olivia makes a deal with “ASH” to realize her “dream”. She travels back in time to The Cicada Club, the hottest jazz nightclub in old Hollywood. Olivia’s dreams begin to come true but all is not what it seems as she tries to navigate the Old Hollywood movie studio system and is hurtled into a world of danger, desire, fear and heartbreak. Will she learn to survive in this new world and be able to face who she really is?
As Olivia tries to make it in the “Old Hollywood Dimension” she teeters on the edge of danger, passion and desire BUT Olivia discovers her own “hidden talent” for magic and time travel that allows her to “realize” her dream of being a glamorous movie star but at a price. The Old Hollywood dimension pulls Olivia, her friends and family into it and brings out your deepest desires that can become your worst nightmare. Olivia must decide if fame is what’s really important or pursuing your true purpose.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Jacqueline Murphy.
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Hi Jacqueline – I just wanted to give you encouragement for “Sorceress of Hollywood” – I think it’s a great concept and immediately envision the cutting between modern scenes in color and 1940s scenes in black & white. I look forward to seeing how it develops!
I’m slightly behind getting started on this course but should be able to post my Logline and One Page tomorrow for a film script called “Ghosts of You”, which I wrote a couple years ago about a woman who wakes up in a parallel universe.
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Hi Robert, Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m just seeing this now: As I had a change in schedule and all just be posting & Doing assignments on my own. Wishing you so much luck and hope to work together at some point in the future! Warmly, Jacqueline
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
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What I learned doing this assignment is …the third time is the charm and this looks better…
Subject: Neil’s Logline and one page outline
Logline: Two unrelated military reserve families on the verge of divorce inadvertently and unbeknown to each others spouse humorously begin to find solace from the other family’s spouses before the deployment turns deadly.
1. Opening <div>
Meet the four main Characters.
Bill and Mary
Tom and Samantha (Sam)
2. Inciting Incident
Mary screams at Bill she wants a divorce just as Bill is leaving in the early morning for a military deployment.
We find out Tom and Sam are already separated.
3. By page 10, you know what the movie is about.
Should each couple divorce?
4. First turning point at end of Act 1
Bill and Sam are team members and have a history.
Mary meets Tom for the first time in a snow storm when Tom stops to help her.
5. Mid-Point
Bill and Sam are listening to each other and beginning to draw close. Both wondering about the other as a spouse.
Tom helps Mary with snow removal at her house and finds out she needs some repairs done to the house. Mary begins to size-up Tom for her new husband.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2
Bill and Sam working together have a close encounter in their underwear during an Army drill where they are packed into a crowded bomb shelter without any lights but pushed together and against the sandbag walls.
Tom arranges for a new dishwasher and new door to be installed at Mary’s house. They have dinner together with the working crew that Mary fixes in thanks for everyones help. Tom is the last to leave after splitting a bottle of wine.
7. Crisis
Bill and Sam are shot up in an ambush and medevaced home to a local hospital.
8. Climax
Tom and Mary meet in the hospital hallway outside the hospital chapel where they each found out independently their spouse was suppose to be. They get tangled up entering the door and see Bill in a wheelchair holding something over his head and Sam on crutches aggressively trying to get it. She falls into Bills lap just as the door explodes open. All four with a stupid grin on their faces untangle from their close friends. Just as a spirited Black Chaplain comes pushing through the door and realizes he just interrupted something. “Did I miss something?” As they finish untangling from the wrong partners.
9. Resolution The chaplain takes control and watches the couples heart felt apologizes to each other for all their recently realized missteps in their marriages. The Chaplain ends with a pray of thanks for this Divine moment and he didn’t have to preach.
</div>
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Neil Werenskjold.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
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What I’ve learned doing this assignment is what a longline is. I’d never heard of a longline until this assignment.
Essence of Betrayal and Deception
Logline:
When a desperate and controlling woman and her meek husband try for a baby girl to only find out she suffers from infertility. The couple tries for years as their relationship gets test. When finally pregnant the baby is born a boy. The new borns gender is changed shortly after birth while the mother tries to keep the surgery a secret from the child and the world.
One page:
Mia White a 34 year old, middle class white woman who met her husband Shaun White at the age of 24. The couple has been married for 10 years and trying to conceive a child for seven of those years. Not only is the couple faced with relationship issues but the struggle of trying to conceive a little girl. After many years of disappointment, miscarriages, tubal pregnancies, surgeries and more Mia is finally pregnant. Mia has always known that she’d be a girl mom. Due to so much hurt and pain with the relationship and infertility it causes lots of damage between the couple. They were hopeful the baby would bring the two back together but it did the complete opposite. Mia was so sure of the gender she did not allow anyone to kn ow the gender of the b baby because she was positive it was a girl. When the baby was born she received some shocking and devastating news. Mia delivered a happy baby boy. Mia was still referring the the baby as a girl and calling him Olivia. This caused even more conflict for the couple because Shaun did not like what Mia was doing. Mia and Shaun shortly after got in a huge fight because Mia went behind Shauns back and Scheduled the baby an illegal sex reassignment surgery. Shaun was so furious by the way Mia was acting so him and his sister who lived with them packed an overnight back and left. Mia went through with the surgery and. Moved to another state where she raised her daughter Olivia. When Olivia was 16 she got into a car accident where she was knocked unconscious. When the hospital called Mia she did not answer so they called Shaun next. Shaun showed up at the hospital ready for a relationship with his child. When he arrived he soon found out Mia went through with the surgery. Shaun wanted to tell Olivia about the surgery but Olivia did not have anything to say to Shaun because he missed the first 16 years old her life. Shaun and Olivia got into a small altercation and as he was leaving try hospital he said to Olivia ask your mom the truth. Olivia didn’t know what the meant but what he said never left her head. Shaun and Olivia eventually met up and Shaun gifted Olivia with a box. Inside the box was a paper that told her she was born a boy. Shaun told Olivia what her mother did and Olivia stormed out of the house and drove away. She met a transgender lady while she was out. She went out and took drugs. While she was out she discovered that the medicine she was taking that she was told was for ADHD was actually a hormone blocker. The next morning after sobering up Olivia was not ready to speak to her mother so she called Shaun to pick her up because she left her car at a restaurant. Shaun took her home where she discovered her mother left. She wrote her a note telling her she did not want to go to jail and felt she ruined her life enough so it was best she leave.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Ymani Boatright.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
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Hi Jeff,
Your characters sound very interesting and quirky, and different enough in their quirks to make for some interesting situations. In your logline, I think it would help it if you give us more specifics/hints as to the “something that changes the world” and you could leave off the “and you are part of”.
For the core elements mostly my suggestions are to be more specific and to see if you can flesh out the later acts.
For the specific parts what I mean is… I understand that this man has been working intently on something…if this is for a producer I’d want to know more about what it is. I’d like to know how the “book changes everything in his mind”. Later I’m curious about what their dreams are?
I’m not sure if Einstein is our protagonist’s nickname or Bob’s nickname. As I read on, it becomes more clear Einstein is the protagonist. Giving us his name up front will be helpful.
For the core aspects I see more attention on the set up and less on the later parts. I’m wondering what you see as the biggest dramatic question? Will Einsten be able to____?
My curiosity is aroused in what you have written. Keep going! This has potential!
Mary
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Title: Twisted Lily
Genre: Horror
Logline: Honeymooning in an off-the-grid town, an ex-NASA scientist discovers the nightmare world of a possessed ice cream man … and that his new bride made a deal with the devil to ensure their family’s future in the new world.
Story Summary
Winston, a suicidal ex-NASA scientist, goes on one last benderat his previous headquaters before tying the knot iwith the love of his life, Lilly, a scorned environmental ethicist.
But both Lily and Winston’s nasty sides come out when she suspects Winston of being untruthful about his sobriety and him being fed up with her not accepting infertility. As a result, the honeymoon is almost over before it begins.
As the newlyweds settle into the town in which Lily grew up, a town in which her late father, Sylvester Wiltzey, a tycoon of the ice cream world, built his dynasty, Winston’s solo mission to get a feel of Lily’s hometown turns into him discovering the town is ruled by crazed children who worship a possessed ice cream man!
To Winston’s dismay, he ascertains that all the children are morphed adults via the ice cream delights by covertly witnessing Father Zachery – the priest who wedded him and Lily – desperate pleas for his returned youth from the ice cream man.
Unexpectedly, with the help of one of the children who has taken kindly to Winston, Winston instincts kick in and rushes back to rescue Lily and get the hell out of dodge! But the ice cream kids are on their tails and need to shake them and hide out.
While Lily nervously awaits for Winston to return, she instead gets a visit from her late father – the possessed ice cream man! – who reminds her of the deal they made: bring him a new host (Winston) and he will grant her a child in the new world.
At the core, Lily is a kind soul and has a change of heart, makes the bold decision to unf**** the deal she made with the devil and hopes to disentangle Winston from becoming the new ice cream man. But the ice cream man is privy to her change of heart – because he is her father after all – and captures her as bait for Winston to come to him.
When Winston finally gets to Lilly, she is being force fed ice cream as punishment for the deal going awry. Lily is Winston’s world and would do anything for Lily, even if it means offering up himself to the ice cream man to save her –
But lo and bold, a child version of Fathery Zachery swoops in to distract the ice cream man so that Winston and Lily can escape!
Lily and Winston narrowly evade the ice cream man and, with Lily’s knowledge of physics and the environment, leads all the ice cream children and ice cream man to a nearby river where they all barrell into and deliquesce. But this doesn’t work on the ice cream man, who is, unbeknownst to Lily, is void of the devil and her father again!
Years later, Lily sits on her porch of their beautiful country house with Winston, enjoying a nice ice cream float as their daughter dashes out into the front yard to join all the other children of the town…
… a town in which Wisnton is the new ice cream man!
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Here’s my logline and one page for the new script that I will rewrite.
CHASING CULTURES, an action screenplay
Logline: As a dangerous hurricane tracks northward, a rookie NYC detective uncovers a plot to blow up the UN building, financed by stolen antique art sales.
During the Iraq war, there is fighting in the streets. Thieves break into the National Museum in Bagdad and steal an ancient clay tablet with the story of Gilgamesh incised on it. In Manhattan, a TV news shows a storm forming in the Caribbean. NYC rookie Detective Susan overhears a man talking about a stolen tablet in a Christie’s auction. Her boss tells her to ignore the conversation since there is no proof of any crime. The storm grows into a tropical storm. Thieves steal a valuable painting from a La Guardia cargo bin and Susan’s assigned the case. She follows the trail, traces fingerprints, finds one off the thieves. Interrogates him, has to let him go. He tells the mob boss about Susan. They sideswipe her on a highway but she’s not hurt.
A subplot: The mayor of NYC is a hidden villain. At an auction, the mayor meets the director of Christies. He tells her that they should speak in private. After shutting the door to a conference room, he grabs her ass and kisses her. She slaps him. He says, you’ll regret that, as she hurries out. The next day, the mayor tells his aide to research her finances. A week later, he puts a report on the mayor’s desk. There are suspicious deposits in her bank account from an art gallery. She has been taking bribes and using the money to pay her mother’s nursing home bills. The mayor tells her that he wants part of the money. She unhappily agrees.
The storm takes a northward turn. The terrorists decide to kidnap Jane, Susan’s wife, who tells them that Susan overheard the rug store owner’s conversation and the antique panel at the auction was stolen from a museum in Iraq. They leave a ransom note for Susan and kidnap Jane. The storm will hit NYC in 6 days. Susan finds the note, finds the mob boss owns a warehouse, takes a squad there. Gun fight with the thieves. Susan shoots the mob boss who dies. She finds the stolen painting from LGA cargo plus more antiques and invoices with the rug store letterhead. Susan interrogates the store owner who says nothing.
Susan goes back to Christies, tells the director that the painting from LGA Cargo was recovered, can go in the auction. And there were stolen antiques in the warehouse, destined for the auction. Still no proof the tablet was stolen. She almost tells him about the mayor but stops.
Susan looks at bank records from the rug store, finds purchases from sports stores. She goes to the stores, finds semi-automatic gun purchases. Storm off Outer Banks. She calls the FBI, who tell her there are links to Pakistani terrorists at the rug company. She interrogates the rug store owner, beats him up. Finds guns stored in carpet rolls. Finds photos of the UN building. Finds phone numbers and lists of men’s names. All have Middle Eastern names.
Susan realizes an attack could be in motion so she heads to the UN. Hurricane winds pummel the streets. Susan and her men can barely stand upright. They follow Susan up the ramp to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, Susan finds wounded and dead UN guards. Shots can be heard from behind the Hall doors and from the 3rd and 4th floors. Susan leads a team up to the 4rd floor balcony. They throw grenades inside that kill four terrorists. One lives but is wounded. Susan grabs him hits him with her gun and he falls back unconscious.
Susan and the team speed down to the 3rd floor balcony. They kick the doors open, guns firing. Six terrorists lie dead on the balcony floor. A dozen terrorists aim their guns and surround one hundred cowering hostages in the middle of the Hall. Team Member 2 gives a backpack to Susan who opens it and passes out smoke bombs to five officers. The two officers throw the smoke bombs towards the terrorists in the center of the Hall. Susan turns on the gas and it flows through the tubing. The terrorists are surprised as smoke fills the room. They panic and shoot at the doors. Susan and Team Member 2 rush away from the doors as bullets come flying through. They each stand on either side of the doors.
In the Hall, a fight has broken out as the hostages fight with the terrorists. One terrorist shoots a hostage who falls to the floor. The fighting stops as everyone is engulfed in smoke. Two terrorists grab hostages. The leader pushes his hostage with his gun barrel and goes through back doors at the end of the Hall. Six other terrorists grab hostages and follow their leader. The smaller room is used as a reception suite and for conferences. The terrorists lock the door and point their guns at the hostages. Susan and her officers storm into the main hall and shoot a dozen terrorists. Several men try to escape but are captured. Susan pipes gas into the Reception suite. Everyone in the room falls asleep. Susan and her men run into the Reception Suite and handcuff the terrorists.
Papers found in the terrorists homes showing bribes paid to art dealers and to the director of Christies. Susan interviews the director who confesses and asks for clemency. Susan interviews the mayor who doesn’t. The mayor is arrested. The director is given probation. The tablet goes back to the museum in Iraq. Susan and her wife attend the Christie’s auction. They clink flutes with the director.
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Hi Katharine,
I realize I’m a bit late to the class but I really enjoyed the premise of your film. I’m working on a “Buddy Road-Trip” style comedy so tonally our projects are relatively different, which is appealing to me. I’ve posted my first and second assignments. If you’d like to collaborate on feedback / etc let me know.
Thanks so much,
Jon
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*This is a TV pilot* What I have learned: I see how outlining can help save a lot of rewriting down the road.
Covenant
Logline: A recently deceased girl and her accidental killer team up with an angel to save their respective families from looming disasters.
Alexandra (Alex) Hughes is in the fight of her life. A car she was driving killed Shea MacKenna, a child actress, and put her sister Evie in intensive care. While on trial for killing Shea, the girl’s ghost follows her, and Alex’s attempt to ignore her is becoming increasingly difficult.
Having promised Evie to look out for her daughter, Cassie, Alex gets into increasingly confrontational situations with her father, Jax, until he skips town with Cassie.
Her smart-aleck roommate Lola has her own issues as she tries to connect with a new man and act as a go-between to Alex’s ex-husband and his new girlfriend, Tasha, who also happens to be Alex’s former best friend.
Alex finally connects with Shea after she and her Guardian save Evie from dying. Alex learns that Shea’s brother, Sammie, is being abused by his babysitter, and since Shea can’t seem to be seen by anyone but Alex, she is desperate for her to help.
During the trial, it looks bad for Alex due to her alcohol levels and the fact that the car was hit from behind. We get to know the MacKenna family and see Sammie’s distress with his babysitter, Joyce.
Alex learns that Joyce has a history of unstable behavior, and attempts to directly intervene to save him from Joyce. The Guardian appears and forbids interference in human affairs. He is touched by Shea’s desperation and asks her if she wishes to enter into a covenant and join a society that sacrifices their entrance to heaven in order to stay on earth and help the helpless.
Shea accepts and Alex says she wants to join as well to save her sister’s life. The Guardian reluctantly agrees and Sammie is saved from Joyce’s attack.
Cassie almost dies from Jax’s neglect, and he calls Alex to come get her. The accident specialist clears Alex of responsibility for the accident since Mrs. MacKenna’s car hydroplaned and swung around to crash into Alex.
Alex is found not guilty, and the Guardian enlists Shea and Alex to begin their new duties as champions of the helpless.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by SHEILA DIONNE.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by SHEILA DIONNE.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by SHEILA DIONNE.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by SHEILA DIONNE.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
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This course has provided the following templates for loglines. A strong narrative comes from a compelling logline and helps to nail down the core of the story. Try these and choose your best effort. Irony in a logline, and in a title, is a plus.
Protagonist (has problem) and (must achieve goal) to solve that problem.
Protagonist has (a goal) but (major obstacle) stands in his/her way.
(Situation) causes (main character) to face (largest obstacle) and (outcome)
“There are two ways to change the world:
words on a page and video on a screen.”My script deals with rape. Due to the sensitive nature, I do not plan to post on the forums. I would greatly appreciate feedback from both points of view- male and female. If you are interested in partnering, please contact me.
I am a paid reader/analyst/consultant. I enjoy helping writers improve their scripts and skills.
I love questions.
ang
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Angie Sills.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
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The Code Magician
When his best friend is murdered by the KKK, a young black college grad is impelled to leave the security of his 1930s Southern roots to fulfill his friend’s mission of improving their racial station in life only to find his journey has uncovered decoding secrets prior to World War II that could topple the American President.
It’s the year 2005.
Chris and Alice Marks attend a funeral of a 90-year-old black man – Eddie Lincoln – who has left them his meager effects in his handwritten will. Since they had never met the deceased, they’re puzzles. They know he was a friend with their father, Naval Commander Lee Marks, but that was back before World War II.
The story returns via flashback to the time when Eddie just graduated from college and planning to teach school and raise a family in a small town in South Carolina, “just like all his ancestors before him had done.” His Northern-born friend, Jaz, from college, insists Eddie join him in his passionate goal – improving the station of his race in pre-Civil Rights Movement America. He sees it coming and wants Eddie to go where they can make a name for themselves to lift the image of the black man.
It is only after the brutal murder of Jaz by the Ku Klux Klan that Eddie wrestles with a major decision: to stay home with his plans for a peaceful small time and small-town life – or — pursue and fulfill Jaz’s mission which is broader in scope and lesser in security. He decides to take the mission so important to his friend. He’s uncertain where he’s going or how he’ll get there, but he’s confident he’ll know it when he sees it.
In that pursuit, and as a civilian clerk in the U.S. Army, Eddie is discovered to have exceptional abilities in math which can be used in the Army’s secret Signal Corps – decoding Japanese messages leading up to World War II. The “Magic” program continues to develop, and Eddie is a key player in its evolution that leads to beforehand knowledge of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Eddie sees this expertise as a pathway to accomplish the now dual goal of his friend, Jaz, and himself. Along the way he is confronted with the Antagonist, Colonel Rufus Fall who only uses Eddie for the benefit of Fall’s own mission, to become wealthy beyond belief by using the decoding secrets to create that wealth. And Fall will destroy or kill anyone in his way.
Also, along the way, Eddie becomes romantically involved with Mollie, a white woman who likewise becomes entangled in the decisions and conflicts Eddie encounters at the highest levels of government, including the White House.
Finally, Eddie is again put to a major decision: revealing his knowledge prior to December 7, 1941, of the imminent Japanese attack or Pearl Harbor – or — remaining silent so as to allow President Roosevelt to use the event to motivate Americans to enter into an unwanted war then raging in Europe.
The main story is interrupted from time to time by the fast forwards to the thoughts and activities of Chris and Alice Marks in more current times. The ending of the movie has a twist also that resolves into knowledge that Eddie’s journey was successful.
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Aurora’s Logline and One Page
What I learned: It takes a lot of effort to cut out the detail and cut down a story to its essence.
Script Title: Book of Trouble
Logline: A successful international businessman accused of human trafficking, and drug smuggling, struggles with his identity when trying to figure out the cause of his sudden cascading business failures and personal losses, after he is kidnapped by his former board members who are trying to force him to take the criminal rap.
One Page: ALAN CHAMBERLAIN (55) a wealthy international businessman and philanthropist , hides out from creditors and police trying to figure out the cause of a trio of crushing disasters, including loss of his ten children and employees in a fire. Alan is harassed by the Imps, a druggie gang. His wife, BARBARA, (50) curses him for his apathy, as she is focused on the orphans of their dead employees. She sends Alan to a rescue mission on a bus, trailed by Lena (14), the oldest orphan, but the mission bus is hijacked by the Imps.
Alan and Lena are jailed at an abandoned Movie Ranch. Attempting escape, Alan is beaten, his wounds tended to by Joshua, a mute vet and autistic Michael, from the rescue mission, who are also hostages.
It’s an intervention by Alan’s three board members: his foster son/accountant LUCIEN (38), MERCEDES (48) manager of his Argentinean orphanage and HARRY (65) recovered alcoholic, head of Alan’s ranching operations. The three blame Alan for the sudden disasters and collapse of their enterprise. They arguing bad things don’t happen to good people, urging him to take the rap for underlying crimes, and implying he should kill himself so the key man insurance policy can be collected. Lucien claims not only Interpol but the FBI is looking for Alan, but claims to be sympathetic to his mentor. Lucien alleges prior to the fire Alan’s eldest son’s home, seeing a drug lab in the basement. Lena explains how she escaped from a Cartel leader in Argentina, and smuggled into the US by Mercedes. Mercedes says she received notes from Alan directing her to do it. Harry insinuates Alan has FMD (Foot & Mouth disease)from illegally importing an infected sheep. Alan raises three questions, in which any of the board could be implicated:
Who
orchestrated the sale of a child from Alan’s Argentinean orphanage to the
cartel?
Were
Alan’s adult children killed by accidental drug lab explosion or were they
murdered?
How
could his sheep ranch get infected with a new virus that also kills
humans?The Imp gang continues to torment Alan but several of them contract sores similar to those covering Alan’s body. When the Imp leader tells Alan he is an undercover cop, Alan tells Mercedes.
The wildfire visibly approaches. At night Lucien offers Lena wine and expresses inappropriate interest in her. Lena’s wine is used for communion by the foursome in the jail and Alan is cleansed in the swimming pool and baptized by Joshua. When Lucien and Harry get high in the hot tub, Lucien makes a supernatural explanation for the cause of Alan’s disasters, which Alan overhears.
The next day the Imp leader is found hanged and the three board members gone. When the Imps attack, Joshua quickly puts on Alan’s old clothes and is lanced and dragged away in his stead. Alan attempts to escape with Lena and Michael climbing up the mountain. Imps chase on motorcycles but miraculously a bloody Joshua reappears on horseback to draws them off. Hiding in the boulders, the three are drawn out by the sound of Lucien’s vehicle. However Lucien demands the girl and splashes gasoline. Joshua reappears, causing Lucien to ignite himself. As the fire races up toward them, an air tanker drops Foschek and they are picked up by Harry in a police helicopter.
Alan & his wife reunite and adopt all the orphans. Alan becomes wealthier than ever.
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Thank you for your response. I will appreciate your input. Your story looks interesting. My email is acsills.scripts@gmail.com Do you use google docs? If so, what is your email address that you use for gdocs?
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Thank you for your response. I will appreciate your input. Your story looks interesting. My email is acsills.scripts@gmail.com Do you use google docs? If so, what is your email address that you? use for gdocs
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Aurora’s Logline and One Page (revised)
What I learned: First things first. Need to get that one page foundation straight.
Script Title: Book of Trouble (Yes this is modern retelling of the Book of Job.)
Logline: A wealthy international rancher trying to discover the reason for his suddenly catastrophic losses, is kidnapped by his board members, to force him to admit crime and commit suicide.
ALAN CHAMBERLAIN (55) a wealthy businessman, hides out from criminal investigators, hoping to figure out the cause of a trio of crushing disasters, including the fiery deaths of his offspring and employees. Harassed by THE IMPS, a druggie gang, Alan descends into illness and depression. His wife, BARBARA, (50) focused on caring for the orphans of their dead employees, shows up to curse him for his lack of sympathy. She packs Alan him off to a rescue mission, accompanied by LENA (11), the oldest orphan, but the rescue mission bus is hijacked by the Imps and taken into an area evacuated due to wildfire.
Alan and Lena are jailed by the Imps at an abandoned Movie Ranch. Attempting escape, Alan is beaten, his wounds tended by two rescue mission employees, who are also hostages: JOSHUA, a mute vet and MICHAEL, an autistic savant, who also care for animals left behind in the rushed evacuation of the ranch.
It’s an intervention by Alan’s board members: his protégé, accountant LUCIEN (36), MERCEDES (48) manager of his Argentinean operations and orphanage and HARRY (65) geneticist,Alan’s ranch manager. The three blame Alan for the sudden disasters and collapse of their enterprise. Insisting bad things don’t happen to good people, they urge Alan to take the rap for underlying crimes, even kill himself so insurance can be collected. While sympathetic, Lucien reveals the FBI and Interpol are looking for Alan.
The Interveners are shocked that Lena is there. The young orphan describes how she was lured to the Monos family home with the offer of a piano, but she crawled out a window escaping from Monos, (Cartel leader in Argentina) and smuggled into the US by Mercedes. Mercedes says Alan left messages directing her in it. Lucien saw a drug lab in the home of Alan’s eldest son prior to a fire and explosion. Harry insinuates Alan’s sores are FMD (Foot & Mouth disease) from his illegal import of infected sheep.
Alan angrily defends his innocence, and demands justice on three open issues:
Who
orchestrated the sale of a child from Alan’s Argentinean orphanage to the
cartel?
Were
Alan’s adult children killed by accidental drug lab explosion or were they
murdered?
How
could his ranch get infected with a new sheep virus that also kills
humans?The Imp gang continues to torment Alan but get sores like his. CHUPA, the Imp leader confides to Alan he is an undercover cop, Alan tells Mercedes.
At night, a wildfire is visible on nearby hills. CHUPA offers Lena wine but it is used for communion by the hostages. Alan is baptized by Joshua. Cleansed, he changes clothes. Chupa, Lucien and Harry get loaded in the hot tub. Alan over hears Chupa give a satanic explanation for his disasters.
The next day Chupa is found hanged and the three board members gone. The Imps are high and attack. Joshua puts on Alan’s old clothes and is lanced and dragged away in his stead. Alan escapes carrying injured Lena up the mountain side, with Michael reciting God’s response to Job. Imps chase on motorcycles but miraculously a bloody Joshua reappears on horseback to draw them off.
Hiding in the boulders, the three are drawn out by the sound of Lucien’s vehicle. Lucien angrily denounces Alan and his God, demanding the little girl, and splashing gasoline. Alan refuses, expressing forgiveness, and love. Joshua reappears, causing Lucien to ignite himself. As the fire races up toward them, an air tanker drops Phos-Chek. They are picked up by Harry in a police helicopter.
Alan and his wife reunite and adopt the orphans. Lena gets her piano. Alan is wealthier than ever.
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HI FOLKS. I’m Late. No, that’s my name. Dan Late….No, it’s Dan Hart. Sorry, I am late and this assignment is not what was requested. I’m working on it. I’m learning being simple is very hard for me.
DANCING WITH DEFEAT
LOGLINE – America’s beloved quarterback, CHARLES I. “CHUCK IT” FARR blows the Super Bowl, then seeks redemption by dancing against the world’s most eccentric soccer star, MANDONNA, and other celebrity losers.
SYNOPSIS – In my football versus futbol comedy feature, DANCING WITH DEFEAT, the Super Bowl is tied. Time for one last play. Our hero quarterback fades back to pass. Cornered, he elevates like a ballerina, letting loose with a pass. BLAM! He’s knocked silly. Waking moments later, he jumps to his feet, celebrating, believing he’s won. Tragically, during his celebration, his pass was intercepted and run back for the winning touchdown.
Thus, quarterback CHARLES I. “CHUCK IT” FARR loses everything: Super Bowl, new contract, endorsements, fans and, most importantly his equally beloved wife, CHERYL FARR. They break up on the Super Bowl post game show. Chuck It Farr is hero to zero in one play.
For redemption, Chuck It competes on TV’s “Dancing with Defeat” against other celebrity losers including MANDONNA, the Elvis of soccer. Mandonna humiliates himself in a manner similar to Chuck It. Exiled to America’s MLS, he’s no longer a soccer demi-god, he’s just a “broke and broken” soccer player.
Chuck It can’t dance a lick until he remembers and embraces his toddler-aged ballerina brilliance. Only then can he find balance in his life, win Cheryl’s love back and win himself a Super Bowl.
Mandonna, the “Great Goaler Bear of Madrid,” loves polar bears. He spent his only billion dollars to secretly move scores of polar bears from the Arctic to the Antarctic. More ice to be sure, but also “pinguinos”. Mandonna is racked by guilt that his bears have developed a taste for penguins.
Mandonna considers himself too famous to love or be loved. Even though he dances perfectly, Mandonna won’t touch his All-American partner, TAMMY. Yet, she’s the only person in the world who doesn’t know who he is.
The show’s megalomaniacal British producer, SIR SANDOR HOOD, schemes to destroy both men and their sports. On their way to the epic finals, Chuck It and Mandonna learn more than dance steps, save both footballs and recover love.
DANCING WITH DA’ FEET? What else ya’ going to dance with? It’s TALLADEGA NIGHTS with lots of balls.
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Hey Dan,
I can totally see this as a very broad and funny comedy, great work. I did get a little turned around in the synopsis. It wasn’t clear to me if Mandonna’s failure happened on the soccer field or on the dancing show. Also, I got the sense that maybe the dancing show was Mandonna and Chuck It’s chance at redemption? But I’m not confident I’m right, so the order of those beats could use a little clarification for the reader I think.
There are parts of this story I can very much see in my head. It reminds me, tonally, of a wrestling movie I just watched for the first time recently, “Ready to Rumble.” It might be worth checking out as a “comp.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie that united soccer and football and the idea of that is pretty fun to me.
-Jon
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Thanks Jon. I’ll make Mandonna’s arc clearer in the beat sheet. His real nemesis will turn out to be his right hand man, PHAROAH. They’ve been together since they were in an orphanage together in Rio. PHARAOH does everything for Mandonna except play soccer. Mandonna thinks that he has lost his only billion to moving polar bears to the Antarctic. It will turn out that Pharaoh only made Mandonna think he’d moved polar bears. It was a scam to rob Mandonna of all his money. This knowledge which will be provided by Chuck It is the final step that brings these two footballers together to defeat Sir Sandor Hood (think Simon Coyle). My script is pretty broad. I’m dreaming Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen. LOL.
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Jon’s Logline & One Page Synopsis
What I learned during this assignment was how hard it is to distill my story to its core elements in a way that sounds compelling.
Title: Just Drive (Platonic rom-com / road movie)
Logline…
After a promotion at work and a major breakup send two friends into simultaneous identity crises they decide that tracking down their old car from college might be the best way to reconnect with each other and themselves.
Synopsis…
Ruth and Dinesh are two best friends from college who have let themselves slowly drift apart over the years due to separate geography, careers, and relationships. Ruth is in the process of planning her upcoming wedding when she’s offered a huge promotion at work and Dinesh is in the midst of a major breakup with the most serious, but toxic, girlfriend he’s ever had. Instead of feeling elated by the promotion Ruth feels absolutely crushed by the opportunity, and instead of feeling relieved by his newfound freedom Dinesh feels worried that he’s gay and has been repressing it his entire life.
Unsure of how to climb out of her despair, Ruth pays Dinesh a visit and they roam around their old campus trying to find their way back to the open, impulsive, adventurous people they were before unknowingly selling their souls and becoming corporate drones. As Ruth recounts her day to her fiancee Scott she reminisces about her old car, a red Toyota Celica that had been a gift from her late father. Scott decides it might be a fun surprise to try and track the old car down as a gift but when he comes up short Ruth impulsively kicks into gear and convinces Dinesh to join her on the hunt.
Their search takes them through grocery store parking lots, suburban stakeouts, bisexual private investigators, junkyards, firehouses and more, ultimately bring them back in touch, more deeply than ever before, with each other and themselves.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Jonathan Marballi.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Jonathan Marballi.
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Hi Jon
Great hook. I like the idea of tracking down one’s old car. I love the idea! My first car was a ‘59 VW. I owned it from 1969 thru 1979. Cost $375. That car went everywhere, multiple trips to deep into Baja, river trips on the King’s River and lots of freeway miles. No gas gauge or radio. I sold it and I had buyer’s remorse until about 1984 when I saw it on the PCH headed for Malibu with four surfboards on top. My old car was still out there! Going on adventures😱
Ok, enough reminiscing. Your script is a comedy and I think you could go much broader. Maybe this Toyota has become super valued by collectors OR maybe there’s something in the car that’s a treasure. Then, there should be conflict . You may have already considered these things.
Also, how can it be a romantic rom-com if one of them is gay? Just a question.
Great idea.
Dan
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Hey Dan,
Thanks for the thoughtful note. Love the story about the ’59 VW. I got the idea when I moved to CA for the second time and recalled that the last time I left I had sold my car there and I was tempted to track it down but, you know, real life…
The collector stuff is interesting, I go back and forth on that because there’s something that appeals to me about there being absolutely nothing special about this car and it just keeps spiraling down until (as you’ll see in my second assignment) they witness the fire department using it to demo the jaws-of-life, where they rip it to smithereens.
As for the rom-com I may be using too confusing of a label. It’s a “Platonic rom-com.” Like the opposite of “When Harry Met Sally” almost. Or it’s like a bro-mance movie maybe, except one of the bros is a woman haha. Maybe it’s just a “Buddy road-trip movie.” You’ve given me food for thought.
Thanks,
Jon
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So, the car is destroyed? I’ll read your next assignment.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by
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Hi everyone! I just started the class and am hoping someone sees this for exchange of feedback. Looks like ya’ll are about 3 weeks in. In the meantime, I’ll try reaching out.
Rebecca’s Logline and One Page!
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is that it’s not as scary as I thought it would be. Also, It provides me with a roadmap to work off of when I get lost since my story is very complicated and the script moves back and forth in time.
Title: Unrequited
Logline: Obsessed with her marred childhood, a middle aged artist/musician, struggles to write her memoir, when she is suddenly summoned to find and deliver bad news to her long time estranged mother.
Story: Rachel, a middle aged musician/artist filled with contrition, painstakingly writes her memoir in an attempt to heal her childhood wounds and come to terms with possibly never again seeing her long-time estranged mother. Rattled with images of the past and unable to cope with both her indifference and her longing, she indulges in alcohol, drugs and sex.
Then, Aunt Nina calls Rachel with the news that her Uncle Ben has shot himself in the head and is dead. But nobody knows where her mother is to deliver the news. The next day, Aunt Nina shows up unannounced with an old address for her piece of shit mother along with some of her abandoned boxes that have been collecting dust in the basement for too long. Rachel vacillates whether or not she will take on the task of finding her mother. This could be an opportunity to confront her and have closure.
Finally, Rachel reluctantly commits to the task at hand, and the search is on. A couple of calls to the police station and a 3 1/2 hour long road trip takes her to her Mother’s last residence, a modest home, which for several years now, is being rented to an older, kind, god fearing couple. Humiliated, Rachel leaves only to find herself back at their house after several mishaps. The couple sets her up in the guest room. She writes. More images unveil deeply buried memories of loss from the past, including the kidnapping of her little brother. At breakfast the next morning, these very kind folks recall having met Beth, Rachel’s Mom, and also provide clue.
On the road again, like a treasure hunt, Rachel eventually finds out that her Mother, Beth, resides in a convalescent home. When she arrives, she sneaks into her Mother’s room after visiting hours, only to find that Beth is unconscious and appears to be on life support. Committed now, Rachel checks into a crappy motel and visits her Mother daily hoping to find some connection.Until she overhears her mother talking to the mystery woman, Eleanor. Broken and enraged, Rachel decides to play the game to her advantage. On her last visit, she makes a deeper than expected connection and heads back home to attempt the possibility of love.
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