That’s probably good advice for the novelist as well. Screenwriters are advised to write the log line before writing the script. Once the main character has a goal, the story ensues from the obstacles that come between the protagonist and that goal. The most important element of any story is the protagonist’s goal. The one for Taxi Driver states neither the protagonist’s goal nor the antagonistic force. The one for The Silence of the Lambs also states the protagonist’s goal, but it fails to include the antagonistic force: the killer’s hypnotic influence on her mind. – Taxi Driverīut even these log lines are less than effective as selling tools.īoth state the protagonist. – The Silence of the LambsĪ mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process. These log lines from the Internet Movie Data Base meet these criteria better than the examples of the same movies given above:Ī young FBI cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. In other words, an effective log line will include protagonist, goal, and antagonistic force What must be overcome for the character to succeed – Taxi DriverĪn effective log line will contain these three essential elements: On every street in every city, there’s a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. To enter the mind of a killer she must challenge the mind of a madman. Here are two movie tags I found offered as “good examples of log lines”: The difference is that a movie tag is an advertising hook used to intrigue a viewer, while a log line is a selling tool intended to persuade an agent or producer to read a manuscript. Some of the examples of log lines given on various sites are “movie tags” rather than true log lines. The log line on the spine of the script allowed people to read the log lines of scripts that were stacked without having to unstack them. Readers wrote a concise one line summary of what the script was about either on the cover of the script, on the spine of the script, or both. The studios had script vaults in which they stored screenplays. The log line first came into use and was recognized as a separate form during the old studio days of Hollywood. In the context of writing (as opposed to measuring a ship’s rate of speed), a log line is the succinct summary of a story. The term log line (also spelled log-line and logline) is usually associated with movies, but the wise novelist will learn how to write one.
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