3/21/2023 0 Comments Logline length![]() ![]() The ability to write a great screenplay and the ability to compose a logline are two separate skills. The point is this: Loglines make it too easy for readers to dismiss you and your script for reasons that are, frankly, unfair. (Seriously, the comments sections of various screenwriting websites and subreddits whenever a new logline drops is the most embarrassing bullshit on the planet.) But none of them matter. There are a few other points I could make. My scripts, for the record, are extremely Campbellian. Shunting creativity is, after all, perfectly healthy behavior for a creative medium. Especially when said impulses reward repetitive hackery and funnel out anyone who wants to create something that doesn’t adhere to easy-to-summarize Campbellian Hero structure. If there’s one thing I love about screenwriting discourse, it’s the impulse to create arbitrary barriers for ourselves. Then I remember any number of articles or comments or tweets that eviscerate loglines for the same reasons. But I’m also looking at syntax, aesthetics, pet peeves, and any number of aspects that have, at best, a tenuous connection with the actual craft of screenwriting or filmmaking. Yet when I read the loglines for last year’s Killer Shorts entries, or whenever I read a logline for work or I’m reading any of the loglines from the big screenwriting lists, my mind goes to prose mode. But at the end of the day, you’re picking your words based on their utility, not their artistic value. Of course, a great screenwriter can balance the beauty of language with clear communication and visual flair. I hope this isn’t a controversial opinion, but screenwriting is not a prose art. In reality, you’re handing your reader a bludgeon. They’re supposed to inform the reader on what they’re about to read. ![]() What I really hate is the rift between what loglines are supposed to accomplish and how they’re actually used in the moment. It’s nice to know what you’re about to read, and it makes my life easier when I can take your logline, change a word or two, and write it in my coverage instead of having to think of my own! Moreover, I was a reader for the 2021 Killer Shorts contest, and I’ve read scripts at two professional Hollywood companies. Everything Fred says in his article is correct, and this rant serves no purpose other than camaraderie and self-indulgence. It’s not that I hate loglines in and of themselves. (There’s also an extremely helpful article by Fred Pelzer on the Screenwriters Network blog that outlines their significance on creative, business, and practical levels that I highly recommend you read.) They tell us what the script’s about, they offer some insight into the writer, and they’re quite consequential. Loglines are an important part of this thing we call screenwriting for a vast amount of reasons, most of which are obvious if you’re the kind of person who’s bothering to read a blog post on a script competition site. ![]()
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