How to Query Production Companies and Agents

"What's so funny? show me your query letters." 

Written by Hal Croasmun

I'm sure that writer would like to get their script read, but they forgot to use their writing skill to write an amazing query letter. If anything gives you credibility, it is the quality of your writing.

First, an important word that should describe your marketing materials...

Lure: Anything that entices, tempts, or attracts with the promise of gaining a pleasure or reward. Bait.

Here's a word you don't want associated with your query:

Repellent: Causing distaste or aversion; repulsive.

You want your query letter to attract, not repel. Here are a few "Do's" and "Don'ts" for the three parts of a good query letter, which are:

1. The Logline

 2. The Synopsis

 3. Your Bio

The key to each of these is to show the marketability of your script without saying the words "It is marketable because..."

Keep in mind that marketing your screenplay goes far beyond just creating the query letter - but cover some important basics.

ON LOGLINES:

1. DO write your logline or concept in a way that creates as much interest as you can.

DON'T write it as a "Poster line."

A line like "Three minutes from death. What do you do?" could describe a scene in a thousand stories. It works fine to start out a synopsis, but not as the logline.

2. DO give away the story.

DON'T be vague.

This one is important. Too many loglines go like this:

"A confused bride returns to her hometown to resolve the biggest issue in her life, but is shocked at what she discovers."

Do you have any idea what happens in that story? I don't. It is vague and leaves us confused.

Usually, this happens either because the writer is trying to maintain some sense of mystery about what happens in the story. But you've got to remember this one important fact...

...The Producer is making a BUSINESS DECISION.

They are looking for a story they can sell. They need to know that it works. Your job is to deliver that story. A vague logline doesn't intrigue as much as it makes a producer doubt your ability to tell a great story.

Imagine if you were calling an ad to buy a car and the seller said something like:

"The car is exactly like I described in the ad, but there is one thing I won't tell you about until you get here."

Does that intrigue you or scare you? Are you going to drive 30 miles to find out what that one thing is or are you going to call the next ad?

My advice: Give away the best part in the logline.

"A confused bride fights the Hillbillies who drugged and forced her into marriage, but changes her mind when she falls in love with her husband's brother... right before he is killed."

Don't worry about whether that is a great story or not. Just notice that you have a good idea of what the story is about. Do you see that?

BTW, I know this goes against what many screenwriting teachers tell you, but just remember the car analogy above. If the Producer doesn't know you, your story is your main source of credibility. So you want to communicate it as powerfully as you can.

3. DO get to the essence.

DON'T include needless details.

The logline needs to give us the story without a lot of details. In the logline above, notice that we haven't included info about the character's background, how she was drugged, where the Hillbillies house is at, why the Judge of this small town supports the forced marriage, or a thousand other details.

The job is to find the core of the story and deliver it in the most interesting way you can. You don't want to confuse the reader in any way. Instead, keep working with your logline until you have found the core of the story. That way, you are communicating as precisely as possible.

Overall, you want all of your marketing materials to LURE the producer into requesting your script. At the same time, you need to make sure none of them repel the reader. Remember, your query letter should be so good that producers and agents WANT to work with you from the first sentence.

Whether you are sending a query letter to an Agent, Manager, or Producer, there are three extremely important pieces of advice:

1. Keep it SHORT.

2. Hook them as soon as possible.

3. Make sure the writing is great!

Obvious, right? About 5% (that's right, five percent) of all query letters actually do all three of those.

Just do those three things and you stand above 95% of the query letters received by most companies.

For the second part of this article series, I'll give the short version of two important parts of a query letter -- the synopsis and the bio. The details are covered in the class I do below.

WHAT GOES INTO A SYNOPSIS?

You have a few paragraphs to deliver all of this.

Essence of the story.

Main conflict.

Imply beginning, middle, and end.

DO tell it in the most compelling way you possibly can.

DO use emotionally loaded words that deliver depth of experience to the reader.

DO give us some lead characters that A-list actors will want to play.

DON'T give any details that aren't appealing or intriguing. Details are important for the script, but often bog a pitch down.

DON'T give us a "book report" on your story.

Just keep reminding yourself that your purpose is to get them to request the script, not to know the story perfectly.

WHAT GOES INTO A BIO?

Your bio goes at the end of the letter and presents credibility for why you are the perfect person to write this story.

DO tell about any contests you've won or placed in. If you have multiple wins, give us the one or two most impressive ones.

DO tell if you're already an optioned or produced writer.

DO tell about any unique skills or background you have that qualifies you to tell this story.

Example for a gambling movie:

"Besides winning two Nevada Screenwriting Contests, I'm a three-time finalist at the World Championships of Poker held in Las Vegas."

In one sentence, we discover two reasons why this writer could be the perfect writer of a script on gambling -- contest wins and inside knowledge of the poker industry.

DON'T do any of the following:

- say you're desperate.

- beg.

- say anything crazy.

- tell about the bills you have.

- say you're going to quit screenwriting if they don't buy your script.

When you write your next query letter or any other marketing materials, remember to present your highest quality writing and lure the reader into contacting you for your script.

Present yourself as an attractive person to do business with. Show how your story is marketable and how you're the perfect person to write this story. Be brief, precise, and write powerfully.

Do that and you'll increase your chances dramatically.

I give special thanks to Hal Croasmun, President at Screenwriting U Location, for this article.

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Japanese Pop: My Favorite Songs

Not long ago when some of my Japanese friends and I were discussing how Japanese anime has helped given world wide recognition to Japanese Pop music, they asked me some of the Jpop music I liked. I gave them a long list of artist and songs. They were surprised. Here are a couple songs I want to share with you. They are in Japanese, but the music is still beautiful.

"We Say Hello"- by Manami

"Change The World" - V6

"Every Little Thing" - by GRIP

'Rocks' from NARUTO by Hound Dog

This is a John Lennon song. It is one of my favorite of his songs. I just added it for you fellow John Lennon fans.

"Imagine" - by John Lennon

This is not a Jpop song, but it is a favorite of my Japanese friends.

"I will Always Love You"

POINT OF VIEW SHIFTS IN WRITING: PROCEED WITH CAUTION

by Traci Borum

“Which character tells the story?” That’s a crucial character-question writers must ask themselves in the planning stages of any novel. It’s usually followed by: “Should the story come from one character’s point of view, or more than one?” A tricky question, because incorporating multiple points-of-view can be a bit like juggling plates. Each character is tossed into the air for a brief time, highlighted, then another one takes its place. When handled well, this technique can be extremely effective, fluid. When handled poorly, it can end in disaster (plates crashing to the ground).

 Guest column by Traci Borum, who teaches Creative 
Writing at the college level. She’s written for Today’s
Christian Woman magazine, as well as the New Texas
Journal. Currently, she’s working on a women’s fiction 
series. She also runs a writing blog.  

However, if two important factors are considered, the results can be successful:

1) The “Transition” Factor: If not handled deftly, hopping back and forth between characters’ POV’s (especially in the same scene!) can become jarring. I once read a novel that offered one character’s POV for the first several chapters. As a reader, I settled in to know this character’s thoughts, became accustomed to the way her mind worked. Then—the phone rang. The character picked up the receiver and was given some tragic news. And when she hung up, WHAM! The reader was suddenly thrust into the other character’s mind (from the other end of the line). Huh?

There was absolutely no transition, no hint that the POV was about to shift in a major way. In fact, it was so jarring that I had to re-read the paragraph a couple of times for clarification. Even worse, I kept wondering how theother character—the one I’d spent so much time with—was reacting at that very moment. I wanted to jump backinto the main character’s POV again. I’d invested all these hours with her, and I didn’t care about this new character, this complete stranger. I felt frustrated, cheated. So cheated, in fact, that I quit reading altogether. I knew if the author used that confusing technique once, she would likely use it again.

On the other hand, Elin Hilderbrand’s novel is a strong example of how multiple POV’s can enhance a story. InThe Island, Ms. Hilderbrand first allows readers to see one character’s point of view. Then, when we know that character well, the POV shifts to a different character. But—it’s done so effortlessly that it feels natural. To avoid any confusion, the author gives a full break in text, then offers the name of the upcoming character as a chapter heading. The reader is fully prepared for the shift before it occurs.

2) The “Intimacy” Factor: If a reader spends only brief fragments of time with several different characters (rather than long periods of time with only one character), it stands to reason that the reader ends up knowing several characters slightly, rather than intimately.

I’ll use television as an example. Two of my favorite TV shows from the 80’s used an “ensemble” feel as a vehicle for storytelling. One was the extremely popular “ER,” and the other was the not-as-popular “Thirtysomething.”

For me, “ER” wasn’t as successful as “Thirtysomething,” in terms of acquainting the audience intimately with the main characters. Although ER episodes did manage to present substantive character development, they did so in quick bursts (usually scattered between medical cases containing characters we would never see again). Granted, the fast pace and content of “ER” didn’t lend itself to as much in-depth characterization as other shows. But it still left me wanting more.

In contrast, Thirtysomething incorporated a technique that became highly effective. Instead of having all ensemble characters make brief appearances in every episode—much like “ER” did—the writers typically devoted an entire episode to one or two characters only. And during those fifty minutes, the audience became well-acquainted with them, simply by spending more time in their presence. We got to see Eliot at work struggling in his job, then later at home, struggling in his marriage. Or Melissa, dealing with singlehood as well as her flailing career. The viewers’ focus wasn’t divided by other characters (or distracting storylines) during that particular episode. So, we were able to know those core characters intimately. Consequently, whenever the ensemble would congregate together in one scene, we knew each character so well that the dynamics between them crackled with energy and tension.

In the end, when deciding to use multiple POV’s, take your story into account. Would the plot and characters be better served by using multiple POV’s or a single one? Then, study the technique. Read novels that handle multiple POV’s and learn from them (both where the technique succeeds and also where it fails. There’s much to be gained from observing what doesn’t work).

Whatever your decision, being aware of the successes and pitfalls of using multiple POV’s can expand your writing choices. And that’s never a bad thing!

I give thanks to Tracy for sharing this info. Please visit her blog. It has a wealth of information.

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New Literary Agents To Query

NEW AGENTS TO QUERY
Reminder: Newer agents are golden opportunities for new writers because they're likely building their client list; however, always make sure your work is as perfect as it can be before submitting, and only query agencies that are a great fit for your work. Otherwise, you're just wasting time and postage.

-------------------

1. Carlie Webber of the Jane Rotrosen Agency

She is seeking: young adult (any and all genres), horror, mystery, thriller, suspense, contemporary romance, humor, literary fiction, women's fiction. "More specific examples from my submissions wishlist: anything set in the grunge era; GLBTQ for YA; high-concept YA; genre mashups, like paranormal romantic suspense."


2. Erin Harris of Skolnick Literary

She is seeking: literary novels with compelling plots and international settings; literary thrillers and mysteries (She'd love to find the next Tana French!); noirs (especially starring headstrong female protagonists); and YA and middle grade novels that transport her to magical places.

NEED AN AGENT? CHECK OUT THE 2012 GUIDE TO LITERARY AGENTS It's here! The 2012 Guide to Literary Agents is finally in bookstores. It's a very exciting day. The book has submission information on more than 1,000 literary agents, and has category indexes for you to find reps that handle what you're writing. All listings are updated.

Besides the listings, the book has tons of helpful upfront articles on query letter writing, book proposals, synopses, how to start your book right, researching agents, avoiding scammers, and more.  Find it on Amazon here.
Ordering this book makes finding an agent easier than searching the web. Most of the agents are for books. Yet some do work with screen writers.

How To Create A Short Film

What makes a good story for a short film?

Compelling characters.

The temptation when you write a short film, and have less time to develop complex characters, is to write your characters in short-hand. If their behavior is simplistic and predictable, your story will be, too. Characters, particularly your hero’s, is the force that drives your story. Do not shortchange your characters! Give them the full range of human characteristics:

• Physical: the character’s height, weight, gender, age, clothes they wear can all influence how your story develops.

• Behavioral: there can be unexpected contrast between expected behavior and actual behavior (for instance, a psychiatrist who is obsessively re-arranging the pens on his desk). This disconnect between what is expected and the actual behavior of  he character is immediately intriguing –and often humorous.

• A strong need: Character is ACTION. An action is what the character DOES in order to get what he WANTS. Energize  your story by making the hero’s need extreme. What the character wants, he wants passionately. He wants it more than  anything in the world. The need of the character must be immediate and urgent, especially in a short film.

The element of conflict.

Conflict is the result of what a character “want” (his goal), and the obstacles he must face to get what he wants. Those obstacles can be another character, nature, society, community. Those are called external obstacles. Sometimes, the obstacles are purely internal –an addiction, psychological issues resulting from a trauma, for instance. Watching the hero struggle against those obstacles is what makes a story interesting. Your job is to make the life of you character difficult! The character says: “I want this!” Say “NO!” to your character!

In the famous short film The Lunch Date, the worst possible obstacle for this wealthy, bigoted, hungry woman takes the shape of a homeless man eating her lunch. The more you intensify the pressure on your hero, the more fun it will be for the audience to watch your movie.

Structuring your story

A story, any story, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In a feature film, each part has a specific function: you have  about 30mns of Exposition (the beginning) to introduce the characters and their world. The middle, called Confrontation, is about 60mns long. The hero goes on his quest to get or achieve something, encounters a number of obstacles that become harder to surmount as the movie progresses. In the third act (also called Resolution) hero must come faceto-face with the antagonist for the final showdown (or Climax). Then the world returns to a new order, and we get a glimpse of the future for the hero in this new world (the resolution). This can  take 10-30 minutes. A short film follows the same basic structure in which to organize all the elements of your story, and each “act” must accomplish the same function as in a feature. Yet, you do not have only  minutes to do the same job.

• The first and most important rule-of-thumb: KEEP IT SIMPLE!

• Start your story as late as possible: Start your story at the moment something is about to happen to the hero. In other words, choose the last possible moment to enter the story and still have it make sense.

• Create your hero and another main character. Everybody else is an extra.

• Use polarities to create your protagonist (hero) and your antagonist: think of personalities that are polar opposites in terms of values, age, tastes, social position, sexual inclinations, abilities, behavior, etc. This is a simple way to create conflict as you pit one character against his opposite, and let the situation play out between them.

• Use Characterization: This means that you externalize the temperament, profession, social status, attitudes, thoughts and feelings of your characters through character behavior. In other words, you make their Backstory and internal life visible –visual- on screen. In The Lunch Date, the lady wears a fur coat, brushes past begging homeless people, speaks imperiously to the short order cook, polishes her fork before using it. All these elements are telling clues to the lady’s personality. Note that characterization is not caricature: although certain attributes allow the audience to identify the lady’s “type”

immediately, the details of her behavior reveal her unique personality.

• Give your hero one Goal: Keep the character’s goal clear and simple. What the hero wants (or needs) to accomplish must be conveyed quickly.

• Throw one major obstacle in the hero’s way: The hero faces one major external obstacle, and/or one internal one. In The Lunch Date, the lady must confront the homeless man  (external obstacle), and conquer her own obsessive cleanliness (internal obstacle) to get what she wants (the salad). What makes the scene compelling and funny is the attention paid to the details of both characters’ behavior and on the development of an improbable relationship.

• Surprise us: The resolution: there is often a twist at the end of a short film, something that adds interest, or humor to a conventional ending. Its purpose is to make the audience think, or to make them laugh (or both). In The Lunch Date, the woman realizes that her salad –the one she really bought- is left untouched in the next booth. This makes her –and us- think about prejudice: we never doubted that the homeless man had stolen the lady’s salad when, in fact, he was generously sharing his meal with her. Beware the twist that solves the hero’s problem! If the lady had noticed the other salad (her own) sooner, the conflict would have come to an end without her having any active role in it. The lady would not have struggled to overcome her social and personal aversions. The story would be flat and uninteresting. The Lunch Date could have turned into another boring morality tale instead of winning an Academy Award!

• Choose a few locations and choose them well. Remember for MMM filmmakers will only have twelve hours to shoot, therefore, when you write your scenes, keep the following parameters in mind for your locations:

     o Think of access and control: remote locations requiring driving for miles, or busy locations with a lot of traffic and noise will create insurmountable challenges for the teams.

     o Choose locations that are interesting yet practical: Dorm rooms tend to all look the same, but sets requiring extensive design will use up a lot of precious time to dress. You know campus and the immediate environs. Use your imagination!

Follow is the best example of a film short that I can think of. It is a Japanese anime short called Kigeki Comedy OVA You are welcomed to watch it. 

 During Ireland's War of Independence, a five year old girl set out to save her village from the English army, by trying to find the rumored skilled swordsman living in a nearby castle, who only takes books of a certain genre as payment, only known as the Black Swordsman. Watch the video:

Comedy (OVA)

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Making A Compelling Main Conflict

Tell me a good story!

What's the main conflict of your story?  Is it a powerful force that engages the emotions of your reader or does it leave them feeling flat and let down?

THE MAIN CONFLICT is one of those areas where a minor improvement can often make a huge difference in the quality of the read.  So it is well worth reconsidering that conflict. Let's see if we can make this easy. First, a definition.

CONFLICT:
1.  Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially
opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.

2.  A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or
interests; a clash.

Basically, whatever your main character wants or needs most is opposed by some "incompatible person or interest" and your main character is motivated to action to fight for their goal/need.

In JOHN Q, John's son needs a heart transplant, but their HMO won't pay for it.  John's need is to save his son's life.  The opposition is an insurance company with a loop hole. That is the main conflict.

BTW, I'm not interested in debating the legality or morality of the situation.  This is solely about focusing on the conflict of a screenplay.

First, notice how it is already a strong conflict.  It has "opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot" in that John must take action or watch his son die.  Second, notice the stakes -- not John's life, but his son's life.  Third, notice the injustice that sets up "disharmony between incompatible interests," an insurance company that John has been paying who refuses to cover this important operation.

Finally, I won't tell you how the movie ends, but in the 2nd Act, John takes a hospital hostage and demands that they do the transplant. They took this to an interesting extreme that was born in the original conflict, but took it to a new level.

WHAT TO DO:
Since your main conflict is so important, you may want to try a variety of different ways to elevate it.  Here are a few techniques you could use to turn an average conflict into an amazing one.

A.  Raise the stakes: Increase the value of the conflict.  What will be lost if the main character doesn't succeed?  For John, it was his son's life. Other stakes could include love, money, property, respect, a lifestyle, a person's honor, family, a dream, a set of beliefs, etc.

Whatever it is, simply brainstorm new levels.  A simple football game becomes the champion game.   Add some gambling and suddenly, the entire town is on the edge of losing their savings if the team doesn't win.  Want to take it farther?  The quarterback is threatened with death if he loses.  Etc.

B.  Make the opposition more incompatible: When the antagonist is a group of terrorist, it is usually because the writer is trying to take the opposition to a completely incompatible edge.   But you don't need a terrorist to do that.   In fact, someone really close might do a much better job.

From an emotional point of view, it may be that a twin brother who was considered "perfect" by everyone, but had constantly berated and physically abused his brother, might be the best opposition.

In HAPPY GILMORE, Happy was opposed by Shooter McGavin, the top golfer, who was everything that Happy wasn't.  As the media became more interested in Happy, Shooter got more hostile.  When Happy actually learned to golf, Shooter hired a crazy guy to harass Happy.  Shooters primary focus turned into getting Happy off of the golf tour, any way he could.

Remember, here you are just looking for incompatibility.  Who would be the most incompatible with your protagonist?  Find that person or group and you have added to your conflict.

 C.  Have us totally buy into the main character's goal or need: This is important.  You need to sell us on the value of that goal or need.  We need to see/hear/feel the goal/need.  In KARATE KID, the new kid in school doesn't just want to take karate.  If that was all it was, most likely, that movie would never have been made.

Instead, the writer has the bully's girlfriend become interested in Daniel.  Then, the bully beats Daniel up in front of the girlfriend.  If that isn't enough, the bully and four friends surround him in a field and begin beating him... until Mr. Miyagi steps in.

By then, we've bought into the need for Daniel to learn karate. Notice how we saw the need, heard the need, and felt the need.

D.  Try on different extremes: Even if you've done the first three, brainstorm this one, also. Why?  Because movies are about extreme situations.  But, they don't all have to be life or death extremes...

John Q took the hospital hostage.  Daniel agreed to fight the bully in a karate tournament in front of everyone.   Happy Gilmore bet everything on his ability to beat the top golf professional.

You are simply looking for the best extreme that fits your story. Any one of those four methods can elevate an average conflict to an engaging conflict.   But don't just take my word for it. Write down your main conflict and see if it is compelling. If it isn't compelling by itself, go to work using the four methods above to elevate it.  You, and your readers, will be glad you did.

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How To Write The Perfect Logline

"Short and concise please. I haven't got much time."

Writing the perfect logline is not easy. The hardest thing for a writer to do is express his/her 90 to 125 page film script into 1 sentence. ONE SENTENCE. This is the new standard for loglines. Following is what I think is the best definition of a logline.

By  Christopher Lockhart ---
"A logline conveys the dramatic story of a screenplay in the most abbreviated manner possible. It presents the major throughline of the dramatic narrative without character intricacies and sub-plots. It is the story boiled down to its base. It’s a window into the story. A good logline is one sentence. More complicated screenplays may need a two sentence logline. There are available templates to assist writers, but theses aids often leave the logline sounding pedagogical rather than dramatic and slick. A writer must learn the elements of how to construct a logline.


As simple as this seems, it can be difficult for a writer to extract the center of his story to create a logline. A writer bonds to all aspects of her narrative, and bias can prevent the scribe from isolating which story elements are crucial for logline presentation and which elements can be temporarily brushed aside. Crafting a logline takes a great deal of practice and an understanding of basic dramatic structure. Often, the writer must exhaust all possibilities in order to devise the perfect logline.

A logline must present:
who the story is about (protagonist)
what he strives for (goal)
what stands in his way (antagonistic force).

Sometimes a logline must include a brief set-up. A logline does not tell the entire story. It merely uses these three (sometimes four) major story elements to depict the dramatic narrative in an orderly and lucid manner. For instance, a logline for THE WIZARD OF OZ may read:

After a twister transports a lonely Kansas farm girl to a magical land, she sets out on a dangerous journey to find a wizard with the power to send her home.


When referring to the protagonist in a logline, do not use a character name. Character names are meaningless to the reader and can crowd and confuse the logline.

The character‟s major goal is the engine of a screenplay, and it must be present in the logline. In THE WIZARD OF OZ, Dorothy has many goals. She must protect the ruby slippers; she must meet the wizard; she must retrieve the broomstick of the wicked witch. But her major goal is to return to Kansas. It is this goal that the entire dramatic story hinges upon. This is the heart of the dramatic narrative.

The logline must present the antagonistic force – the story element that prevents the protagonist from reaching his goal. The writer needs to be careful here and not weigh down the logline with too many details. In the logline example for THE WIZARD OF OZ, the phrase “dangerous journey” intimates the antagonism. Some purists may take offense in omitting the wicked witch.

However, mentioning another character in the logline can crowd it. The trick is to create a logline that is succinct but not sparse. It must be clear that the antagonistic force is an obstacle to the major goal. It must imply that something is at stake; it must suggest that something can be lost.

A logline is not a screenplay. It is merely a representation of the screenplay‟s dramatic story. The information needed to understand the screenplay - as a whole - is not necessary to understand the logline. A logline does not require the same information and details in order for it to be cogent. A logline is its own little story, and it only needs certain information in order for it to make sense.

Below is an assortment of actual loglines for film scripts produced in the last ten years.
Use these loglines as templates for one you’re writing.


ANTWONE FISHER STORY
A violent sailor struggles to make amends with his past.
ARBITRAGE
A successful businessman tries to shepherd a merge of his company while simultaneously concealing fraud and a homicide.
ARMORED
A security guard locks himself in an armored car, warding off a band of desperate men who want to get at the five million dollars he protects.
AUSTRALIA
A British widow struggles to make a new life for herself on an Australian cattle station.
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK
A womanizing restaurateur finally finds love in a young woman, only to discover she is terminally ill.
BABY MAMA
A single businesswoman uses a surrogate to have a baby, but her plans go awry when the mother tries to con her.
BAD SANTA
A burglar and his midget sidekick pose as a shopping mall Santa and helper, with the plan to rob the complex after hours on Christmas Eve.
THE BANGER SISTERS
Two best friends reunite after many years to learn their lives have taken very different paths.

BASIC INSTINCT II
A psychiatrist finds himself dangerously manipulated by a sex-starved, sociopathic patient.
BATMAN BEGINS
Struggling to win back the city streets from criminals, a millionaire becomes a vigilante fighting crime in the guise of a bat man.
BEDTIME STORIES
After discovering the magical power of the bedtime tales that he spins for his nieces and nephew, a self-absorbed architect tries to manipulate this enchanted energy to his own advantage.
BIG FISH
A son who has come to resent his father’s tall tales journeys to discern the truth in them as the old man lies dying.
THE BIG YEAR
Three men struggle to count the most species of birds during a year-long contest
THE BLACK DAHLIA
A pair of detectives struggles to solve a brutal murder – the Black Dahlia case.
BLACK HAWK DOWN
The U.S. Military attempts a vicious strike against a Somali warlord with disastrous results.
BLESS THE CHILD
A woman fights the powers of evil to protect her autistic niece from a cult of devil worshippers who believe the girl is the “Child of God”.

BLINDNESS
When sudden blindness overwhelms the population, the afflicted are sent away to concentration camps where a blind eye doctor and his wife struggle to stay alive.
BLOOD DIAMOND
In the midst of civil war and a dangerous diamond cartel, a diamond smuggler sets out with an African native to find a precious gem buried in the jungle.
THE BOOK OF ELI
In a post apocalyptic USA, a lone warrior – on a mission from God – struggles to deliver a book to San Francisco – a book that a despot will stop at nothing to take from him.
THE BOURNE IDENTITY
A man with amnesia discovers he is a governmental assassin who has been targeted for death by the organization that employs him.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Two young cowboys must deny their homosexual love in the rural west.
THE BROTHERS GRIMM
A pair of storytelling brothers investigates a series of kidnappings that leads to a fearsome
supernatural creature.
BROOKLYN‟S FINEST
Three New York City police officers struggle with the rigors of their duties in one of the most dangerous precincts in the country.
CAPTAIN CORELLI‟S MANDOLIN
A young Greek woman finds forbidden love with an Italian soldier during World War II.

THE CASTLE
A general is incarcerated in a military prison and leads a revolt to win his freedom and rid the penitentiary of its cruel warden.
CELLULAR
A college student struggles to save the life of a kidnapped stranger after she inadvertently calls him on his cellular phone.
CHANGING LANES
When a cut-throat lawyer and a sober father have a car accident, a simple request of insurance information escalates into a full-scale revenge-fest.
CHARLIE WILSON‟S WAR
A Congressman struggles to fund the Afghanis in their war against Communist Russia.
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN
A married couple struggles to balance a relationship, a new home, careers, and twelve children.
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2
As the kids grow, Tom Baker plans one last vacation at the lake, where he squares off with his old rival – putting his family in the middle of the feud.
CHERI
After a six-year relationship with an older woman, a young man struggles to adapt to married life and his younger wife.
CINDERELLA MAN
The story of Depression era boxer Jim Braddock - who resurrects his career through a series of miraculous fights.

DREAMCATCHER
Four lifelong friends use their psychic talents to destroy an alien race determined to infect the human population.
DREAMGIRLS
A trio of female singers suffers the trials and tribulations of the music industry, as they rise to the top of the charts.
DUPLICITY
Two corporate spies-turned-lovers execute a plot to steal a top secret formula from their employers.
EDGE OF DARKNESS
After the murder of his daughter, a Boston cop struggles to find the culprit but uncovers secrets about the girl and a governmental conspiracy.
ELF
When a thirty-year-old elf learns he is human, he leaves the North Pole to live with his birth father.
ERIN BROCKOVICH
Working at a law firm, a single mom (from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks) stumbles upon an environmental cover-up by a public utility and sets out to hold them accountable.
EVENING
On her deathbed, an older woman reflects on a weekend in 1953 where she had a brief fling with the love of her life.
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE
A lawyer struggles to win an acquittal for a priest who is accused of negligent homicide after a girl dies during an exorcism ritual.

MR. POPPER‟S PENGUIN
A successful NYC realtor inherits a penguin, turning his life upside down.

MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND
A man struggles to escape the wrath of his vengeful ex girlfriend – who happens to be a superhero with extraordinary powers.
NANNY MCPHEE
A magical nanny struggles to keep a widower and his nine children happy.
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM II
Larry, a former night watchman, struggles to save his friends (museum exhibits come–to-life) when an evil pharaoh threatens to destroy them all and take over the universe.

30 DAYS OF NIGHT
A sheriff and his deputy-wife struggle against a band of marauding vampires that have converged on their isolated Alaskan town – where the winter season has brought thirty days of darkness.

PRIEST
In a future where vampires are imprisoned to keep the world safe, a warrior priest sets out to find his niece after the undead escape captivity and kidnap her.

RESIDENT EVIL
Survivors of a science-experiment-gone-bad find themselves trapped in a subterranean laboratory fighting off the living dead.

SHERLOCK HOLMES
The famous detective struggles to stop an occultist from killing the Queen and destroying London.

SWEENEY TODD
A vengeful barber murders unsuspecting men when they come in for a shave, using their ground-up bodies as the prime ingredient in popular meat pies.

THE YOUNG VICTORIA
A young and willful Queen Victoria constantly struggles to stave off her controlling relatives while battling for the allegiance of her people and the love of her German cousin.
ZATHURA
Two bickering brothers play a board game that sends the on a death-defying mission through outer space and in the process, they learn the importance of being friends."

---From : I WROTE A 120 PAGE SCRIPT BUT CAN‟T WRITE A LOGLINE: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A LOGLINE  by Christopher Lockhart. Thank you for your contribution!

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