by Adam Fulford

What is a Logline?

A logline is a short description of a script (one line, or two lines at most) that entices the reader (or listener) to want to find out more about it and read the script.

Loglines are vital in capturing the interest of producers, agents, networks, or investors enough for them to either want to read the script or make the movie (since many of them don’t necessarily read the script, truth be told). They often serve as the enticement that will inspire a producer to invite you to make a pitch (or maybe email over a one paragraph synopsis).

Selling A Film Concept

Anyone who has been in sales may find the concept of loglines eerily familiar because it really is sales — selling an idea. Films are a collaborative medium and you really do have to “win friends and influence people” to get them made.

How Do You Write a Logline?

Writing loglines can prove to be quite tricky, to be sure. It must somehow capture the essence and reveal the premise, genre, and main character of a story in one sentence.

Examples of Loglines

TV guides are a good place to begin. Just read the one liners used to describe films. Here are a couple of loglines I’ve quickly churned out to describe famous films. My loglines may be less than sterling but they encapsulate what a logline essentially is:

The Godfather

After a mafia kingpin is shot and badly wounded, his son abandons his dreams of leading a civilain life and joins the “familiy business” to save his family from being decimated by rival mafia families.

Antwone Fisher

A young navy sailor unleashes such violence against someone who offends him that he has to see a psychiatrist in order to save his career, and the story of his harrowing childhoold begins to unfold.

Taxi Driver

A taxi driver, back in America after fighting in Vietnam, becomes so obsessively fixated on a young woman working in a political campaign, a teenage prostitute, and a pimp that extreme violence is the inevitable conclusion.

Erin Brochovich

A single mom without law school training uses her natural wit to land a job as a legal assistant then goes on to lead the entire law firm into a battle against an industrial giant that is polluting the drinking water, or else more people will be poisoned.

Qualities of a Good Logline:

• – introduces the main character
• – succinctly describes the story
• – tells what is at stake
• – hints at the genre

Here is a site that offers nice examples and analysis of good, bad, and so-so loglines:
http://www.norman-hollyn.com/535/handouts/loglines.pdf