Notorious gangster Tucker Price defends his dim-wit brother, deals with his cheating girlfriend, and fights off a stranger looking for revenge.

Tucker's problems are beginning to pile up on him. His brother gets involved with Pit Bull, the city's local pimp, and accumulates a large debt which forces Tucker to get involved. Tucker's girl friend, Cassandra, is seeing one of his best friend's, and when Tucker finds out, he's in a state of fury.

The main conflict however, is a mysterious stranger who brutally murders one of Tucker's men. He leaves a note stating that the others are next. Tucker tries to find the identity of the stranger, and finds out that he's someone out of his own dangerous past.

Loud and Nasty is a modern re-telling of old fifty's Film-Noir. It takes cues from classic films and adds a contemporary feel. Unrelenting in its violence, Loud and Nasty depicts dark, shady places where everyone's flawed, and happy endings are grim. May I send you a copy of the script?

Sincerely,

Taylor Hopkins


Can somebody tell me if this is any good or not?

It's not bad, but it could use some work. I'm no expert so take my suggestions with a grain of salt.

Quoted from TAnthony The main conflict however...

... is what you need to focus on in your logline. It sounds like you have several story threads, but your logline needs to focus on the core of your story. Subplots are superfluous when it comes to loglines, so are names for that matter.

Build your logline around your protanist (notorious gangster), your antagonist (mysterious stranger? be more specific), and what your protag must do or else...

Quoted from TAnthony Loud and Nasty is a modern re-telling of old fifty's Film-Noir.

This sounds awkward. A modern day retelling of an entire era?

Quoted from TAnthony happy endings are grim

This doesn't quite make sense either.

Without having read your script, it's difficult to suggest an an accurate logline, especially when you have so many subplots going on. Are they all tied together in the script? If so, you need to tie them together in the logline.

I'm not terribly good at writing these either, but I know the principles, and your logline is a bit much. Focus on the main character and the main conflict. This isn't easy to do especially when you've put your heart and soul into multiple subplots to make it all work. Once you feel like you've told only one tale, and it doesn't feel complete enough, you've probably got it.

Here's an extreme example. Remember Lord of the Rings? It's got a couple of subplots that some might consider important, but what's the core story? Who's the main character? Frodo...or a Hobbit. The antagonist? Why, the Lord of the Rings, of course. What does he have to do? Destroy the One Ring.

So...

The smallest of people struggles against the forces of a dark lord to carry the lord's most powerful weapon into the heart of his land and destroy it.

Ok, it's rough, but I hope you get the idea. I just summed up the heart of Lord of the Rings without Tolkien words, extra subplots, or complications. We don't mention the war, the past, the races, nothing. That's what you need to do with your story, which is probably not half this complicated.

The summary is where you can expound a little bit, but depending on how much of a synopsis, you might not get to do much. For this Lord of the Rings example, we still wouldn't go much past Frodo's central journey. We'd hint to other things, but a good producer will assume you have subplots that carry the story along.

Okay thanks for the advice. I'll try to make it a little shorter and focus on the main plot.

Thanks.

A logline should only be a few words long.  Examples:

You will believe a man can fly.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water.

And you thought Mother Nature was a bitch....

A synopsis (which is what you're trying to do) shouldn't be any longer than thirty words.  Don't tell us the story; tell us what it's about.


Phil

Quoted from dogglebe A logline should only be a few words long.  Examples: You will believe a man can fly. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water. And you thought Mother Nature was a bitch....l

Those are taglines, not loglines.

This is a logline: http://www.twoadverbs.com/loglinearticle.htm