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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Screenwriting Discussion    My Work In Progress  ›  That bloody logline.... any tips? Moderators: bert
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  Author    That bloody logline.... any tips?  (currently 724 views)
Gerasimos
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 1:19pm Report to Moderator
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Current logline:
When NASA intercepts an otherworldly transmission from Mars, they assign its deciphering to Atkinson Corp, the best among the Government's private contractors. However, little do they know about the actual source's true plan and skills.

I'm trying to write a logline based on 3-way triangle of conflict (Protagonist + Struggle with Antagonist + Death Stakes) but I just don't like it...

Short synopsis follows.
A not-so-human boy with unrivaled hacking skills and passion for music (yeah exactly-it plays a major role!), hacks into one of the NASA's rovers on Mars and sends humanity an encrypted message. NASA assigns the deciphering process to one of its private contractors (a state of the art corp, evil nevertheless), which is actually the main target of the boy for its own benefit.

Any tips?


Features:
KTT Part ONE - The Polar Cabal
ALEXANDER - RISE OF THE PALADIN
ARAGORN - A LORD OF THE RINGS STORY
A Soul's Plea For Help
Coincidence

My facebook script page
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Hank
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 2:13pm Report to Moderator
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How about:

When NASA intercepts a Martian transmission from a young alien with a grievance and an affinity for human musicians, the world's greatest deciphering corporation must decrypt the message before ?

Not sure if the not-so-human boy is an alien or not, or what would happen if the message is not deciphered, though you could make those changes accordingly.
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leitskev
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 2:19pm Report to Moderator
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elements:

- a strange signal from one our Mars rovers that needs to be deciphered.
- a hacker boy...who is not human? not sure what that means, would need to know
- NASA assigns the deciphering of the signal to an evil corporation

It's hard too boil this down because I'm not sure where you're going. The intrigue is built around the mysterious signal. The protagonist would seem to be the boy. The villain is the evil corp. I assume the main action iinvolves the corp chasing the boy. And the twist involves the fact the boy was the one who sent the signal in the first place. Is that a twist that is revealed late?

What is in the signal? Why does the boy send it? What does he expect to happen? Do things happen that he didn't count on?

Please, please, please don't make the signal about humans having to change their evil ways. This has been done to death since the 50s.

I'll be happy to respond further if you think it helps after you fill in some details.
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Gerasimos
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 2:47pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from leitskev
elements:

- a strange signal from one our Mars rovers that needs to be deciphered.
- a hacker boy...who is not human? not sure what that means, would need to know
- NASA assigns the deciphering of the signal to an evil corporation

It's hard too boil this down because I'm not sure where you're going. The intrigue is built around the mysterious signal. The protagonist would seem to be the boy. The villain is the evil corp. I assume the main action iinvolves the corp chasing the boy. And the twist involves the fact the boy was the one who sent the signal in the first place. Is that a twist that is revealed late?

What is in the signal? Why does the boy send it? What does he expect to happen? Do things happen that he didn't count on?

Please, please, please don't make the signal about humans having to change their evil ways. This has been done to death since the 50s.

I'll be happy to respond further if you think it helps after you fill in some details.




Atkinson corp (the villain) specializes in three things; AI development, cybernetics (human parts for helping wounded soldiers) and programming blah blah (code, deciphering etc). During the last few years, developed two AI entities, a boy and a girl. Boy managed to get away, although Atkinson is not aware that it's alive (he thought he killed the boy due to some programming going wrong a while back).

The boy is the protagonist. He wants to save the girl, but she's out of the grid, due to the security systems Atkinson corp carries (offline, underground, unknown location etc).

So the boy hacks into the Opportunity rover (which is dead, NASA itself can't even restart it-the rover's restart module was programmed by the AIs back in the day so that's how he did it, he used a backdoor), sends a message to earth, but splits the decryption key into three parts, one located into NASA, one in China, the third in Russia.

US government cannot hack into a russian or a chinese server due to obvious reasons (they don't want to risk their foreign relations), so they assign the whole thing (extraction of the missing keys and analysis of the message) to their best private contractor. Atkinson.

Although Atkinson does his job, he realizes that not only there is another message hidden within the song, but also that he is able to communicate with the rover, thus the 'aliens', which is something that his team confirms (the alien origin of the music and the code). However, he needs to be faster than the government itself, therefore he logs in the girl (AI), in order to do the job faster than everyone else.

The moment she logs in, the boy goes after her, and with the help of Atkinson's bodyguard (who is half a cyborg/catalyst), hacks into the company, communicates with the girl and initiates his extraction plan.

-regarding your question 'Do things happen that he didn't count on'?
Yes, once Atkinson's experts find out that the boy (AI) wrote the rover's restart module, and that it lives, Atkinson sends his cyborg bodyguard to go after the boy. The bodyguard has his memory wiped out, emotions/feelings etc, so he tries to kill the boy and almost succeeds, until.. the boy finally changes the bodyguard's mind...

"And the twist involves the fact the boy was the one who sent the signal in the first place. Is that a twist that is revealed late?" Yes.


Features:
KTT Part ONE - The Polar Cabal
ALEXANDER - RISE OF THE PALADIN
ARAGORN - A LORD OF THE RINGS STORY
A Soul's Plea For Help
Coincidence

My facebook script page

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Gerasimos  -  May 25th, 2019, 3:03pm
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Hank
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 3:12pm Report to Moderator
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Here's my second suggestion:

A corporation specializing in futuristic technologies and programming is hired to decipher a transmission from a previously inactive Mars rover. Their involvement was orchestrated by their own music-loving creation, to save his female counterpart.
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Gerasimos
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 3:19pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Hank
Here's my second suggestion:

A corporation specializing in futuristic technologies and programming is hired to decipher a transmission from a previously inactive Mars rover. Their involvement was orchestrated by their own music-loving creation, to save his female counterpart.


very interesting approach, i will try to add 'death stakes' somehow.. (which is what i feel like missing from my logline too).
Appreciate it!


Features:
KTT Part ONE - The Polar Cabal
ALEXANDER - RISE OF THE PALADIN
ARAGORN - A LORD OF THE RINGS STORY
A Soul's Plea For Help
Coincidence

My facebook script page
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leitskev
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 3:38pm Report to Moderator
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Wow, I'm impressed, and I don't say that often. You actually really do have a complicated plot that comes together and has a lot of intrigue built into it. I can see where it's tricky to boil it down.

The funny thing about logs is we need them to sell the idea to someone that can make the film happen. But how much do we want to give away?

Also, you want to boil it down to it's simplest essence.

This story is about an AI boy trying to free his AI sister.

But the audience won't learn that until the end. So that won't answer the question what's it all about.

So let me try to break down the elements again and see if it helps:

- an alien signal comes over the long dormant Mars rover. NASA must decipher it
- NASA assigns the world's most powerful tech company to do the job
- meanwhile that company is after a mysterious boy with unique powers(he must have some as an AI)

Is the script already written? I ask that because I'm curious about how we are introduced to the boy. What is he doing? Where is he living? Do we know he is somehow connected to the signal mystery?

The boy escaped from an industrial complex. He has no family. Is he with one of the corporations workers who has kind of adopted him? Has he latched on to some other family? Is he on his own?

Is the boy on the run?

Let's try a couple.

An encrypted alien signal coming over a Mars rover is sent to a tech company to be deciphered. Meanwhile, that company is hunting down a boy on the run with unique powers.

I don't like doing logs with two sentences. But there are two storylines here, both intriguing and both essential to the concept.

Maybe it can be simplified? I'd go with this:

A corporation trying to decipher an alien signal hunts down a strange boy on the run.

It's a little like Stranger Things, but that is not a criticism, and in fact it might help you market it in a "same but different" way.

Then you would follow your log with more info in the synopis.

Great job though! You might have something!


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Gerasimos
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 4:07pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from leitskev
Wow, I'm impressed, and I don't say that often. You actually really do have a complicated plot that comes together and has a lot of intrigue built into it. I can see where it's tricky to boil it down.

The funny thing about logs is we need them to sell the idea to someone that can make the film happen. But how much do we want to give away?

Also, you want to boil it down to it's simplest essence.

This story is about an AI boy trying to free his AI sister.

But the audience won't learn that until the end. So that won't answer the question what's it all about.

So let me try to break down the elements again and see if it helps:

- an alien signal comes over the long dormant Mars rover. NASA must decipher it
- NASA assigns the world's most powerful tech company to do the job
- meanwhile that company is after a mysterious boy with unique powers(he must have some as an AI)

Is the script already written? I ask that because I'm curious about how we are introduced to the boy. What is he doing? Where is he living? Do we know he is somehow connected to the signal mystery?

The boy escaped from an industrial complex. He has no family. Is he with one of the corporations workers who has kind of adopted him? Has he latched on to some other family? Is he on his own?

Is the boy on the run?

Let's try a couple.

An encrypted alien signal coming over a Mars rover is sent to a tech company to be deciphered. Meanwhile, that company is hunting down a boy on the run with unique powers.

I don't like doing logs with two sentences. But there are two storylines here, both intriguing and both essential to the concept.

Maybe it can be simplified? I'd go with this:

A corporation trying to decipher an alien signal hunts down a strange boy on the run.

It's a little like Stranger Things, but that is not a criticism, and in fact it might help you market it in a "same but different" way.

Then you would follow your log with more info in the synopis.

Great job though! You might have something!




Wow, ty.

Is the script already written? I ask that because I'm curious about how we are introduced to the boy. What is he doing? Where is he living? Do we know he is somehow connected to the signal mystery?
Yes, it is finished.
(present time) He lives a few blocks away the MAIN Atkinson facility, some looking-abandoned building.
We meet the male AI once as part of act 1, while he was in the 'cage' alongside his sister (few years back, when the AI program first launched), in a SECONDARY facility.
Then another flashback, what happened and his programming failed.
And another, when Atkinson killed the boy and just transferred the girl to another facility.
And another, what happened to his body and how "he came back to life".
So tiny flashbacks (till Atkinson deciphers the message), while at the same time showing what atkinson corp is all about today.

The boy escaped from an industrial complex. He has no family. Is he with one of the corporations workers who has kind of adopted him? Has he latched on to some other family? Is he on his own?
Spot on!! it makes some sense doesn't it?  No family, no friends, no corporation workers. Is he on his own? Ofc not! BUT! There is a strong connection between him and one of the three guys in charge of the Atkinson-job assignment. One of them is the General whose life was saved by a former marine, who is currently Atkinson's cyborg-bodyguard.  The boy makes a trade with the general, the general 'will vote' for Atkinson to take the job, and it will give the bodyguard's memories and life back, because as the general always says no one stay back, and Atkinson tricked the general that the marine (now his bodyguard) didn't survive the 'operation' after his lethal injury.

Is the boy on the run? Actually the boy is on the hunt, until the cyborg-bodyguard finds him.

Thanks again, will work on these and henb's second sentence which I like a lot...
Thanks again!


Features:
KTT Part ONE - The Polar Cabal
ALEXANDER - RISE OF THE PALADIN
ARAGORN - A LORD OF THE RINGS STORY
A Soul's Plea For Help
Coincidence

My facebook script page
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Hank
Posted: May 25th, 2019, 5:17pm Report to Moderator
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Happy to help
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