The Logline Fallacy

Source: Celluloid & Leftovers

#screenwriting #film #screenplay

“Loglines are not created equal. They’re not all humdingers, attention grabbers, they are not the alpha and omega of the quality of a script. They can’t be. They shouldn’t be. While you can judge quite a bit from a logline, I fully maintain they should be treated like the pirate code: more of a guideline.

While two of literature’s most well known figures may not have pitched to a studio, they do have many film credits to their names — William Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Here the IMDB synopses replace loglines:

Hamlet (1996) Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.

Sense and Sensibility (1995) Rich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. [The] two daughters are titular opposites.

Twelfth Night (1996) [A] comedy of gender confusion, in which a girl disguises herself as a man to be near the Count she adores, only to be ……”