It's time to try out some prospective loglines. I probably should have written more but I didn’t so let's go with what we've got so far. Let me know which one you prefer and why.
The Hegemon: Two men fight over two Magic Rings.
The Hegemon: Two magic rings, one black one red; two men, one good one evil.
The Hegemon: Two men fight to control two magic rings, one with the power of Suggestion, the other with the power of Invisibility.
The Hegemon: A young man's ring gives him the Irresistible Power of Suggestion but he may loose both it and his life to the villain whose ring grants the Power of Invisibility.
The Hegemon: The Black Ring with the Power of Suggestion is in good hands while the Red Ring of Invisibility is in evil hands.
The Hegemon: Two magic rings, one black and one red, find two men, one good and one evil. Winner takes all.
Michael, its a starting point.
Okay -- here's the cold hard truth.
The purpose of a logline is to get someone to read your script.
But not just like your friends or your Mom and Dad.
The purpose of a logline is to get someone to read your script who is either an agent -- whose job it is to try to sell your script to someone who might be interested in making it -- or a producer, whose job it is to either make it himself or, in turn, to get financing from someone else who is going to want to make it.
Optioning a script runs from nothing up to five figures.
Buying a script, usually around six figures, occasionally low seven.
Making a movie based on a script -- anywhere from seven figures,minimally, up to nine figures -- that's 100,000,000 dollars, or more.
You write that logline to convince those people to spend that money -- not the option money, not even the "buying the script" money -- that money down in the last column -- that millions up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Do you think that any of those loglines are worth thirty, fifty, eighty, a hundred millions dollars?
To me -- and I'm telling you flat you and not trying to hurt your feelings -- this sounds like a retread of Lord of the Rings -- okay, so it's two rings instead of one and one controls minds.
You know what this is called? It's called plot, and it may be very important to you, but it's not central to the person writing the check for a hundred million dollars.
What that guy is thinking is -- New Line is planning on making The Hobbit and The Hobbit Part 2 (whatever that's going to be) which is going to have more invisibility rings that anyone is going to want or need.
Plus, it's going to be produced by Peter Jackson, based on Tolkien -- and who needs your unknown thing about an evil magic invisibility ring that sounds like its drawing water from exactly the same well, only it's pulling up something about another ring?
Now -- maybe that's completely wrong. For all I know, this could be taking place on the lower east side of Manhattan and the hero and villain could be a pair of punk rockers.
Right now, you know the answer to this question. We don't.
A logline has to convey what the movie is about -- and it also has to convey it's "unique selling point" -- why read this script, why buy it, why make this movie.
If what you're offering is a magic evil invisibility ring -- sorry, that's taken.
If the best that you can add to it to make it unique is -- oh, we've also got another ring that controls minds -- you know, sort of like the way, say -- the force does? Sorry -- that's also not exactly brand new.
And to be honest, if this is taking place in some pseudo-medieval middle-earthy type place, you're in trouble.
What you need to do is to look hard at your script and to try to identify what makes it unique -- what makes it *not* like these other projects, and to emphasize that in your logline.
NMS
