“Jaws in Space!” one of the most famous three-word loglines ever conceived, launched a series of movies. Can you guess the name of the first movie? I’ll give you some time to think this over and give you the answer at the end of this blog.
A logline is a brief (one to two sentence) summary of a proposed movie (often referencing other well-known movie titles), or TV documentary so enticing that it hooks the reader or producer by describing the central plot of your story. If someone asks you what your book, screenplay or screen treatment is about, you might want to respond with a logline. Once someone is hooked by a Logline they will ask for a longer synopsis of your book.
As examples, I’ll give you some loglines that 3rd Coast Books authors have used to describe their works:
Fiddler on the Roof meets Dr. Zhivago, both award-winning movies, described Henya-Shanun-Klein’s epic true story entitled Have You Seen a Dark-Haired Man with Burning Eyes? A story of a poor, newly married Jewish woman in Poland whose husband was conscripted by the Soviet Red Army, without notice, and taken to an unknown work camp. Hence: Fiddler on the Roof, a film that identifies with the hard times of being poor, Jewish and married in Eastern Europe during wartime. When the young wife, Adel, begins her 20,000 km journey, alone, to find her husband, we add Dr. Zhivago, who was also forcibly conscripted as a doctor for the Soviet Army in that well-known film. Is this adding up for you? This logline caught the eye of a very successful New York producer. He immediately wanted the film rights and signed a Producer Development Agreement to make the book into a film.
Here’s another 3rd Coast Books author title that was signed to a Producer Development Agreement. R.M. Morgan wrote Crown Hunt, a fiction murder mystery about the Silla Dynasty Crown Jewels discovered during the Korean War. The treasure was smuggled to the U.S. and fifty years later when the treasure was discovered missing, people begin to kill to obtain it. The logline: China Town (murder mystery starring Jack Nicholson) meets Three Kings (starring George Clooney, a movie about discovering treasure during the Iraq War conflict.) The producer in L.A. that signed the Production Development Agreement said, “The logline hooked me. I loved these two movies!”
You can download several screen treatments at www.3rdcoastbooks.com. Just click on Screen Treatments in the header to see the loglines and to download screen treatments. As part of our publishing packages, we help our authors produce registered screen treatments with great loglines and then market directly to producers.
Here’s the answer to the movie(s) launched by Jaws in Space: “Alien,” starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, and John Hunt, directed by Ridley Scott. Three little words hooked the producers and launched the series. Do you have three magic words to describe your work?
Download the Free Aspiring Authors Q&A at www.3rdcoastbooks.com
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/3rdCoastBooks
Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/3rdCoastBooks
Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/3rdcoast-books-llc