If you look in television schedules and see what’s written about a movie, a drama or even sport, the few words describing the viewing will be its logline; telling you all you need to know before you decide if you’re going to watch it, or not.

Rather than reinvent the wheel and write exactly the same as all others should, I’ll direct you to the James Burbidge article ‘10 tips for writing loglines’ at Raindance, the people who are great at independent film making, courses and books.

If you’re a cut and paste sort of person, then you’ll need this:
http://www.raindance.org/site/10-tips-for-writing-loglines

It’s … well of course I can’t say yet, can I? I have to wait until the treatment is ready and the script completed and I’ve registered the copyright before I can release the logline. I can’t risk someone stealing my work; after all, the logline is eleven words long.

I wrote down all the words that I thought the film would include if I wanted to write an 80 word synopsis of it. Then I started deleting any that were in there just for the fun of it. I took out those who were just plain surplus and then adjusted the rest that appeared to make two entries for the same thing. Then I started to be harsh. After all, the logline needs to be used to:

a) sell the film
b) raise the finance
c) the posters
d) the DVD
e) the television magazine reviews

So now I have eleven words and some of those may go, some may get added and some will be reviewed (polite phrase for changed) later.

Whatever way you look at it, it is an accomplishment that I’m pleased to reach. I can now start on the treatment.