High Concept vs New High Concept

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  • sc111
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by Prezzy View Post
    sc111, I'm going to be one hundred percent honest, the logline intrigued me, but you lost me with the gloves bit because I went, "Awww. That sounds just like Dead Zone".

    When I read the logline, my mind immediately jumped to the idea of a crazy guy foreseeing this girl's murder, only to end up inadvertently murdering her in the process of trying to prevent it, accidentally making it a self-fulfilling prophecy in a twist ending.

    I think you have something to work with in any case. You just need to find a way to differentiate yourself.
    It's not my log. It's JoeNYCs log. And he did set it aside when he discovered Dead Zone.

    I was surprised Bono seemed to be advising Joe to pursue it after all the advice to the contrary.

    Leave a comment:


  • Prezzy
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Joe, I'm going to be one hundred percent honest, the logline intrigued me, but you lost me with the gloves bit because I went, "Awww. That sounds just like Dead Zone".

    When I read the logline, my mind immediately jumped to the idea of a crazy guy foreseeing this girl's murder, only to end up inadvertently murdering her in the process of trying to prevent it, accidentally making it a self-fulfilling prophecy in a twist ending.

    I think you have something to work with in any case. You just need to find a way to differentiate yourself if you ever decide to try your hand with the concept.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bono
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    I don't speak emojis. No idea what you're trying to say.

    Leave a comment:


  • sc111
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by Bono View Post
    New idea to me. Thought setup was still good, just needs a twist. Something me and Jeff have said and others too.

    Same, but different is a good mantra.
    I see. You and Jeff. 😉

    Leave a comment:


  • Bono
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    New idea to me. Thought setup was still good, just needs a twist. Something me and Jeff have said and others too.

    Same, but different is a good mantra.

    Leave a comment:


  • sc111
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by Bono View Post
    Did anyone mention that The Dead Zone was a Stephen King novel first before being made in a movie? So that 2012 novel ripped that off that.

    With ideas like this to me -- you can do it again and again and again, just have to find that twist that makes it different.

    What if the person can only see how people die if she cares about them or something? Or sleeps with them? Or is related to them?

    Or what if the person touched someone by accident during a busy NYC rush hour (remember those?), she dropped her glove and she sees this person is going to end up killing us all -- like the dead zone. But in this one, she has to find a needle in a haystack as it's NYC and she lost the person in the crowd. Can always spin it like that.
    So you're talking Joe into picking up the script again? After he explained how he followed the advice on how to decide to discard a concept?

    Leave a comment:


  • Bono
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Did anyone mention that The Dead Zone was a Stephen King novel first before being made in a movie? So that 2012 novel ripped that off that.

    With ideas like this to me -- you can do it again and again and again, just have to find that twist that makes it different.

    What if the person can only see how people die if she cares about them or something? Or sleeps with them? Or is related to them?

    Or what if the person touched someone by accident during a busy NYC rush hour (remember those?), she dropped her glove and she sees this person is going to end up killing us all -- like the dead zone. But in this one, she has to find a needle in a haystack as it's NYC and she lost the person in the crowd. Can always spin it like that.

    Leave a comment:


  • JoeNYC
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
    When I have a new idea, I pitch it far and wide because I’m dying for someone to kill it. If it turns out it’s been done or there’s some flaw in it I can’t answer, I want to know that before I invest all the time and energy in writing it.
    This is sound advice. This is what I do.

    For example, years ago I posted a Thriller story idea in the LOGLINE forum:

    When an introvert, undergoing psychotherapy for delusions, foresees a young woman's brutal murder, he must get close to her to stop the killer.

    The protagonist wears gloves because when he touches someone -- skin to skin contact -- he foresees that person's future.

    A member mentioned that a novel that was published in 2012 titled "Blackbird" by Chuck Wendig had a similar setup. I check out the novel and it had the same hook: When the female protagonist touched someone -- skin to skin contact -- she knows how and when your final moments will occur.

    Then later, I came across a Christopher Walken movie titled THE DEAD ZONE, released in 1983, where after waking up from a 5 year comma, whenever he touches someone - skin to skin - he foresees their future.

    So, I decided not to write that story idea and moved on to something else.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bono
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
    When I have a new idea, I pitch it far and wide because I’m dying for someone to kill it. If it turns out it’s been done or there’s some flaw in it I can’t answer, I want to know that before I invest all the time and energy in writing it.

    It’s the ones they can’t kill that you should write.
    I like this. I lot.

    Also how much time passes for you in terms of thinking of idea and writing new idea once it has not been killed?

    I noticed all the scripts I've had success with, I had idea and wrote it very soon after thinking of it.

    However, I have ideas I'd love for years and years, never stop thinking about them, that I have yet to write for various reasons. Do you ever write an idea that's been in your head for 10 years?

    Or is there something to passion coming to visit and if you don't write the idea in that time, it's never truly the same? I always wonder, should I let some old ideas go and just think of new ones?

    Leave a comment:


  • Crayon
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by Bono View Post
    I feel like we are having the "where do you guys want to have dinner" discussion? I always vote for pizza with a big group and some of you are like let's go to the place only I like to eat at.

    And there are many find foods, but some of us are picking very specific cusine and I'm saying LET'S EAT AT THE FOOD COURT where there is stuff for everyone to enjoy.

    So that's how I see ideas. My passion tends to me mainstream, so I'm lucky that way.

    Big Ideas are the Food Court.
    Okay, how about this then:

    FOOD COURT LOVERS

    Rom Com Drama

    Rival family-run outlets turn a food court into a battleground after one outlet's daughter and another outlet's son fall madly in love.


    Hmmm... that sounds somewhat familiar. Anyhow, is it low concept, or high concept, or new high concept, or future high concept? But, more importantly, is it a must read?

    Leave a comment:


  • JeffLowell
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    When I have a new idea, I pitch it far and wide because I'm dying for someone to kill it. If it turns out it's been done or there's some flaw in it I can't answer, I want to know that before I invest all the time and energy in writing it.

    It's the ones they can't kill that you should write.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bono
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    When I pitch my friends or reps -- they just tell me the truth. I do the same to them. I do not see the benefit in not telling the truth when people ask. I mean if you post an idea on this forum in logline, story or pages -- that's all saying "Do you like this?"

    How are you going to get from the writing stage to the querying stage to the repped stage to the selling stage unless you are able to take some hits and keep on going? So it's better to practice on here or with friends.

    Some people are just happy to write and never show their work. I get that. It's safer. But if you want to actually get your script to screen -- you're going to have to put your work out there.

    And when you do, you will not hear many positive statements back. You will probably hear nothing at all.

    But when you do get that one person to say "yes" -- it's a great feeling. I want you all to have that feeling.

    Leave a comment:


  • JoeNYC
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by SundownInRetreat View Post

    Why not? If the writer KNOWS it's a mediocre concept then why not advise her to write a better one?
    Because I could be wrong, so I don't want to discourage that person from writing what he is passionate about. Who knows what will connect with an audience? Maybe this person wins the Nicholl Fellowship and gets the attention of Hollywood and they produce it, where it's a critical and commercial success. Or, it got the writer work-for-hire.

    By the way, look at the history of the Nicholl Fellowship's winners' story idea and tell me there isn't at least one that you would have believed was mediocre -- if you were honest to admit it.

    For example, if I was okay with telling a writer something was mediocre and a member posted the concept/logline to DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR, I would differently had told him, bro, that is one uninteresting concept. Think of something better, but I would have been wrong because it connected with an audience and it was a commercial success.

    Yes, I wouldn't have written that story idea, because you know why? I wasn't passionate about it. The writer who wrote it was and it worked.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bono
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    Originally posted by zetiago View Post
    Sometime lurker, first time poster here.

    These most recent, and frankly reductive threads, have made me think about what I consider to be a good idea or a good movie. At the end of last year I shared a list with friends of what I thought were the 10 best movies of the decade. This was the list, not in any specific order:

    -Moonlight
    -Holy Motors
    -The Lobster
    -Inside Llewyn Davis
    -Leviathan
    -Pain and Glory
    -Paterson
    -Phantom Thread
    -Okja
    -A Hidden Life

    Each contains one or more ideas that, to me, made it stand out as exemplary. None of them, with probably the exception of Okja, are particularly commercial. Yet they were all made and will probably enter into the canon of great cinema. There are some caveats, of course. Some are foreign titles, made in some cases with government support and not subject to Hollywood market constraints, and others had a marketable auteur director, but not all.

    That all said, the only thing I think about in terms of marketability when I'm contemplating an idea is whether or not it's something I would want to see. I think a prerequisite for any aspiring writer is to have an evolved sense of what is good or bad, for any genre, only obtainable through experience, which in this case means watching lots and lots of movies.
    Welcome! Many of those films are by established filmmakers though vs me or you writing a spec trying to get them to read it. But I hear you.

    I do agree "what do I want to see" should be the focus of writer ideas. Without that, how can you write it in the first place?

    I'm one of the people saying though -- if you have 3 passionate ideas in front of you -- maybe consider which one is most likely to be liked by the masses.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bono
    replied
    Re: High Concept vs New High Concept

    I feel like we are having the "where do you guys want to have dinner" discussion? I always vote for pizza with a big group and some of you are like let's go to the place only I like to eat at.

    And there are many find foods, but some of us are picking very specific cusine and I'm saying LET'S EAT AT THE FOOD COURT where there is stuff for everyone to enjoy.

    So that's how I see ideas. My passion tends to me mainstream, so I'm lucky that way.

    Big Ideas are the Food Court.

    Smaller Passionate Ideas are that little restaurant around the corner that has two things on the menu and if you don't like those dishes, it isn't for you.

    I love thinking of new ways to say the same thing, also I'm hungry.

    So as always eat what you want (write what you want) but if you are picking a restaurant for a group of people to enjoy (get spec read/sold/loved by others besides you) than pick a place that everyone loves not just you.

    Leave a comment:

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