DDP Logline Throwdown - Entries

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  • DDP Logline Throwdown - Entries

    Here are the 24 entries. Huge thanks to everyone who entered the contest!

    Voting: Monday, 4/19/21 - Wednesday, 4/21/21
    Choose three loglines
    (cannot be your own) for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Send your votes to "bioprofessor" via DM.

    Anyone can vote - you do not have to enter to vote

    Please include the NUMBER of the loglines when sending your votes! Thanks!


    Logline Entries
    (Genre: Adventure)
    1. A scholarship student, the daughter of a lowlife alcoholic widowed father, quits college and sets off on a cross country bicycle ride to discover her passion in life.
    2. Falsely blamed for killing a billionaire's pre-teen son in a fit of rage, our hero has to evade an army of bounty-hungry locals to get home for one last goodbye to where his daughter drowned.
    3. Three men take a kindergarten class hostage, they will start freeing children when a killer is delivered to them, when a bus is readied and when a jet is fueled. But all is not as it seems...
    4. Between them a San Diego screenwriter's group have all the skills to commit the perfect robbery, but they have to travel halfway across the country to a town they've never visited to do it blind.
    5. "Valley of the Skull." - Two women — a steely Catholic nun and a headstrong freed slave — embark on a dangerous, life-changing rescue mission when a violent gang of ex-Confederate slave hunters kidnap the nun’s younger sister.
    6. "In Suspect Terrain" - The life-changing encounters of a troubled young man as he retraces the footsteps of a legendary Navajo Chief through the rugged terrain of the American southwest.
    7. When his elderly mother is robbed by a remote lottery scam, an infuriated physical trainer takes matters into his own hands to hunt down the scammers.
    8. Howey Metzler is running late for his son’s bar mitzvah, but he has a pretty good excuse - the entire state of Louisiana is chasing him through the bayous to put the former hitman back behind bars.
    9. “We need a vacation” - Two sisters (with different ideas of what it means to relax on vacation) win a free trip to a tropical island and then find out that there is a legendary buried treasure that no one has found in over 100 years of searching and seek out to find it instead of enjoying the amenities of the 5 star resort hotel they are staying at.
    10. “Saving Bruce Willis” - An obsessed Bruce Willis fan, enraged by the decline of his idol's career, kidnaps the actor in NYC and drives him cross country to a Hollywood studio with a demand: Willis must star in a Die Hard sequel or everyone in the building dies, hard.
    11. When he is harassed at all hours by a telemarketing scam and gets no help from authorities to stop the calls, an infuriated retired physical trainer takes matters into his own hands.
    12. A former con man reaches into his bag of tricks one last time to help a young cancer patient fulfill her dream – surfing Maui with the super-sexy Prince of Wilshire.
    13. “If You’re Ever In California” - In the 1980s, long before Google, Facebook or cell phones, two female college roommates who’d grown to hate each other met a guy who's perfect for both of them on the last day of school. As he leaves, he hands them his address: “if you’re ever in California, look me up.” Once he’s gone, they wrestle for the address and rip it in half. One knows the city, one knows the street... and they set out across the country trying to outmaneuver the other as they get closer to California.
    14. “Very Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” - it turns out the D&D manuals aren’t just rules for a game – they’re field journals from someone who was there. When the “author” doesn’t return, a group of fanatics have to play the game for real.
    15. “The Good Guys” - Superheroes have won – all crime has been defeated by their overwhelming powers. After years of peace, people start to lose interest in them, so they create their own, fake supervillains and set out to defeat them.
    16. “The To do List” - A dysfunctional family embarks on a road trip across Canada and pressures their risk adverse grandmother to follow her dreams by singing at her 50th high school reunion.
    17. "Let Sleeping Gods Lie" - A drunk, brawling Irish tour guide must sober up and become Indiana Jones when his charges inadvertently awaken a tentacled Lovecraftian horror buried in a deadly trap-filled Egyptian tomb.
    18. "Bite Size" - A state wildlife scientist checking toxicity levels in a Florida bayou finds herself besieged in an isolated, run-down ranger station by carnivorous mutated alligator-men.
    19. "Vote Fang" - The vampire political party has finally come out of hiding and looks set to win the election with their promise of immortality for all, but one voter remains undecided, can he uncover the truth before it's too late?
    20. "MacGuffin in a Bottle" – When a newly discovered ancient scroll confirms that life on earth is a simulation, a crackpot intellectual sets out to debunk its provenance before a cabal of wealthy elites can re-write history.
    21. "You Can Never Go Back" - After a messy divorce a floundering man must piece together incomplete memories of a woman he spent one amazing night with twenty years prior so he can find her and see the life he may have missed out on.
    22. “Burning Jesus” - A Mormon college student scours Burning Man to rescue her fiancé from a heathen cult, but a tripping DJ thwarts her search when he becomes convinced that she’s his soulmate.
    23. “OMG, Shut up!” - A vegan, an atheist and a CrossFit enthusiast must drive from Denver to Los Angeles to win a $100k reality competition, but they can’t stand each other and probably won’t make it.
    24. “Under a Bad Sky” - A Google patent attorney and his novelist best friend drive from Austin to Nuevo Laredo with a biker gang to rescue the attorney’s idiot drug running brother from a cartel.
    Last edited by bioprofessor; 04-19-2021, 05:05 PM.

  • #2
    I already have many notes on some of these ideas! Some fun stuff here.

    Comment


    • #3
      Yes, good stuff here. On what should we judge the loglines, when voting opens? We can't judge them on how well they reflect the completed screenplay or story in the writer's head, since we don't have that information..

      Comment


      • #4
        Just pick your 3 favorite ideas out of the bunch... which ones do you hope will one day become movies? Which ones would you watch right now if they were on Netflix...

        Or pretend you are a rep and you are forced to agree to read 3 of these screenplays from an email query. Which ones are you telling the writer to send over?

        Comment


        • #5
          Funny I see the title to my first spec that went out on this list... I clocked 9 ideas out of the 16 I liked from just the 3 seconds I considered them and it's clear to me at least 2 of them are written by the same person.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Bono View Post
            Just pick your 3 favorite ideas out of the bunch... which ones do you hope will one day become movies? Which ones would you watch right now if they were on Netflix...

            Or pretend you are a rep and you are forced to agree to read 3 of these screenplays from an email query. Which ones are you telling the writer to send over?
            I think for this exercise your second option should be used. In my mind the purpose of a logline is to attract serious reads. From the reps pov does the logline describe the kind of interesting story he or his company is looking for.

            Your first option is for people who are looking for anything to read.


            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Bono View Post
              Or pretend you are a rep and you are forced to agree to read 3 of these screenplays from an email query. Which ones are you telling the writer to send over?
              This one! Which three would you put at the top of your read request list?

              Comment


              • #8
                Three more entries. We're up to 19!!!

                Comment


                • #9
                  I would encourage people NOT to vote for their logline(s) at all. But if you must -- try to be honest with yourself.

                  In high school, sometimes our teachers would have us self grade our papers. I still remember giving myself a B- and 95% of the class of course gave themselves an A. She rewarded the honesty is my point. I got a better grade than I thought I deserved and others did not get that A.


                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Bono View Post
                    I would encourage people NOT to vote for their logline(s) at all. But if you must -- try to be honest with yourself.

                    In high school, sometimes our teachers would have us self grade our papers. I still remember giving myself a B- and 95% of the class of course gave themselves an A. She rewarded the honesty is my point. I got a better grade than I thought I deserved and others did not get that A.

                    Point taken, but for this time around, we'll stick with the one-self-vote per entrant. IMO, it seems a bit punitive to prohibit someone from voting for their own work, if they truly believe it is one of the three best of the bunch. I think the one self-vote is a compromise. We'll see...

                    There's already some interest in doing another logline throwdown. One per month? Maybe we can couple the logline challenge with a 3-page challenge, where writers have to write 3-pages based on one of their logline entries. Your thoughts?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      By the way should genre play a factor in this or all loglines are welcome? To me adventure is one type of movie and some of these read more like horror or thrillers.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by bioprofessor View Post

                        Point taken, but for this time around, we'll stick with the one-self-vote per entrant. IMO, it seems a bit punitive to prohibit someone from voting for their own work, if they truly believe it is one of the three best of the bunch. I think the one self-vote is a compromise. We'll see...

                        There's already some interest in doing another logline throwdown. One per month? Maybe we can couple the logline challenge with a 3-page challenge, where writers have to write 3-pages based on one of their logline entries. Your thoughts?
                        I just think voting for your own logline defeats the purpose of this exercise. I assume 95% of writers think their idea is the best.

                        So if you allow it, I would encourage that person to vote for 3 loglines in addition to their own. So 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (also worth 1 pt or 0.5 points) -- I'm just curious more how loglines far. Top 5-10 would be interesting for all to see.

                        That way people can get a accurate score of how their loglines fared amongst the group. Because if 5 people vote and 3 of them pick their own logline it throws off the results. And to me this is a writer's group -- it's about judging other's work not your own.

                        Some people entered more than once -- to me that is an advantage too... I would limit it to 1 and done next time.

                        The point of this to me is to show people in a pile of 19 ideas -- here's how yours might stack up. That it's not just you trying to get the attention of a rep and wow, other people have the same idea as me. To me that's very valuable insight.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Wait. We can vote for our own log? When did this happen? It doesn't make sense. Especially since we can vote for multiple logs as first place etc.

                          Edited to add:

                          I see. You have new rules for voting. Previously you had:

                          Ties permitted, i.e. more than one "winner" per placing
                          Now everyone can vote for their own as first place? And if the majority of votes cast are by entrants, this will skew voting.
                          Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by sc111 View Post
                            Wait. We can vote for our own log? When did this happen? It doesn't make sense. Especially since we can vote for multiple logs as first place etc.
                            There are like 4-5 threads, but one of them is scoring. I agree you should not vote for your own work, but easy solution to that is I think we should vote for our Top 4 choices (you can vote for 1 of your own loglines if you choose in that case).

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by bioprofessor View Post

                              Point taken, but for this time around, we'll stick with the one-self-vote per entrant. IMO, it seems a bit punitive to prohibit someone from voting for their own work, if they truly believe it is one of the three best of the bunch. I think the one self-vote is a compromise. We'll see...

                              There's already some interest in doing another logline throwdown. One per month? Maybe we can couple the logline challenge with a 3-page challenge, where writers have to write 3-pages based on one of their logline entries. Your thoughts?
                              That's fun. Pick top 5-10 loglines. And then those people will have to write 3 pages of that spec to then be judged on.

                              Comment

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