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This
week's answer:
"Tagging"
Along
Dorothy, I'm glad you contacted me.
And I want to know who is
"they." And why they've come back.
And how did they get here before anybody else got
here? And where is "here"?
I appreciate your question. I was going to
cover this subject and your e-mail comes at an opportune
time. Or, in other words:
She had a question that he already
wanted to answer. And then she asked it.
Just thought I'd throw that tagline
in. And the above statement that resembles yours in
its construction is actually that: a tagline; not a
logline. But don't be alarmed or feel alone regarding
this faux pas.
She made a faux pas. And then made
another.
Sorry. Taglines can be
addictive. Where was I?
He liked taglines. Taglines liked
him. And now he couldn't stop.
Sorry. I said I wasn't going to do
that anymore. Many screenwriters seem to think a
tagline is a logline (which is kind of odd since tags and
logs are obviously such different things). Taglines
are pithy, general words created to get your attention, and
usually to unsettle you. (Sort of like the beginning
of some commercials.) Taglines normally create some
level of anxiety, an anxiety that the movie almost
subliminally indicates will be mitigated to some degree by
seeing it. (At least we'll know what the horror
is that's lurking in that deserted hotel.) Loglines
are specific words that tell what the script is about, who
the protagonist is and what his or her major challenge
is. The logline is the premise, the foundation of the
story. The tagline is tagged onto the script normally
after it has been written. It's the answer to the
screenwriter's question, "Now, let's see.... How can I
get a producer/agent/manager/investor/my uncle who knows
somebody in the "business," all of whom don't like
to read (like most people today), to want to read my
script?" Or "What saying can I come up with
so it looks like my script is already a movie?"
You see, what I've found lately when I
receive query letters from screenwriters is that most of
them are in such a rush and want to move right away to the
results before they cover the ABC's. Many of them have
decided what actors they want in the movie -- which is still
only a script -- and how much money it will cost, and what
the demographic is, and all the "attachments" they
have going, and on and on they go. What they seem to
be missing, the ABC's, are things like proper grammar,
structure, formatting, punctuation, spelling, etc., and
loglines (that actually tell what the story is about), and,
instead, they just want a producer to read a script because
of some clever, general, often unsettling statement.
Heck, I see those all the time when I open
my bills.
DcH
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