Lesson objective:
To identify the difference between tagline and log line.
To prioritise the characters and events of my 'film' in preparation for a film poster creation.
To carry out and receive peer assessment on log lines.
Keywords: Tagline and log line, synopsis, characters, setting, genre.
In preparation for the poster that you will produce for this half term's main assessment you should by now have:
A screenplay synopsis summarizes a screenplay for a reader such as an agent, director or producer.
If the reader likes the synopsis, he or she may ask to see the screenplay itself.
A screenplay is a script development of the synopsis.
A synopsis includes only the most important or interesting parts of the story.
It must clearly show the necessary elements of the screenplay so the reader will know that you understand how to structure a script for a movie.
A big part of writing a successful synopsis is being able to come up with a log line.
On his deathbed, a father tells the story of his life the way he remembers it: full of wild, impossible exaggerations. His grown son tries to separate the truth from the fantasy before it’s too late.
A “tagline” is a short, clever one-off found on a movie’s poster:
An adventure as big as life itself.
A logline can be thought of as the shortest possible pitch of a movie — what a writer could use to sell an idea to a buyer in just a sentence or two. Taglines are used by marketing departments to sell movies to audiences.
Task 1: Use the handout provided to write a log line for your film.
Refer to the spider diagrams from last lesson.
The logline is at most two sentences that sum up your screenplay. You can think of the logline as the description you might read on the website of a movie theater or in the information box of the program guide on your television.
Here are some examples of good and bad log lines:
AFTERGLOW (1997) – Two unhappy couples cross paths.
BAD -- What exactly is it in this film which makes these couples interact, and what make them interesting to watch?
ALL THE RIGHT MOVES (1983) – A Pennsylvania steel-town. ambitious and hot headed high school coach tries to spoil a football hero’s scholarship dream.
GOOD – This gives a fairly clear sense of what is at stake and what the concerns of the movie are (character).
BIG NIGHT (1996) – Two very different brothers promote their struggling 1950s New Jersey Italian restaurant by inviting Louis Prima and his band to take part in a sumptuous dinner there.
GOOD – The plot line seems to hinge on the characters. There is a story through line.
BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995) – An Iowa housewife, stuck in her routine, must choose between true romance and the needs of her family.
BASICALLY GOOD – Gives a sense of the character and the story
DENNIS THE MENACE (1993) – Comic strip moppet plays pranks on Mr. Wilson.
BAD – Though it is clear how shallow this film is, there is no attempt to give the reader a flavor of what makes the pranks interesting or different.
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990) – A suburban mother brings home a freaky young man who has scissors instead of hands.
SO-SO – Though this certainly describes the start of the film, it does little to describe the film’s tone or central stranger in a strange land message of the film.
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965) – A man with no name and a man with a mission hunt a Mexican bandit for different reasons.
GOOD – A taut description of two characters, their conflict and their mission.
GRADUATE (1967) - A college graduate, home for the summer, has an affair with the wife of his father’s business partner, then falls in love with her daughter.
BAD – Describes the plot outline but fails to give the setting (What time frame? The 60s mean something in terms of Hoffman’s revolt) or any sense of the central conflict of the film. What are the interesting conflicts? Who is this graduate (we need adjectives), what does the wife character want?
To identify the difference between tagline and log line.
To prioritise the characters and events of my 'film' in preparation for a film poster creation.
To carry out and receive peer assessment on log lines.
Keywords: Tagline and log line, synopsis, characters, setting, genre.
In preparation for the poster that you will produce for this half term's main assessment you should by now have:
- Identified two posters from the same genre as your film.
- Be able to discuss the visual codes on those posters and say what makes them successful.
- An idea of a title for your film which will appeal to the primary target audience.
- Know who the main characters are in your film.
- Know where your film is set.
Your next task is to write a one paragraph synopsis
(The plural form of synopsis is synopses.)
(The plural form of synopsis is synopses.)
A screenplay synopsis summarizes a screenplay for a reader such as an agent, director or producer.
If the reader likes the synopsis, he or she may ask to see the screenplay itself.
A screenplay is a script development of the synopsis.
A synopsis includes only the most important or interesting parts of the story.
It must clearly show the necessary elements of the screenplay so the reader will know that you understand how to structure a script for a movie.
A big part of writing a successful synopsis is being able to come up with a log line.
- What is the difference between a logline and a tagline?
On his deathbed, a father tells the story of his life the way he remembers it: full of wild, impossible exaggerations. His grown son tries to separate the truth from the fantasy before it’s too late.
A “tagline” is a short, clever one-off found on a movie’s poster:
An adventure as big as life itself.
A logline can be thought of as the shortest possible pitch of a movie — what a writer could use to sell an idea to a buyer in just a sentence or two. Taglines are used by marketing departments to sell movies to audiences.
Task 1: Use the handout provided to write a log line for your film.
Refer to the spider diagrams from last lesson.
The logline is at most two sentences that sum up your screenplay. You can think of the logline as the description you might read on the website of a movie theater or in the information box of the program guide on your television.
Here are some examples of good and bad log lines:
AFTERGLOW (1997) – Two unhappy couples cross paths.
BAD -- What exactly is it in this film which makes these couples interact, and what make them interesting to watch?
ALL THE RIGHT MOVES (1983) – A Pennsylvania steel-town. ambitious and hot headed high school coach tries to spoil a football hero’s scholarship dream.
GOOD – This gives a fairly clear sense of what is at stake and what the concerns of the movie are (character).
BIG NIGHT (1996) – Two very different brothers promote their struggling 1950s New Jersey Italian restaurant by inviting Louis Prima and his band to take part in a sumptuous dinner there.
GOOD – The plot line seems to hinge on the characters. There is a story through line.
BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995) – An Iowa housewife, stuck in her routine, must choose between true romance and the needs of her family.
BASICALLY GOOD – Gives a sense of the character and the story
DENNIS THE MENACE (1993) – Comic strip moppet plays pranks on Mr. Wilson.
BAD – Though it is clear how shallow this film is, there is no attempt to give the reader a flavor of what makes the pranks interesting or different.
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990) – A suburban mother brings home a freaky young man who has scissors instead of hands.
SO-SO – Though this certainly describes the start of the film, it does little to describe the film’s tone or central stranger in a strange land message of the film.
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965) – A man with no name and a man with a mission hunt a Mexican bandit for different reasons.
GOOD – A taut description of two characters, their conflict and their mission.
GRADUATE (1967) - A college graduate, home for the summer, has an affair with the wife of his father’s business partner, then falls in love with her daughter.
BAD – Describes the plot outline but fails to give the setting (What time frame? The 60s mean something in terms of Hoffman’s revolt) or any sense of the central conflict of the film. What are the interesting conflicts? Who is this graduate (we need adjectives), what does the wife character want?
Introduce the main characters and setting in one paragraph. Include the names (who), their occupations (what), where they live and work (where), the time period of the story (when), and the reason you are telling their story (why).
- Type the names of the characters in all capital letters the first time their names appear. Thereafter, type the character names in the usual way.
- Characters that should be included in the synopsis are the protagonist (hero), the antagonist (villain), the love interest, and any important allies of the protagonist. Less important characters can be left out or not named in the synopsis.
Task 2: Peer assessment.
Swap log lines with a neighbour and write down the positives and negatives of what they have done.
Task 3: Source
four possible backgrounds for your poster from the Internet .
Make it clear to the target audience where your film is set,
where the action will take place.
Save the backgrounds on a moodboard created in Adobe
Photoshop.
Name the document Poster 1 - moodboard.
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