No voting today. Just appreciation for those who made it in.
If you want to see the 16 scripts that made it in Week 1, you can check them out here.
If you haven’t made it into the competition yet or if you’re gearing up to play for the first time, we have TWO MORE PITCH WEEKENDS. Starting this Friday (through Sunday) is Week 3. And the following weekend is Week 4. You can pitch five loglines each weekend.
Our contenders from Week 2 are…
Title: SEIZURE
Genre: Action
Logline To stop terrorists who have seized a maximum security mental hospital, a visiting FBI agent running low on ammo teams up with an escaped prisoner running low on meds and whose violent blackouts make him a perfect killing machine.
Writer: Scott
Title: How To Lose a Job in 10 Days
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A desperate employee has ten days to get herself fired and collect the severance that will save her family’s home, but every sabotage only makes her more indispensable and fast-tracks her toward CEO.
Writer: Moscow Mule
Title: Peacekeeper
Genre: Action/Comedy
Logline: When 2 bickering married CIA agents threaten to divorce right before completing a major covert operation, the agency dispatches its most versatile “peacekeeper” operative to save the marriage – and the mission.
Writer: AlexE
Title: Dungeon Brawler
Genre: Fantasy Action Comedy
Logline: When his impoverished village can’t afford the king’s crushing tax, a scrappy peasant enters an illegal bare-knuckle fight circuit against trolls, orcs, and other mythical creatures to win enough gold before the crown comes to collect.
Writer: Joseph Jay Carroll Jr.
Title: Fireballer$
Genre: Action Comedy
Logline: Four Philadelphia construction workers must climb to the roof of a towering inferno to retrieve a lunch box containing a life-changing lottery ticket.
Writer: CJob
Title: Escape from Avalon
Genre: Sci Fi/Adventure
Logline: After an American tech executive crashes his yacht on an uncharted Pacific island, he must coordinate his escape with the island’s only other occupant – a 17th Century Spanish explorer who claims to have crashed only two weeks earlier.
Writer: wlubake
Title: Star Fall
Genre: Sci Fi
Logline: As a massive prison ship spirals toward a nearby star, its crew must fight their way through hundreds of the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals, now released from containment, to restore the ship’s power and prevent total annihilation.
Writer: Romer6
Title: The Family Jewels
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a clueless American influencer pulls Excalibur from the stone during a viral publicity stunt, an ancient law makes him the rightful King of England, forcing the greedy royal family to scheme, sabotage, and manipulate their way into stopping a well-meaning idiot from inheriting the crown.
Writer: Josh Bullock
Title: TBC
Genre: Horror thriller
Logline: When the first English ship arrives in the New World, a Powhatan warrior discovers the settlers are savage vampires who have crossed the ocean not for land but for fresh blood.
Writer: Gavin John
Title: WAR GODS
Genre: Action
Logline: An elite Delta Force team is shot down during a hostage rescue mission in Greece, forcing them to pursue terrorists and their hostages into the original Labyrinth, where humanity’s oldest monsters never died.
Writer: David Cahill
Title: ACTION REPLAY
Genre: Action/Heist
Logline: After years in prison two legendary old tough guys get hired as consultants on a movie about their famous last (failed) heist and decide to use the filming as cover to try the heist again…
Writer: Mike Hurst
Title: CELLAR DOOR
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After breaking into her neighbor’s basement for shelter during a tornado, a disgraced detective unearths an intricate tunnel system that secretly connects to numerous houses including her own—and to the homes of multiple missing teens she failed to find.
Writer: Redd
Title: I Think I Hate You
Genre: RomCom
Logline: After professing his love to his best friend and subsequently being ghosted by her even though they work together every day, a crushed young man hires a tech startup to edit his brain chemistry so he can finally move on. But now that he finds her repulsive, she finds him irresistible.
Writer: FloydC
Title: FOOL’S GOLD
Genre: Comedy/ Western
Logline: During the California Gold Rush, a struggling backwater town fakes a gold strike to lure fortune‑hunters and boost its own fortunes. But when real gold is found, the townsfolk try to drive away the prospectors and keep all the gold for themselves.
Writer: Formation Wave
Title: THE JUMP
Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Logline: When terrorists seize a commercial airliner and threaten to crash it, a SWAT team must use experimental teleportation to board the plane. But they only have four jumps, each lasting ten minutes, to retake the aircraft before time runs out.
Writer: mahyar
Title: INFERNO LINE
Genre: Action/Thriller
Logline: A jobless smokejumper teams up with a veteran thief to rob $3.4 million from a postal train. But the plan derails when the arson he started becomes a massive wildfire, cutting every way out.
Writer: Florent Hendrickx
Title: From Suburbia With Love
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a socially awkward 14-year-old discovers a banged-up international spy hiding in his pool house, they strike up a deal: the kid will keep the spy’s whereabouts secret while the suave spy helps the kid win over his crush.
Writer: Mason Elliot
Title: Contraflow
Genre: Action-Thriller
Logline: After robbing a bank under the cover of a Category 5 hurricane evacuation, the South’s best wheelman must turn Florida’s gridlocked exodus into a moving shell game, leapfrogging his crew and the stolen cash between vehicles to evade police checkpoints as the storm closes in behind them.
Writer: Sam Kerr
Title: Mistletoe Joe
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Every year, Santa prides himself on granting everyone’s Christmas wish. So when a socially inept man sends Santa a wish wanting to lose his virginity, in desperation, Santa sends him a foul-mouthed, womanizing elf, known as Mistletoe Joe, to help him get laid by Christmas.
Writer: Noah B
Title: Vice Stream
Genre: Crime thriller
Logline: After a popular Miami streamer is murdered during a live broadcast, his fanatical online community turns the ongoing stream into a weapon, using every clue hidden in the footage to hunt his killer through Miami’s neon underworld.
Writer: Tencoach
Only FOUR go through!
Okay, another day of voting! It’s like Vote-a-palooza here at Scriptshadow. I have already locked in the 7 winning loglines from yesterday, which will move into the official competition. But I don’t want to bog today’s post down so I’ll wait until tomorrow to post the entire list of scripts that made it through in the second week.
Today are the maybes from the weekend. Not every maybe makes it into today’s post. I went through all of them and I went through everyone’s extra 300 word pitch, if they made one. So, if you’re wondering where your ‘maybe’ idea went, it unfortunately went to idea heaven.
These are not going to be as strong as yesterday’s bunch. And, for that reason, only FOUR IDEAS are going to get into the competition today. So every vote counts. You can vote for multiple loglines. Again, I encourage everyone here to stick to the spirit of the competition and not just vote for your friends. Vote if you would want to see that movie. Cause that’s the ultimate goal of this contest – is to get movies made.
No need to waste time. Here are your contenders…
Title: Snakeboy
Genre: Comedy
Logline: After surviving a bite from what he mistakes for a deadly venomous snake (but is really a harmless garden snake), a delusional comic book nerd becomes convinced he’s developed snake-like superpowers and adapts a vigilante persona, oblivious to the very real danger he’s putting himself in as he haphazardly makes waves taking on the city’s criminal underworld.
Writer: AEL
Title: Untitled
Genre: Slasher
Logline: When a legendary horror director reunites the surviving final girls from his franchise at his remote estate, someone in the franchise’s iconic mask crashes the party, and the women must band together to survive their deadliest role yet.
Writer: Rupert Pumpkin
Title: What It’s Like
Genre: Horror-Comedy
Logline: When a die-hard fan and her favourite pop star accidentally swap bodies, the singer desperately tries to switch back, but the fan revels in her new fame and refuses. However, when she commits a public faux-pas and gets cancelled, she’ll do anything for her own life back, even murder.
Writer: JakeG177
Title : You have died of Dysentery
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Two tech addicted siblings whose phones have been destroyed by their fed up parents find an old copy of The Oregon Trail. When they get transported into the game, they must lead a group of pioneers and survive the entire nightmarish journey west in order to get back home.
Writer: T D
Title: Contraflow
Genre: Action-Thriller
Logline: After robbing a bank under the cover of a Category 5 hurricane evacuation, the South’s best wheelman must turn Florida’s gridlocked exodus into a moving shell game, leapfrogging his crew and the stolen cash between vehicles to evade police checkpoints as the storm closes in behind them.
Writer: Sam Kerr
Title: Mistletoe Joe
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Every year, Santa prides himself on granting everyone’s Christmas wish. So when a socially inept man sends Santa a wish wanting to lose his virginity, in desperation, Santa sends him a foul-mouthed, womanizing elf, known as Mistletoe Joe, to help him get laid by Christmas.
Writer: Noah B
Title: The Triangle
Genre: Adventure/Sci-Fi
Logline: When a small cruiser touring the Bermuda triangle sends out an SOS after incurring storm damage, it is rescued by the surviving crew of the HMS Atalanta, last seen 1880, and who are unaware a day has past since their own battering at sea. Our heroes now wonder how long they themselves have been lost in the triangle, and what kind of world awaits them if they can find their way out.
Writer: Mason Elliot
Title: Vice Stream
Genre: Crime thriller
Logline: After a popular Miami streamer is murdered during a live broadcast, his fanatical online community turns the ongoing stream into a weapon, using every clue hidden in the footage to hunt his killer through Miami’s neon underworld.
Writer: Tencoach
Title: Bad Review
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A young go-getter is tormented by the disturbed inventor of a product after he writes a review online that causes its downfall.
Writer: Patrick
Title: From Suburbia With Love
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a socially awkward 14-year-old discovers a banged-up international spy hiding in his pool house, they strike up a deal: the kid will keep the spy’s whereabouts secret while the suave spy helps the kid win over his crush.
Writer: Mason Elliot
Voting ends 11:59pm Pacific Time Wednesday.
To see all 10 entries together, filter Disqus comments by “Oldest”
Vote on your favorite script ideas now! If you want to jump straight to the loglines in contention, you can scroll down to the marker!
Today we’re going to vote on a dozen loglines to see which ones get into the HIGH CONCEPT CLUB CONTEST.
But, before we do that, I want to talk about the frustration behind the pitching this past weekend. Believe it or not, I hate giving “no’s.” I’m constantly hoping that every idea is that awesome idea I’m looking for. So, it was discouraging that the quality of the ideas wasn’t as good as the first weekend.
But let me say this….
Coming up with a good movie idea is hard.
And I think, for some reason, a lot of you think it shouldn’t be.
But the fact that it is is good. Cause if everyone in the world could keep coming up with great movie ideas, then nobody here would be needed. It’s the very reason that good ideas are hard to come by that we need you. Because you are the people who are willing to keep coming up with ideas, to keep trying, until you find one that stands out from the pack.
Everyone else out there has quit. They had their two “big” ideas. Both of which were lame. When nobody responded, they gave up. You guys are different. You are artists. You are the ones who keep pushing through the mud to get to enemy lines. The very act of continuing is what’s going to make you succeed.
However, I’m not here to reward effort. I still need a good idea. Trust me when I say, you don’t want me to let in an idea that I don’t believe in. People in this industry can tell when you don’t believe in something. So, if I’m pitching some idea of yours that I never believed in six months from now, you better believe that people will not hear the passion in my voice. And they will pass for that reason.
You want me to be excited about your idea because that excitement will translate when I’m pitching it.
If you have an idea that didn’t get into the contest but you still love it, WRITE IT. I’m not the only way to get your script noticed. But if you’re trying to convince me to like something that, deep in my gut, I’m not into, that’s probably not going to work out. You still have TEN pitches over the next two weekends. Buckle down and keep generating ideas. There’s a great one in you. You just have to dig deeper than you’ve ever dug before!
Okay, let’s announce the big winners of the weekend.
It starts with our golden ticket winner, Scott, with his overwhelmingly popular pitch, Seizure!
Title: SEIZURE
Genre: Action
Logline To stop terrorists who have seized a maximum security mental hospital, a visiting FBI agent running low on ammo teams up with an escaped prisoner running low on meds and whose violent blackouts make him a perfect killing machine.
Writer: Scott
We also have two yes’s. These ideas are automatically in the competition. They are…
Title: How To Lose a Job in 10 Days
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A desperate employee has ten days to get herself fired and collect the severance that will save her family’s home, but every sabotage only makes her more indispensable and fast-tracks her toward CEO.
Writer: Moscow Mule
Title: Peacekeeper
Genre: Action/Comedy
Logline: When 2 bickering married CIA agents threaten to divorce right before completing a major covert operation, the agency dispatches its most versatile “peacekeeper” operative to save the marriage – and the mission.
Writer: AlexE
And we have SIX projects voted in by you guys. These loglines received the requisite 15 votes to get in, and also did not get vetoed by moi.
Title: Dungeon Brawler
Genre: Fantasy Action Comedy
Logline: When his impoverished village can’t afford the king’s crushing tax, a scrappy peasant enters an illegal bare-knuckle fight circuit against trolls, orcs, and other mythical creatures to win enough gold before the crown comes to collect.
Writer: Joseph Jay Carroll Jr.
Title: Fireballer$
Genre: Action Comedy
Logline: Four Philadelphia construction workers must climb to the roof of a towering inferno to retrieve a lunch box containing a life-changing lottery ticket.
Writer: CJob
(Carson Note: I originally vetoed this. But the fact that it got 42 votes and that I think it has more potential than Cjob’s other entry, Mrs, means I’m reversing my veto and will place that veto on “Mrs.” instead)
Title: Escape from Avalon
Genre: Sci Fi/Adventure
Logline: After an American tech executive crashes his yacht on an uncharted Pacific island, he must coordinate his escape with the island’s only other occupant – a 17th Century Spanish explorer who claims to have crashed only two weeks earlier.
Writer: wlubake
Title: Star Fall
Genre: Sci Fi
Logline: As a massive prison ship spirals toward a nearby star, its crew must fight their way through hundreds of the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals, now released from containment, to restore the ship’s power and prevent total annihilation.
Writer: Romer6
Title: The Family Jewels
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a clueless American influencer pulls Excalibur from the stone during a viral publicity stunt, an ancient law makes him the rightful King of England, forcing the greedy royal family to scheme, sabotage, and manipulate their way into stopping a well-meaning idiot from inheriting the crown.
Writer: Josh Bullock
Title: TBC
Genre: Horror thriller
Logline: When the first English ship arrives in the New World, a Powhatan warrior discovers the settlers are savage vampires who have crossed the ocean not for land but for fresh blood.
Writer: Gavin John
Okay, now it’s time for the scripts that will be voted on today. I’ve got some strong maybes for you, as well as some maybes that I’ve upgraded. Here are today’s 12 contenders. The TOP 7 will get through.
Each entry will have its own individual comment in the comments section. To vote for them, simply upvote that comment. You can vote for as many entries as you want. Just please don’t vote for stuff you don’t like.
TODAY’S ENTRIES START HERE
Title: INFERNO LINE
Genre: Action/Thriller
Logline: A jobless smokejumper teams up with a veteran thief to rob $3.4 million from a postal train. But the plan derails when the arson he started becomes a massive wildfire, cutting every way out.
Writer: Florent Hendrickx
Title: THE PAIRING
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Logline: A disgraced golf icon and the newly crowned queen of the LPGA—who can’t stand each other—are forced to team up in the sport’s only mixed-team tournament, the Grant Thornton Invitational.
Writer: Chrishillwrites
Title: RAMREE
Genre: Thriller
Logline: (based on a true story) A World War II assassination mission on Ramree Island becomes a nightmare when 5 British soldiers are trapped in crocodile-infested mangroves with hundred of crocodiles to face to reach freedom.
Writer: nicohajj
Title: THE JUMP
Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Logline: When terrorists seize a commercial airliner and threaten to crash it, a SWAT team must use experimental teleportation to board the plane. But they only have four jumps, each lasting ten minutes, to retake the aircraft before time runs out.
Writer: mahyar
Title: ACTION REPLAY
Genre: Action/Hesit
Logline: After years in prison two legendary old tough guys get hired as consultants on a movie about their famous last (failed) heist and decide to use the filming as cover to try the heist again…
Writer: Mike Hurst
Title: FOOL’S GOLD
Genre: Comedy/ Western
Logline: During the California Gold Rush, a struggling backwater town fakes a gold strike to lure fortune‑hunters and boost its own fortunes. But when real gold is found, the townsfolk try to drive away the prospectors and keep all the gold for themselves.
Writer: Formation Wave
Title: The UnSub
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Logline: A formidable and domineering District Attorney must find a way to try and convict a sadistic crime boss, without revealing her secret past as his BDSM submissive.
Writer: Sthside
Title: CELLAR DOOR
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After breaking into her neighbor’s basement for shelter during a tornado, a disgraced detective unearths an intricate tunnel system that secretly connects to numerous houses including her own—and to the homes of multiple missing teens she failed to find.
Writer: Redd
Title: WAR GODS
Genre: Action
Logline: An elite Delta Force team is shot down during a hostage rescue mission in Greece, forcing them to pursue terrorists and their hostages into the original Labyrinth, where humanity’s oldest monsters never died.
Writer: David Cahill
(Carson Note: This got 15 votes but I’m still on the fence about it).
Title: It Lurks Beneath
Genre: Creature Feature/Survival Horror
Logline: A family fishing trip turns into a desperate fight for survival when an ancient sea creature relentlessly hunts them after they unknowingly kill its offspring.
Writer: D. Lawrence
Title: THE KILLING WATERS
Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE
Logline: During the American Civil War, Confederate and Union soldiers clash in the Second Battle of Sabine Pass in Texas. In the aftermath they find themselves hunted by a huge shark from the Gulf of Mexico
Writer: Mr Macca49 Fizzerton
Title: I Think I Hate You
Genre: RomCom
Logline: After professing his love to his best friend and subsequently being ghosted by her even though they work together every day, a crushed young man hires a tech startup to edit his brain chemistry so he can finally move on. But now that he finds her repulsive, she finds him irresistible.
Writer: FloydC
Voting ends at 11:59pm Pacific Time Tuesday July 21st!
Good luck everyone!
Genre: Period/Light Fantasy
Premise: After the fall of Troy, the legendary Greek king Odysseus must survive monsters, vengeful gods, and impossible temptations on a perilous voyage home to reclaim his kingdom and family.
About: Christopher Nolan’s latest is powerhouse at the box office, taking in 125 million dollars. This is a movie that, just a couple of weeks ago, was projected to hopefully make 80 million dollars. In a movie world where everyone is underperforming, Nolan is one of the few people who you can count on to overperform.
Writer: Homer & Christopher Nolan
Details: 2 hours and 45 minutes
By far, the coolest thing about The Odyssey is the fact that 2700 years ago, this guy wrote this story and it was so powerful and affected people so much, that 2700 years later someone is making a movie out of it.
Think about that for a second. To write something so impactful that 2700 years from now, somebody will make a movie about it. Or whatever the equivalent of a movie is in 4726. That’s pretty freaking awesome and shows the power of the written word.
Just imagine for a second Homer… staring at the blank page (or the blank air since I don’t think they had paper back then), just like you do every day. Mentally writing something down. Not liking it. Changing it. Being unsure. Figuring something out. There may have even been a moment where he said, “You know what? I don’t think this is very good. I’m not going to finish it.” But then he forged his way through the doubt and finished it anyway. And now people all over the world are going to see the visual adaptation of that story. It’s amazing when you really think about it.
The other big cool thing about this movie is Christopher Nolan. I love the fact that he’s still making movies the old fashioned way. Not just because that’s “how they used to do it.” But Nolan understands that when you record reality (as opposed to computer generated artificiality), the viewer’s suspension of disbelief is stronger. The audience feels like they’re seeing something that’s real.
And he’s just great at steering the ship. There were so many times during this movie where I would admire the composition of a shot. The lighting in a shot. The music in a scene. There were several times where I marveled at the costuming. I never think once about costumes but, in this movie I did. I loved certain performances, like John Leguizamo and Samantha Morton’s. And I loved the fact that when we were watching those people on a boat, they were all really on the boat. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Nolan taught them all how to properly row like they did 2000 years ago and the actors were all rowing the boat to locations themselves.
But you want to know something funny?
I was bored out of my mind watching this movie.
If you haven’t seen the movie or read the poem it was based on, Odysseus wins the Trojan War. Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, everyone assumes he’s dead. The timeline here is never explained in a clear way but, the main idea is that many years have passed and everyone assumes Odysseus is dead except for his wife, Penelope, and his young son, Telemachus.
The journey home for Odysseus is a greatest-hits album of Greek mythology. Odysseus outsmarts the Cyclops, escapes the Lotus-Eaters, survives the witch Circe, sails past the Sirens, outsmarts a whirlpool, gets drugged into a nonconsensual relationship, and even ventures into the underworld, where he reconnects with all of his fallen soldiers.
Odysseus is told by the dead that he shouldn’t show up in Ithaca as himself or they’ll kill him. So he disguises himself as a begger, where he eventually infiltrates the lunch room where the Ithacans spend 99% of their daily life, and engages them in a 1 vs. 100 battle. All so he can finally be with his wife and son.
How bored was I, you ask?
At one point I fell asleep.
Look. I just praised the fact that this story has lasted 2,700 years. But let’s be real. Any 2,700 year old story is going to have issues when you drop it into the modern day. Going off to war was a rite of passage back then. Everybody understood it. Today? The vast majority of us live in air conditioned homes and have food delivered straight to our door. Let me repeat that. We don’t even have the battle strength to get our own food!
So that whole aspect of the story was just a big fat “whatever” to me. I didn’t care. Nor did I care all that much about Odysseus getting home, which is kind of a problem since that’s the entire point of the movie.
For starters, I didn’t like his wife. She came off as a bitch. So I wasn’t exactly rooting for her to get her husband back. His son had never even met the guy. So I wasn’t all that invested in him getting his father back, either.
Then, as I was leaving the theater, I overheard someone say that Odysseus didn’t even want to get home. He wanted to stay away. And I thought, “You know what? He really didn’t seem like he wanted to get home.” Sure, he occasionally took a step in that direction. But the dude spent ten years hanging out on a beach before finally deciding to leave. That doesn’t exactly scream, “I can’t wait to get home.”
So then what’s the point of the movie? If the main character doesn’t really want to get home, what’s the engine driving the story? Is it just the inevitability of the writer needing to end the story and, therefore, forcing Odyssesus to return by his own (the writer’s) hand so that we can get to “The End?”
I know a lot of you will say, “You didn’t get it Carson.” Hand raised! I agree with you. I did not.
At one point, Odysseus is just chilling with this woman in a desert house that he borrowed from the Dune movie and he’s half-confused because he’s doping on drug flowers, and he’s not even sure why he’s there.
That’s when we learn this woman drugged him for seven years to forget to go home?? Come on. That doesn’t make sense at all. For starters, THEY’RE IN A DESERT!!!! THERE ARE NO FLOWERS!!! But let’s say that there’s a secret nearby flower garden. Even then! You’re saying you were able to keep him drugged every single second for seven straight years?????
Come on already.
It didn’t make sense, people. I need my stories to make sense.
2,700 years ago, stories didn’t have to make total sense. There wasn’t an internet logic-checking you. Heck, there weren’t even reviewers logic-checking you. You were one of the first stories. You could make up random rules and people just accepted them. But in 2026? No. We don’t just go with it anymore. And the Drug Woman sequence wasn’t the only example. There were a lot of moments like that.
I knew the movie was in trouble when we got to the Cyclops scene. I’d heard this set piece was incredible. I heard it was going to bring the house down. It wasn’t. It didn’t. It was… average. Which ended up being the theme of the movie. There was a shit-ton of average.
I didn’t even understand the rules of the Cyclops. He was already stumbling around like he was half blind. Then they actually blinded him and… he stumbled around like he was slightly more blind? It was all very murky and poorly constructed.
The pacing didn’t help either. Instead of playing the escape out in real time, everybody just goes to sleep right next to the Cyclops. You know, the giant thing who’s been murdering and eating you all day. I guess he doesn’t eat people after 8 p.m.?
There was a lot of clumsy, murky storytelling like that throughout the movie.
By the midpoint, I was dying. I was tapping my feet anxiously. I was rolling my eyes. Especially whenever we cut back to the wife and son. Who, by the way, spent 20 years hanging out in the lunch room. Did these people ever go outside????
I’d heard that the ending was amazing so I kept holding out hope for that.
It wasn’t.
It was like everything else in this story. Average.
I respect Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker. But I think he’s a terrible writer. That’s where he always sabotages his work. The cutting back and forth in time here was an attempt to make the story feel more sophisticated. In actuality, it just made things unnecessarily harder to follow.
The one truly good thing about this movie was learning that there was an actual dude named “Mentor” and that’s where the word “mentor” came from. That was honestly the only moment where my mind and body lit up and I felt something resembling excitement.
This movie is so boring guys. It is boring boring boring.
I do not recommend spending money on it.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the earliest lessons in storytelling is that the strength of your narrative engine is directly tied to how desperately your protagonist wants to achieve their goal. Whenever Odysseus is singularly focused on getting home, the story has urgency and momentum. Whenever that desire wavers, so does the narrative. The audience can only invest as much energy in a goal as the protagonist does.
You can begin pitching loglines in the comments section RIGHT NOW!
The contest is COMPLETELY FREE!
This is unlike any screenplay contest you’ve been involved with before. All of those contests let anybody in as long as they pay. My contest is free. Therefore, I demand only the best ideas. I’m looking to create great screenplays that every studio in town is going to want to read because the concept has already survived a public trial by fire.
How does it work?
You get to pitch 5 loglines every weekend for four weekends. We are already in weekend 2. Weekend 1 resulted in 16 screenplays making it into the contest. You can see all 16 of those loglines here. There are some REALLY GOOD ONES. That’s the bar you’re up against.
If you aren’t sure what a high concept is, go back to last week’s inaugural post where I explain in detail what ‘high concept’ means, and give you examples of high concept as well as examples of what’s not high concept.
Before you start pitching your ideas, you’re going to want to look at the rules. For those of you who were here last weekend, the rules are basically the same, however I’ve tweaked a few things. So you might want to re-read them.
If you come up with a script idea strong enough to get into the contest, you will have 6-7 months to write your script. The prize is the exposure. Industry people are watching this contest. If you write something good, I will review it. And if you write something extremely good, I’m going to get on the phone and do everything I can to get you representation.
But what I love most about this contest is that even if you don’t knock it out of the park with the screenplay, you’ll still have a concept that’s better than 95% of the ideas being pitched out there. That’s a huge advantage. Great concepts get read requests off the logline alone. And unlike most writers, you won’t just think your idea is good. You’ll have proof that hundreds of people responded to it. Most writers never get that. They write their ideas on a wing and a prayer.
Okay, let’s get to the rules!
1) There will be 4 pitch weekends. Friday through Sunday. Pitching ends every Sunday at 11:59pm Pacific Time. This is the second of those 4 weekends.
2) You can pitch five loglines each weekend.
3) Make sure you pitch each logline in its own comment. Do not pitch all 5 loglines in a single comment. This is because I need to vote yes or no on individual loglines.
4) I will vote on every single logline pitched. I will give you either a “YES!”, a “yes,” a “strong maybe,” a “maybe,” or a “no.” An all-capital “YES” Is the Holy Grail. It means you not only get in, but you can also send me a 5 page outline of your script before you write it and I will give you notes on it. This is HUGE because what I learned from the Blood & Ink contest is that a lot of writers went down weak creative paths that I could’ve prevented had I seen their outline.
5) A “yes,” still gets you in. Just without outline privilege.
6) If you get a “maybe” or a “strong maybe,” you then have, if you want, 300 words to pitch that idea to me. Tell me more about the story or the characters or what you’re thinking of doing with it. I will then use that information to decide, on Tuesday and Wednesday, whether that idea moves on.
7) The large majority of ideas will get a “no.” Try not to get offended. The bar is high here. I’m not here to make you feel good. I’m here to find great movie ideas.
8) Upvoted Entries – Upvote any loglines that you like (besides your own). If an idea gets 15 upvotes, the concept gets in. However, if I don’t like the concept, I’m vetoing it.
9) Golden Weekend Ticket – However, the ‘strong maybe,’ ‘maybe’ or ‘no’ entry with the most upvotes each weekend automatically gets in. So one user-voted entry will get into the contest each weekend. Therefore, even if I’ve voted “no” on something, and you like the idea, you still want to upvote it because that entry might win the Golden Weekend Ticket. I have special plans for those scripts once written which will involve users reviewing them.
10) Posters – You can include an AI poster with your logline for TWO IDEAS PER WEEKEND.
11) You can get multiple ideas into the contest. But you must choose only one to write.
12) You CAN pitch scripts that have already been written.
A quick reminder that my popular logline consultation service ($25 per logline, $100 for 5) is available. If you want a more extensive reason for why I didn’t pick your logline, order one. If you want to see ahead of time if a logline has a shot, order one. You can also do a deluxe logline consult ($50) where we keep workshopping the logline until it’s perfect. I believe 4 loglines got into Blood & Ink that way. But most of them did not. So, don’t think it’s a guarantee. If you want to use this service, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com.
Finally, keep in mind that I am going to be living my life during these weekends. In fact, I’m going to see The Odyssey today (Friday) which is like 9 hours long, and then I have a fairly extensive list of errands I have to do. So if your idea is stuck in moderation or waiting in the comments section for a vote, I WILL vote. It just might take a little longer than you want.
I’m going to blast out a newsletter letting everyone know about the pitch weekend. So, it should get crazy. :)
Who’s going to have that standout “HOLY SHIT!” idea this weekend?
I can’t wait to find out!
