by The Judges

The 34th Battalion

The judges’ verdict:

Karel: My question: what makes this movie different from every other war movie? What is interesting about the characters? If there is no central character – God help me, I cannot remember a local film that managed this satisfactorily since Lantana – then why does it need to be a group? Will their friendship be torn apart? And what value(s) or theme(s) are at stake?.”

 What makes this movie different from every other war movie

James: “The inciting incident (the death toll) isn’t an event and therefore can’t be measured or drawn out on a page. This is the first mistake. The logline attempts to create some drama “a group of friends must chose…” but then the logline goes on to tell us what their decision is by stating that they fight in battles. There is no need to add this extra bit of information. It would be better to outline who the main character is and what his goal is (maybe he has to survive and make it home for some reason?) At the moment the goal is too short term, they’re intent on fighting in the war. There needs to be a long term goal to keep the audience interested for when they do ship off to war (as we know they do). ”

Untitled Project

The judges’ verdict:

Geno: “As a logline, it’s missing most of the elements, except of course, the genre, which was clearly stated (unnecessarily so). No sense of protagonist, antagonist, goal, obstacles, stakes, etc. Basically, just a TV guide entry The writer needs to learn the basics of a logline, and the Australian Film Project board, or whomever is funding this stuff, needs to improve their standards a bit. If the logline is this bad, I cannot imagine what the script is like..”

As a logline, it’s missing most of the elements

James: “I could sit here and drum out a list of all the things that this logline is missing. No main character, no goal, no inciting incident etc. Giving your story a setting isn’t enough to create interest in the script. We know enough about the Cronulla riots to be aware that this will clearly be about racism. There’s no need to put that in. I’d rather know whose point of view this event is from. Is it someone involved in the riots or simply an on-looker who becomes affected some way. These are questions that need to be answered in the logline before a script is even attempted.  ”

 No main character, no goal, no inciting incident.

If you have an opinion on any of these synopses or the feedback from the judges, please share it with us in the comments below. Please keep the discussion constructive. Even if your first instinct may be subjective, try to give us as objective a reply as possible. The objective is to all (that includes us, judges) learn from the exercise.

So what is your verdict? Would you want to see these films? Why (not)? Did the judges get it right? How would you improve the synopses/loglines and what do you feel might improve the stories behind them?

To read the full reviews and those from casual visitors, go to www.loglineit.com.

The Judges (click for details)