A confession: log lines give me hives. There, I said it. I know, I know. A good log line is vital to selling/pitching a script. I've read all the books. Had that mantra drilled into my head. Yet, and this may be a mental defect, nearly every log line, even for great films, sounds silly enough to be a Lifetime movie of the week.
(No Lifetime viewers were harmed during the making of this post.)

In fact, I am tempted to come up with the most convoluted log line in the history of films, just to see if it would attract studio attention. In fact, I will. Here goes:

"Death and Sandwhiches". A young man, recently back from a missionary posting in Ohio, works diligently at his father's bakery to come up with the cure for Bubonic Scrotum Leprosy. His findings lead to a conspiracy that stretches from the halls of Montezuma to the power corridors of Baskin Robbins. In a race against time, he, and his trusty sidekick Acky the dancing maggot, must defuse a bomb that threatens to explode true love over Spokane.

There! Let some reader or studio head tell me that isn't brimming with fresh energy and a whiz bang plot! It's glorious. I can already see the merchandising. "Kids, you too can own Acky the plush maggot, for the low, low price of $29.95"

Frank, if you're this good on the radio, soon you'll be overtaking Howard Stern as Master of the Universe.

As much as you loathe log lines, I can't tell you how many times producers and network execs on various panels this week cited the value of the writer 'finding' their story's log line. The general consensus seemed to be that if a writer can't come up with a tight log line, perhaps they don't really know their story. Or their story needs work.

You guys at UCLA are SO BLESSED to have such a great faculty working with each writer. I'll bet each of these scripts ROCK!

Of all them, based soley on the log line, Nils Lyew, “Lutins” is the one I'd read first off interest.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Paint It Black sounds like something I'd want to read/watch.