12 Responses to “The comment that ran too long…”

1. James on Saturday: 6 January 2007|1255

   Wow. Thanks.

   You picked up on a few things. Let me first say…

   The point of that post was that most people treat High Concept like it is a solid, tangible thing you can hold in your hands. When in fact, it is a matter of opinion. A large audiences opinion… Or really… a producer’s opinion of a mass audience opinion.

   The use of the LIAR, LIAR loglines was simply illustrating how subjective High Concept is. There’s four one-line descriptions that people are using to claim the movie is high concept, and only one really nails it (and personally, it is a little long-winded for my taste… which is probably why it took 4 years before anyone would even look at Liar, Liar).

   Are you saying that you still do not know what high concept is versus anything else? Or, are you saying that EVERYTHING is high concept? Or are you saying that everything that would appeal to a wide audience is high concept?

   There is a lot of gray area, in terms of what is and isn’t high concept. I know what high concept is at an ideal level.
   I am not saying that everything is high concept because clearly… everything isn’t.

   Bingo.

   A little nebulous, I know. The point is, rehashes with a little spin on old High Concept movies are not necessarily High Concept. But a lot of times they squeak through as such.

   To use your analogy of the Hundai and the Porsche… You assert that anyone looking for a screenplay would rather work on a Porsche than two Hundais, when a Hundai would take more work at half the pay. I agree. My issue is that there is debatable gray area in which people can make Hundais look like Porsches. You, as the mechanic, may start going to work not even realizing that you have a Hundai on your hands. It looks like a Porsche… but for some reason it is taking longer than you thought it would. You have invested time and energy into repairing this “Porsche” only to find out it is a Hundai…

   So do you stop working on it? Or just bite your lip, finish it and try and recoup lost time and expenses?

   It is my opinion that Hollywood buys a lot of Hundais in Porsche clothing.

   And again, I do agree with you. I have read and covered a crapload of scripts that have no High Concept. If they found one, they’d probably sell much easier.

   I have also read a ton of scripts that were given a reading on their logline alone, where the execution stinks and the author makes no attempt to cash in on their high concept. The sad fact of the matter is, these scripts have a higher shot of being made than a well executed concept that is on unfamiliar ground for a producer.

   Just to set the record straight… the 98% of bad scripts that Unk talks about are BOTH poor execution and no High Concept. I’m talking about the 2% range.

   Whether something is truly High Concept or not… is really up to a mass audience to decide (at that 2% level).

   UNIQUE is a f%$#ing story we’ve NOT SEEN BEFORE

   “The story is unique” is bait. Everyone and their brother is going to claim their story is unique. Whether a story is truly unique or not… again is up to debate. Is it something people have never seen before? Or something that has never existed throughout the universe through all time…?

   I didn’t want to discuss that. So, my comment is a bit of a facetious dodge. Of course, you need to have a unique story.

   As for your logline… that is essentially Chris’s ‘D’ logline. You just wrote it better. And to be fair, his job isn’t to be a writer.

   I’d also argue the “why,” the causation, isn’t mandatory to a high concept logline. It may be necessary for some high concepts, but not all.

   GROUNDHOG DAY is high concept. The why he has to repeat the same day over and over again is not important. Granted the “why” holds some bearing on LIAR, LIAR… there are still high concept movies out there, that do not fit the definition you have for logline.

   GROUNDHOG DAY is also a great example of high concept that does not look like your typical high concept movie. It is this type of movie that is a Porsche that may get overlooked as a Hundai for another script that is a Hundai in Porsche’s clothing.

   As I said previously. I agree with the content of your posts on High Concept. I agree on a very ideal level. My post was written more to open up some thought on what truly makes a High Concept. It wasn’t to pose my viewpoint as the end all, be all. I just don’t think High Concept is as black and white, as a lot of people make it seem.

   NOTE: Sorry, I thought I turned off the Blogger only thing.

2. James on Saturday: 6 January 2007|1316

   I’d also argue the “why,” the causation, isn’t mandatory to a high concept logline. It may be necessary for some high concepts, but not all.

   I just wanted to point out, that this is not a rebuttal to your breakdown of a logline. In the context of the comment it reads like it is.

   I actually, don’t see much of a difference from your 5 things vs. Chris’s 3. It seems like a simple elaboration of the points.

   I’m just saying that I do it differently…

   I’m agreeing. You do the same thing, differently.

   My “why” comment is an after thought… expanding some of my own thoughts on how things are done differently… not a rebuttal of yours.

3. Joshua James on Saturday: 6 January 2007|1735

   Unk,

   Cannot wait to discuss all this and more wit’ ya some day over a beer . . .

4. Unk on Saturday: 6 January 2007|2001

   James,

   Thanks for coming back and making some clarification… Much appreciated but I gotta tell ya…

   I LIKE making the entire idea of HIGH CONCEPT black and white. It works. It cuts through the shit. Don’t get me wrong, I love the debate but when the dust is settled, what it really comes down to is how YOU, I, or anyone writing a screenplay chooses to pursue HIGH CONCEPT.

   What I do, works for me. I would never contend or purport that what I say is the END ALL to the subject… And I sure as hell would never tell anyone to DO IT THE WAY I DO IT.

   My discussion of all these screenwriting subjects is to simply get the boogers out into the light so we can take a cold hard look at reality.

   Then, after you’ve seen it and it scampers back into the dark, we all go our separate ways and hopefully… Just a little smarter about it all.

   But to be clear…

   Nobody ever said that a high concept screenplay was an easy sell. One would still have to get others to read it but you are absolutely correct when you say that even a poorly executed screenplay with a high concept has a better chance at getting read and made than a well executed non high concept screenplay — HENCE, all the posts on high concept.

   If, after becoming educated to that fact, one still wants to go down the non high concept road, more power to them! I would be the very last person to try and persuade them otherwise.

   In the end… You gotta do what you gotta do.

   Unk

5. James on Sunday: 7 January 2007|1436

   I LIKE making the entire idea of HIGH CONCEPT black and white.

   I think most producers do. The idea that high concept is black and white carries with it a sort of seal of approval that if you find something that appears high concept it will make money. But… we are talking about this from the screenwriter’s POV.

   I agree. In fact, my original post was just trying to boil down what makes a high concept, in black and white terms.

   Just throwing some more discussion fodder out there…

   What do you think about movies like STRANGER THAN FICTION vs movies like THE CORE? Would you call either high concept? Both? Neither?

   Both have loglines and a concept that I can picture. But I’d only go to see one of them based off of that. And in fact, have only seen one of them. Maybe I am in a minority here… but I am not alone.

   Just to note: I actually enjoyed ARMAGEDDON.

   —————————–
   Your comments also got me thinking about the 98% of screenplays that lack high concept…

   For me, there is one more factor for a high concept. That is… a screenplay is written towards the concept. I know, you’ve mentioned this as well. And it seems like it should be a given, but it is not.

   This does not necessarily mean flawless, or even good execution. Just writing to the concept.

   In the 98% (or whatever the number is… but it’s high) of bad screenplays, they not only do not have a High Concept, but in majority do not even have a concept either. There’s no discernible reason why the writer is writing.

   Just food for thought.

6. chris on Sunday: 7 January 2007|1631

   Unk — always impressed w/your laser sharp thought process and analyses. And that SO much thought can go into the crafting of a single sentence. And then we have to write thousands of them. I draw this distinction:

   Logline vs. TAGLINE…

   …yes the tagline is that one catchy adline on the poster…”just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…”

   The term logline actually originates, I’m told by the log kept at the studio to track everything in production. Tagline’s all the boys in marketing.

   Chris

7. Unk on Sunday: 7 January 2007|2149

   Chris,

   Thanks for stopping by… You fucking pulled that bad boy right out of my subconscious…

   THE TAGLINE

   I knew when I was responding to James that I was forgetting about something… I kept trying to remember but I’d been up for almost 3 days hence, my delirious post.

   Read about the TAGLINE at Wikipedia.

   James,

   Bottom line is that I’m a screenwriter. I’ve only been a producer for a little over a year and that’s only because I wrote a friggin’ high concept spec screenplay. LOL.

   Which is WHY I try to bridge that gap… When screenwriters start thinking more like producers before they sit down to write a spec script, they automatically increase their chances for success before ever having written a word.

   I like those kinds of numbers.

   Of course the problem is AND always has been that even WITH this kind of thinking, 98% of the scripts are unreadable.

   My point?

   Not to overthink it…

   Just write it.

   Unk

8. Clive on Monday: 8 January 2007|1251

   Wow, I step offline for two minutes and someone starts a high concept fight without me! LOL

   I remember hearing once that when you get right down to it all jobs eventually become selling jobs — I sort of agree with that.

   It’s definitely true of screenwriting.

   I used to be an advertising copywriter, so I like high concept and I also like strong loglines.

   I like them because I know the idea behind the film is going to have to be sold mulitple times — first to an agent or producer, then to a director, then to the names you want, then to the backers, then to the distributors and finally to the audience.

   That’s a lot of selling!

   The film has to survive multiple pitches — now even though there is a difference between a logline and a strapline (we call a tagline a strapline in the UK) — what I do know is a film with a good high concept logline is going to be much easier to create a strapline for.

   The reason for this is ultimately the question everyone has to answer is “Why should anyone go and see this movie?”

   Although in theory people do go to see names, if you step into any Bluckbuster and listen to people choosing a movie, the sentence you hear is “What’s it about?”

   The final pitch for your movie is going to be your average guy in the street’s understanding of the movie as he explains it to his mate. (How scary is that?)

   So, my two cents on this is — make sure you create ideas that do two things:

   1) Can be understood and pitched by almost anyone
   2) Are interesting enough to motivate some people to watch the damn thing

   Hmm, if I’d know I was going to write this much I would have posted on my site intead! LOL

9. Still alive and well » The Unknown Screenwriter on Thursday: 19 July 2007|1837

   [...] happening over at MyVisualPitch.com. You've got till August 24, 2007 to upload up to three loglines or Visual Pitches to their web [...]

10. Benny on Tuesday: 15 January 2008|2104

    Hello Unk,

    Just wondering — is it possible to add suspense in a logline. If yes, then should I start off full of facts and then conclude with a hint of how the hero will achieve his/her quest?

    Is it a good idea to hook the producer by teasing the producer?

    Thanks.

11. Unk on Thursday: 17 January 2008|2058

    Benny,

    Sure it is… Your entire logline is simply a hint or teaser that is strategically designed to make a producer request the script.

    Unk

12. Susan P. on Friday: 15 August 2008|1051

    You guys are really having a long discussion here without actually clearly defining what you mean by HIGH CONCEPT. Throughout this whole discussion I’ve not seen any true clarity on that. It’s almost as if you are applying a descriptor on some value assumption that you’re not enunciating. Not even the car analogy totally cuts it.

    I’m left wondering whether “high concept’ here is being applied to ideas that you simply find fairly unique or ‘different’. The car analogy up to a point could have implied expensive, snob value, classy, limited audience access et al. The analogy shifted half way through so I wasn’t sure.

    I’ve been involved when teaching in some great discussions generated by students on what constitutes ‘high literature’. What works form the benchmarks and then, what contemporary works could be added to the reservoir.

    Re tagline or logline.. I have found in TV show proposal treatments that tagline is used and means the same thing as logline does with scripts.

    I like you having built up that Liar Liar logline example Unk. Very useful.

Leave a Reply