So you want to write 5 scripts in 1 year using the SAVE THE CAT method? Well, YOU probably don't, you're probably at least somewhat sane, but I do. The first step according to StC is to craft a stellar logline and a compelling title to assist it. So write some log lines and titles I have!
Another section of Snyder's book lays out 10 "genres" of movie. They're not so much genres as they are...molds of action, I suppose? I must say, I struggle a bit with these, but in order to try and wrap my head around them while ALSO coming up with some titles and log lines for my 5 scripts. 10 genres, 5 scripts. May the odds be ever in my favor.
Below are the 10 genres, along with a title and logline I've written (and images grabbed from quick Google Image searches to help break up all that text) that will hopefully fit each genre and, if fortune smiles, will possibly be the starting point for some of these scripts.
Without further ado, 10 pitches:
Genre #1: MONSTER IN THE HOUSE
Title: HackSaw
Logline: A wannabe evil genius uses his startup millions to create a warehouse of murderous traps to teach his former high school foes some gory lessons, but things don't go as planned when his victims prove to be not quite as helpless as he'd hoped.
Genre #2: THE GOLDEN FLEECE
Title: ...AND DEATH FOLLOWED
Logline: A surly teenage girl loses her father and no one knows how to reach her...until her uncle takes her on the road to film her father's unmade cheapie horror screenplay, "...And Death Followed."
Genre #3: OUT OF THE BOTTLE
Title: INSPIRED
Logline: A harried, overlooked high school English teacher finds the glitterati hanging on her every word when a vapid celebrity starlet names her as her primary inspiration, and the more she rants the more they love her...much to the starlet's chagrin.
Genre #4: DUDE WITH A PROBLEM
Title: LAST CALL
Logline: When his best friend, a former mob enforcer, kills an unhinged gangster's brother, a curmudgeonly anti-social bartender must work both the mob and the cops to keep his friend alive.
Genre #5: RITES OF PASSAGE
Title: NONE MORE GOTH
Logline: A petulant Visigoth princess must battle her cocky brother in a bizarre, violent Goth Gauntlet to claim her birthright from their warrior king father.
Genre #6: BUDDY LOVE
Title: THE HONEY POT
Logline: When her ex gets engaged to the woman he went undercover to protect from a mad super-villain, a secret agent threatens to blow the case, and get everyone killed, when she uses a new threat as an excuse to crash the bachelorette party.
Genre #7: WHYDUNIT
Title: UTOPIA!
Logline: A plucky cub reporter discovers that an idealistic hippie-dippie Brooklyn commune may be built on murder and the occult!
Genre #8: THE FOOL TRIUMPHANT
Title: SKIN IN THE GAME
Logline: A snarky writer for a hip political website decides to expose the system from the inside by enlisting a burnt-out campaign manager to run for a coveted senate seat.
Genre #9: INSTITUTIONALIZED
Title: THICKER THAN WATER
Logline: A young black girl whose father was accidentally killed by a cop has her life turned further upside down when her radical activist uncle returns to get justice from the cops by any means necessary.
Genre #10: SUPERHERO
Title: THE WITCH IN THE WOODS
Logline: When a coven of evil witches attacks a 19th Century New England town, their only chance may be the witch they tried to burn alive 15 years earlier.
There they are! 10 pitches! If you find any of them particularly striking, let me know! If you have thoughts on how they could be improved, I'd love to hear them! If you're ambivalent about the whole thing...I mean, I guess that would be valuable, too? But honestly, man, come on. Give me something!
I'm contemplating doing a special "Director's Cut" version of these pitches with some of my thoughts and feelings on them laid out beneath each pitch, but for the time being I wanted them to stand alone. Maybe I'll do that in the comments later? I'm also contemplating trying to to each of these again, but make each one a very explicit horror movie (though a couple of these already fit that mold), as horror is my genre of choice.
But anyways, enough of all that. Thus begins the beginning. As the wise man said, every journey begins with a single blog post.
And away we go...
-Jake T.