Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 860: Hollywood’s Book Whisperer Reveals Why Most Scripts Never Sell with Lane Shefter Bishop

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IFH 860: Hollywood’s Book Whisperer Reveals Why Most Scripts Never Sell with Lane Shefter Bishop · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: On this episode, we have the person they call Hollywood's
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: book Whisperer. Her new book, Sell Your Story and a
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Single Sentence is out now which is completely about log lines,
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  Speaker 3: which is something I need to help with as well.
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  Speaker 3: With guests Lane Bishop, Hey, Lane, thank you very much
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  Speaker 3: for coming on the podcast.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 3: Dave.
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  Speaker 4: I'm excited to be here.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm excited to have you here. Lane. You know
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: I was looking at your bio and you just created
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  Speaker 3: the book, you know, sell your story and a single sentence,
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  Speaker 3: CNN calls you the book whisper. You have all these
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  Speaker 3: amazing products coming on. Just great to have you come
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: on the you know, the podcast. So, you know, Lane,
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  Speaker 3: just to get started, I wanted to ask, you know,
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  Speaker 3: how did you get started in the film business?
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  Speaker 1: Uh?
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  Speaker 5: You know, I have the most eclectic background of probably
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: anyone in this industry. I was really you know, I
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: didn't know which area I wanted to be in initially,
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: so I I was a temp at different studios and
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: I ended up tempting for, like, you know, some of
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  Speaker 5: the biggest names you could imagine. And at the time
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: I didn't even realize that it was such a big deal.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: You know, I was working for the head of you know,
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: Walt Disney Pictures. But it was really it was a
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: great expecause I learned sort of literally every piece of
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: how movies got made, all the drafts and all the notes,
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: and it was just a it was a great learning.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: Experience for me.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: And during that time I became a director and I
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: directed for fifteen years on and off, and whenever it
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: was off, I was temping again, and I ended up
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: working at DreamWorks. I was like one of the first
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: six people at DreamWorks. I was doing like contracts for animators.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, you name it, I've done it. And then,
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: you know, I just I got to a point where
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: I had spent you know, fifteen years as a director,
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: and I have an Emmy and I and I really
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: felt like I got tired of waiting for the phone
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  Speaker 5: to ring.
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  Speaker 4: So I started to get into producing.
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  Speaker 5: And I met a guy who you know, had a
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: ton of money and just wanted to be in the industry.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: And he was like, you can do all the creative
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: and I'll write the check. And you know, how do
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: you say no to that? So, you know, in two
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: thousand and six, I started producing. And you know, I
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: was a lit major before I went to USC Film School.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: My undergraduate degrees in literature and then my in film,
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: and so I started to sort of blend the two
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: when I was working for him, and in those two
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: years two thousand and six two thousand and eight that
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: I was the EVP of TV and movies for him,
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  Speaker 5: I literally ended up setting nothing, setting up at nothing
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: but books.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it was just weird.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: Like I taught Santra Brown into coming back into the industry.
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  Speaker 5: She's amazing, by the way, And so we became the
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: first company to do a feature film with Sandra Brown,
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: and I set up three TV movies with ABC.
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  Speaker 4: Family and all this cool stuff was going on. They
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: were all books.
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  Speaker 5: I made a deal with Harlequin. We became sort of
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: their development arm at the time. And you know, people
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: thought Harlequin was like Bodish ripper Fabio, and in fact,
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: they have eleven imprints and only one of them is
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: that Just so I set up a lot of projects
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: and I just didn't say it was Harlequin because the
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: material was really great.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: And then end of two thousand and eight, the guy
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  Speaker 4: worked for was sort of.
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  Speaker 5: Like, well, I don't I don't feel like producing.
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: I think I want to be a screenwriter.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh no, well, I was trying to
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  Speaker 5: fare what to do? You know, I was producing, I
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: was directing, you know, what do I want to do?
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: And I give all kudos to my husband who said,
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: you know, you're setting up a lot of stuff. Why
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: don't you just keep doing book to screen? And I
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: was like, wow, it's like the worst time at two
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: thousand and eight, you know, height of the recession, you know,
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: bad time to start a company. But I thought, okay,
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  Speaker 5: I'll do it for a year, and I started vast
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  Speaker 5: entertainment book to screen only, and I knew a lot
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  Speaker 5: of people in New York publishers, authors, so I thought.
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  Speaker 4: I'll see what happens.
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  Speaker 5: And in that year it was like crazy, I think,
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  Speaker 5: I set up like twelve book projects and I thought, uh.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, well that's working. So that became sort of my
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  Speaker 4: bread and butter.
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  Speaker 5: And you know, it's morphed a little as time's gone on,
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  Speaker 5: because first of all, nobody wanted to hear the word
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: book in two thousand and eight because three hundred pages,
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: you know, that was like so intimidating. So I slowly
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: had to come up with ways of pitching this material
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  Speaker 5: without having them have to read a three hundred page book.
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  Speaker 5: That's sort of where the genesis of sell your story
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  Speaker 5: in a single sentence came from. And I also, you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: had to figure out how to beat all the book scouts.
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  Speaker 5: So I ended up spending a lot of time in
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: New York I still do, and and really focusing on
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: books before they became books. So I would say about
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: ninety percent of what I set up is based on
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  Speaker 5: book proposals and partials like fifty to one hundred pages.
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  Speaker 4: I just don't wait for the.
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  Speaker 5: Whole book, because you know what, everything's going to change
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  Speaker 5: during the adaptation process anyway, as it did for the Duff,
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  Speaker 5: which was the very first thing I set up with McGee.
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  Speaker 4: So you know, it's it's just.
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  Speaker 5: A it's such a it's a process of going from
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  Speaker 5: something that's on the page is something on the screen,
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  Speaker 5: and no matter what, it's going to change. So so
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  Speaker 5: I just don't wait for the book anymore.
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  Speaker 4: And that's sort of how Vast has grown, you know.
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  Speaker 3: So I wanted to ask Leane, you know, how do
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  Speaker 3: you find the books that you want to that you
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  Speaker 3: want to sort of turn into movies or maybe even
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: just you know, set up. How do you find the
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  Speaker 3: books that you know? Do you you have somebody that
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  Speaker 3: that sort of gives you recommendations or are you always
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  Speaker 3: at like got Borns and Nobles or something looking through
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  Speaker 3: the best seller section?
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  Speaker 5: You know, Because my company focuses on like pre publication material,
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  Speaker 5: I get everything from author's agents in New York.
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  Speaker 4: I work with about sixty or sixty five.
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: Now writer's agents out of New York, and I go
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  Speaker 5: to New York about five times a year and I
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: sit with them.
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  Speaker 4: I think face to face is really important.
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  Speaker 5: You know a lot of people they wait till the
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: announcement comes out on publisher's marketplace, and they have their
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  Speaker 5: intern call and say, like, send us the galleys when
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  Speaker 5: it's ready, And I just don't think that's the.
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  Speaker 4: Way to do it.
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  Speaker 5: I think the way to do it is to go
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  Speaker 5: out there and sit with them face to face and say,
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  Speaker 5: you know, what do you have coming down the pipe
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  Speaker 5: that you're excited about that you haven't even gone out
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  Speaker 5: with yet.
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  Speaker 4: You know, That's where I get most of my material.
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  Speaker 4: And I have.
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  Speaker 5: Literally I set up a project with Peter Churnan on
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  Speaker 5: a hundred pages. I set up a project with Scott
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  Speaker 5: Stuber on eleven page book proposal. I just have a
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: project with Joel Silver that literally came from an agent
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: calling me saying, Hey, my author just sent me this
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  Speaker 5: idea of some mean she wants to write.
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  Speaker 4: It's only like twenty pages. Let me send it to you.
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  Speaker 5: And I read it and I called her and said,
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: have her write this right now, because I can set
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: this up on these twenty pages which I did with Joel.
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  Speaker 5: So it's it's just one of these things where you
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: never know what when you're going to hear it.
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  Speaker 4: I read everything myself.
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  Speaker 5: I get about nine hundred books a year, so I
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: do a lot of reading, and a lot of them
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  Speaker 5: are unfinished, which is how I like it. I like
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: things really early because if the concept is good, if
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: I can sell it in a sentence, you know, I
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: can sell it.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: And you know that's something I wanted to get into too,
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: because you just wrote the book. You know, sell your
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: story in a single sentence. And I think it's so important, Lane,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: because you know, there's so many times that I've had
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: screenwriters and these just sort of, you know, they say, oh,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: I can't really sum it up in a sentence. You know,
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: my story's so complex, you know, and there's so many
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: things going on, and you know, I'm sure when you know. Obviously,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: when you're hearing this too, you're probably thinking, well, you
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: don't know what your story's about then, right, right. So
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: imagine pitching to a manager or an agent or a
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: studio and just saying, oh, well, I can't really say
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: what it's about, you know, So if you have to
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: read you'll have to read this to actually understand. And
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: so you know what was sort of the impetus for
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: you to create, you know, to write the book, you know,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: sell your story in a single sentence.
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  Speaker 5: I had been talking about this at writers' conferences around
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: the country, around the world.
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  Speaker 4: I was at the London Book Fair.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: I have been talking about how to create this logline,
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  Speaker 5: this selling sentence for years, probably six years now. And
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: at the end of each one of these little seminars
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  Speaker 5: I always have obviously authors and screenwriters coming up and saying,
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: do you have a book?
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: Do you have a book?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: The answer is no.
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: And then at my last seminar and Boston a year
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: ago or so, a friend of mine who's one of
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: the agents I work with, Catherine Sands, came up to
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: me in front of this line of people and said.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Yes, she does have a book. Like, what are you doing?
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: And she said to me, laying, all these people are
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: asking you for a book. You have to write this.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: And I said, I don't have time to write this,
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: and she browbeat me and said, yes you do. And
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: I give her full credit because she also got it
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: to one of the you know, biggest global publishers in.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: The world, Norton, which is amazing.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: And really it was it wasn't as hard to write
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: as I thought because I had spoken on it for
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: so long. I really developed this system for how to
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: create that sentence. How do you get a three hundred
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: page book down into something you can sell. So it
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: was all a matter of just getting it on paper,
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: you know, because I've been speaking about it forever, and
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: you know, to me, the big thing is I always
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: tell writers who like but everything's important and it's my baby,
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: and I said, look, you know, if you can't get
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: someone to read it, it doesn't do you any good
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: at all. So the goal is to figure out what's
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: most unique about your work, what is the most unique
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: thing about it, because that's what's going to sell it.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: That's what a log line is. It's one sentence highlighting
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: what's most unique about your work. Because everyone wants something
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: new and different and flavor of the month and shiny
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: new toy. You know, nobody wants something that they feel
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: like they've heard before. So I'll give you my favorite example.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: I was brought a book really long I think it
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: was almost foreigner pages this woman and it's her life story.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: It's a real story.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: And she was into drugs and her boyfriend was into
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: drugs and you know, they went to prison and she
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: was a drug mule and all this stuff. And I
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: said to her, like, I feel like I've seen this.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: I feel like, you know, it's like the movie Traffic,
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: Like there's you know, what's different, Give me specifics. I'm
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: always saying that, be more specific, because you know what
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: makes it unique is the specifics. And after you know,
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: hours and days of you know, slogging through this material
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: and talking to her, and you know, ultimately I came
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: up with a log line which will show you how
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: powerful these things are. The log line is it's the
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: story of a woman who at only nineteen became a
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: ran the biggest drug cartel in US history. So you
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: have that as you're selling sentence, a pretty good chance
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: I can set that up.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and when you just mentioned in that
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: log line too, you know, that's even seems like something
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that you know, actors will be going after because you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: and talking with you know, all the screenwriters and producers
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: on this podcast and even off the podcast, you know.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Usually that that's the two big things that producers ask about,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: right is what's it about? And who's storing in it?
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: Yep, yep. And believe me, it applies to everything.
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: You can come up with a log line as a writer,
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: as an actor, if you're a businessman selling a new business,
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, anything you're selling can be crafted into a
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: log line and should be because look, the minute is
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: a writer. For example, the minute you say I'm a writer,
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: what's the first question they're going to say, well, what
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: are you working on?
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: What are you writing? It's the first question. You better
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: have a great answer.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: This is also something to I've found lame is you know,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: people do want to inject their own lives into their screenplays,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: you know, and usually you know, when they say things
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: like that, like hey, this really happened to me in
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: real life. Usually, you know, I always say like, well,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't know if it would fit in
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: this screenplay. Like, for instance, I hade a friend of
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: mine and he everything always happened in his life. He
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: would turn into like the screenplay, and finally he wrote one,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: and it was like a hodgepodge of everything that's like
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: happened to him in the past like three years, and
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I said, do you really feel like this is enough
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: to carry a screenplay? Just sort of having all these
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: scenes and stuff. And you know, one of the best
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: pieces of writing advice I've ever been given was through
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: your log line, you can extract everything from your story. So,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: you know, when you do have something like that, like
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: you get an idea like hey, you know a guy
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: meets a girl and the girl is a drug mule
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: something like that, you know you can, you know, you
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: have to take that concept turning into a log line,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: evolve that log line, and then you can extract your
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: story from said log line.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: The log line actually is absolutely true can tell you
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: what's missing from your screenplay. You know, I've I've spent
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: so much time talking about the three main tents of
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: a log line, which or who's your protagonist, what do
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: they want?
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: And what's at stake? And so many times the what's
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: at stake is missing?
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: You know, they'll say, like, oh, it's about a queen
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: who has to get back the stolen gold for her country,
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: Well why I.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: What happens if she doesn't?
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: You know, So the logline actually can be really helpful
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: in telling you what's missing from your screenplay? And also
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: you know, in what your example was with your friend
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: is like that's what I call an event to event
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: to event screenplay.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: It's like all this.
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: Stuff happens and there's no reason why nobody cares. So,
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: you know, without that motivating force the what do I want,
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: you're really you really have problems. So that's another reason
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: why loglines are so beneficial, because they can really help
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: focus you on what's not in your screenplay and should be.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: And also what I found too is that a lot
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: of screenplays that I read who are written by sort
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: of you know, amateurs to like semi professionals, there's a
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: lot of times there's no goal, like do you know
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: what I mean? Like, there's nothing that is pushing this narrative.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: And then that's when I go back and I'm thinking, well,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: what would the logline be of this screenplay? And let
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: me let's just give you a quick example. One of
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: them was about a guy who his girlfriend dumps them.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: His fiance dumps him, and he sort of spends the
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: rest of the screenplay just sort of wandering, I mean,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: and I kept thinking to myself, you know what, you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: there was no goal there wasn't even you know, you
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: know what lane I would have settled for, even the
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: character even saying like, see that thing, that's what I need,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: like he just could come out and set it, because
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: I thought, maybe, you know, maybe there's something I'm missing
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: in a subtext here, maybe there's something I'm missing. And
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: I got to the end and there was nothing. There
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: was no goal, and I said, you know, and I
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: said to the person, you know, I think you need
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: to go back and go through, you know, drafts, because
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: I said, this is a draft one, obviously, and he
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: looks at me, he goes, Dave, he goes, this isn't
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: a draft one, this is draft ten. I said, draft ten.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: And then all came back laying into the log line
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: and I said, there's no goal. There's nothing driving this narrative.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the what do I want is completely missing.
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: And because of that, you know, everything is, you know,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: just happening, and for no purpose. That character has to
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: have a want, that's what motivates them through this story.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true. That you know often and now you know,
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: as I read more screenplays on the professional side, I
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: also when I'm going through I always pick out two
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: what the theme is because I mean, the really good
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: writers you see that theme and you see, like, you know,
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: all that different stuff come up. Sometimes it's very obvious.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's in the subtext. And you know, that's something
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: that I've been looking for now as I read more
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: professional screenplays.
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, you know, I think once you get
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: the basics down, then you start expanding into the cool
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: stuff like the theme and the voice and you know,
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: all that kind of cool stuff. And the problem I
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: think is a lot of people jump ahead to that
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: without having the basics down first.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know, as you know, it doesn't really
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: you know, matter if we're talking about a novel or
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: screenplay or what have you, because that structure is so important. Yes,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: you know, because I mean, you know what I mean
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: like that just you know, finding the way you know what.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: You know, we were just talking about, you know, event screenwriting,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: but you know what is really driving this narrative? What
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: is taking us from A to B to C to
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: D T E so that way we can follow this
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: character as they make these decisions for better or for
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: worse for themselves.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: That's right, that's right, that's what's driving that story. It's
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: sort of like when people the first question I always
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: ask is who's the protagonist? And they laugh, right, But
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: but you'd be amazed how many people have like the
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: antagonist as their protagon.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, crazy stuff.
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: And I say to them, you know, they'll say, like, oh,
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: I have an ensemble piece for example.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: I'll say, but.
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: Even in an ensemble, there's usually one person whose decisions
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: are driving that story forward, who has the most to lose,
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: the most at stake.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: That is your protagonist.
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: And you'd be amazed at how many people write not
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: knowing their protagonist is.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I completely agree, because you know, and I mean I
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: can only imagine you know, all the you know, all
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the projects that you see. I mean, I'm just you know,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: I read screenplays, you know, from all different sources, and
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I mean some of them, you know, I see the
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: log line and it's just you know, and and I
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: know someone not even read the screenplay, and it's just,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: you know, they they don't have the right main character,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: is what I'm trying to say, you know what I mean,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Like the antagonist is much more thought out. The antagonist
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: is the one controlling the story. Yeah, uh, you know,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: and you know, in reality, it's almost like the protagonist
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: is like an afterthought like all right, you know, then
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: here's some guy he could fight. You know, it's like
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: you know, you know what I mean, Like he's just
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: sort of shoehorned in there to the story, so so
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: something can happen exactly.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: And I think that again, like the log line, by
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: creating that log line, who's the protagonist, what do they want?
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: What is at stake?
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: Then you find out ahead of time what your problem is.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: If you can't identify your protagonist, that's a big problem.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: And it's good because it helps you refocus once to
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: discover who your protagonist is, so that you really can
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: make your story, you know, sing And I think that's
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: one of the one of the things I love most
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: about the log line is a side being able to
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: sell your material. It really helps you focus on, you know,
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: maybe some problems inherent in what you're doing.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: So Leanne, I don't know if you could think of
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: this all, you know, just off the top of your head,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: but you know, what are some of your favorite log
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: lines that that you have that you've ever read or
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: come across. And I sort of just jumped out at
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: you and you said that that's it. That's the project.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I want to go after uh.
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: Sadly, I don't get sent log lines, which is why
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: I started teaching this. I really want someone else to
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: do the work and then bring it to me. Normally
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: I'm the one who has to create that.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: I have one that I use.
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: As an example, a lot that I pitched to Johnny
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: Depp's company and a while back, which I just love
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: because it sort of gives when people are like, what's.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: A log line? I always use this. It's a woman's.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: Idyllic homecoming is shattered when she finds herself the target
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: of a coven determined to make her their thirteenth member.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: I love that log line.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: It just it's so powerful, you know, and any good
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: line log line is powerful. There's about, you know, nine
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: million examples in the Book of Great log Lines, and
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: I tried to include a log line for every sort
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: of element I'm trying to teach. But I have also
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: included in the book a whole bunch of workbooks you
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: can practice, because.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: It's really you know, log lines are all about writing
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: and rewriting.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: You know, just as much as you would rewrite your
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: script or your manuscript. For a book, the logline gets rewritten.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: I gave an example on the book of like a
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: ten step process, but really that was one hundred step process.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: I just took ten out for the book. You know,
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: you're always rewriting, rewriting, rewriting because you want to streamline
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: it and use more, you know, dynamic vocabulary, and you know,
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: you do everything you can and make it sell.
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: That's a thing.
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: Once you have the perfect sentence like that, you are
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: good to go.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: One thing that I've become more conscious of is when
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: I'm watching TV and I hit the TV guide button
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: on my remote, and you know, it comes up a
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: description of the movie. And then I started to realize,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: you know, these are log lines, you know, because these
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: are these are what's you know, telling you what the
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: movie's about. And I came onto one on the Sci
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Fi channel and it was a movie called Ogre, and
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: I remember just reading the synopsis this this the line,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: and I said, wow, that gave him the whole movie.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: And I can remember it too. It was something like
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: a girl and a guy stumble upon a remote village
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: ruled by an ogre just in time for the yearly
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: human sacrifice or is something along those lines. I may
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I may have just completely butchered that, but it was
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: something along those lines and I and I said, wow,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: you know that that's the log line right there.
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's you know, it's interesting to me, like considering
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: how many bad log lines I get. Once in a while,
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: you know, I get sent one and I think, wow, actually,
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: that's that's pretty damn good.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: You know. It's it's it's rare.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: It's a rare occurrence, unfortunately, but you know, I it's
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: I was just sent one. I have a website called
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: sell It in a Sentence dot com where people can
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: go and get you know, log line help. And one
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: woman sent me a log line which was actually quite good.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: It needed one little tweak, but you know, I read
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: it and I.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Thought, huh, you know, that's not half bad.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: And it's terrible to say this, but I'm always surprised
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: by that because I get so many, so many log
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: lines that are just you know, like you'll get the
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: people who try to cram their plot into a one
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: sentence thing, so you have like you know, commas everywhere
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: and a whole bunch of parentheses and like dot dot
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: dots and like it's just crazy shit, you know that
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: they're trying to do to make sure that you that
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: they can get one sentence out of like everything they
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: feels important on the planet. I always say that to
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: writers when they try to do that. I say, like,
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: you're not trying to get your book in a one sentence,
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: good luck doing that. Which you're really trying to do
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: is find what's most unique about your work and put
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: that into one sentence.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: You know. And you know, Lane, what you just said there,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: I really just extracted something very very important from So
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: anyone listening that didn't pick up on what Lane just said,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: she could send a lot of bad log lines. So
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: what I think is, if you actually have a good
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: log line, it seems like you could stand out pretty easily.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Is that Is that a good assumption line?
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: Absolutely? Absolutely.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: I spend a lot of time revamping really bad log lines. Yeah,
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: because I think there's a lot of misinformation on how
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: to create a log line out there that I saw
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: when I was starting to do my book that really
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: don't help you. Like, for example, they tell you to
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: do like the you know, this movie meets that movie,
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: you know, And I look at that and I think,
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: how does.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: That sell your particular story.
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: I will never understand that that's not a logline that
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: doesn't sell your work, that sells me two movies I
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: may have seen, you know.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: So I had a friend who was a he was
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: a screenwriter, and he actually got a job as a
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: script reader, you know, one of the quote unquote gatekeepers
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: at a studio, and you know, they would give him
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: tons of screenplays to read. And he said, you know,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: basically he would go through all these screenplays and I
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: mean he said, it was so hard to get through
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of these because said they you know, it
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: was spelling mistakes, it was grammar mistakes, you know. I
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: mean he you know, you know, and he would at
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: the end have to do coverage on it. You know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: he would have to write no past you know, et cetera.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: And so he said, whenever he came across a good script,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: he wanted to send that person like a you know,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: a dozen roses and be like, thank you so much.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: He's like, because you know, you know, for every I
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: don't know, not you know, a thousand screenplays nine hundred
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: and ninety nine or just passes, and that one is
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: actually an accept or recommend and he said, it's it's
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: just so refreshing to and he said, really you can
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: tell because you know, like you've seen all the log lines,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: he said, you can tell who has an idea of
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: what they're doing versus who has who's just sort of
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely makes it so clear, you know. And sadly,
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: you know, as I said earlier to you when we
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: were chatting, you know, you can be the best writer
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: in the world, but if you can't sell it, it
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: makes no difference at all. So it's really it's a
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: shame to me when you have a writer who's got
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: an amazing piece of work, but they can't come up
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: with a log line to save their life, you know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: so how are they gonna sell it?
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: So do you recommend, you know, for writers you know
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: who who were you know, maybe you're starting a new
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: book or a new screenplay, do you recommend that they
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: sort of start with a with a concept or you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: or even a vague idea of the log line to
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: sort of build from before they even would start trying
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: to write the actual book.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, yes, you know.
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: I recommend it so often because cause Otherwise you get
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: people and I mentioned this in the book who you Know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: They've written three hundred pages, but it's an event to
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: event to event book. Nothing's motivated. And it's really sad
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: because once they figure out the log them, they're like,
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: oh crap, now I got to go back and rewrite
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: the whole thing.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: Because your log line is like your rudder right on
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: a boat, it's steering you.
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: So I always recommend that writers create the log line
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: first because it keeps you focused as you write on
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: what's important.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that I look that analogy. It's a rudder
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: of your story, your runner of their ship. I really
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: like that analogy.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, keeps you focused. If it's not.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: If what your writing doesn't have anything to do with
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: your log line, it shouldn't be in your book or
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: your screenplay.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I have oftentimes too, when I read different screenplays,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I see things like, you know, scenes or whatever, or
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: characters that just sort of provide, you know what I mean,
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Like they're just why are they there? You know what
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I mean? And I think, you know, when if you
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: can take that concept, you know, turn that into a
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: log line, take that log line and start to build
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: upon that that way, you know, you you'll know it's
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: you know what belongs and what doesn't. It's sort of
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: what Patty Chevski used to do, because he used to
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: do something similar. I think he would. He would boil
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: it down. He would take his log line and take
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: a theme and put it on the wall in front
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: of him and say, if it doesn't match this, it's
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: not going in the screenplay regardless.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: That's right, that's right.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: I think it's it's incredibly valuable to do that log
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: line first, Otherwise you're just gonna do a lot of
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: rewriting later unfortunately.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's something too that I've learned when I'm
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: when I'm writing, if I didn't have the you know,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: at least you know, you know something to guide me along.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: You know, it's just you You write yourself into a
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: hole and you go, wait, what the hell where do
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: I go? Now? You know what scene comes next? You know,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: should I now go to see what the antagonist is doing?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Who's the antagonist? You know.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: It's like it's like if you were you know, like out,
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: you know, hiking in the wilderness without a map or
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: without a compass, you know you're gonna get lost.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: I was actually just reading a story or two about
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: somebody who actually went hiking and didn't have a compass
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and she was lost for fifty days.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: Oh god, oh god, that's horrible.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah she uh. I'm sorry not to get too sidetracked,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: but I just thought that story was fascinating because she
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: she got up early, and and she she was with
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: a camping group and she decided to go up by
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: herself without a compass and didn't know how to you know,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: didn't know how to read any of the natures, you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: like you know, the moss on the side of the
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: trees or the north star and got completely turned around
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: very quickly and had no idea which way, you know,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: to go. But I so so sorry not to get
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: too sidetracked, but I always, I always find stories about
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: you know, like Wilder's survival like that fascinating because I
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: mean and that and that that was very quickly how
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: that happened to her too. But sorry, but to get
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: back to, you know, tell about log lines and your story.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: What recommendations would you have for writers, you know, who
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: were setting out now to maybe start writing a book,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: or recommendations were trying to you know, even to sell
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: a book. Or even to pitch to you know, or
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: even to pitch people like you laying you know what
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: recommendations you know, do you have for them? What should
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: they be doing?
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: Go buy my book?
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean number one, you know, have that logline
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: in place, have a great selling be able to say,
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: you know, it's the story of a woman who at
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: nineteen ran the biggest drug cartel in US history. You know,
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: have that sentence ready, because that's how you're going to
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: grab someone's attention, my attention. A networking execs attention anyone.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: You know that even like when they if they're writing
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: a book, I would say, like put that at the
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: top of your query letter to all the agents for
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: you know, because believe me, it'll get the agent interested
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: in reading. And plus they can use it to sell
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: it to an editor or a publisher as well. So
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: it's sort of this this gift that keeps on giving.
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: You know, that's it's a great way to start, you
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: know because aside from helping you write, it really does
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: sell your material, and if you can't sell it, it
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: does you no good to write it anyway.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that's very true, you know, because you know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: even me, like sometimes I write, you know, and sometimes
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I always think myself, well, if it doesn't sell, it
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: could be a practice script. But then again, you're always
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you're always thinking, well, if I write it, I do
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: want to actually I do want people to actually see
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: it or buy it or whatever. You know.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: That's right, that's right.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: And I think the other thing I usually recommend is
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: I tell people to, you know, like, for example, I
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: speak at this great conference called Grub Street mus in
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: the Marketplace. It's in Boston, and like, these are invaluable
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: places for writers because you know, you can pay to
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: have a ten or twenty minute session with these writers agents.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: What a great way to get in front of these people,
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: so you're not just in the slush pile with the
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: nine billion other people sending stuff in that was not solicited.
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: You're actually talking to them face to face about your material.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: It's it's a great way to get an agent.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: It's a it's just a great way to learn the
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: process and practice, you know, talking to these folks and
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: hearing what they like and don't like.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just so invaluable.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: I always recommend go to writers' conferences with that, you know,
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: that that provide that option.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: and now back.
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: To the show, because you know, it's the same thing
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: I do, going to New York and sitting in front
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: of the author's agents, you know, in person, it's like
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: there's nothing like a face to face.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: So Lene, you know, if there was, you know, writers
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: listening to this who haven't never been to a writer's conference,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: you know, is there like a top three writers conferences
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: across America? Because most of my listeners are in America,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: so that's why I said in America. But is there any three,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: you know, like top commerces or even just one or
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: two that you would recommend to anyone listening.
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, grub Street News in the marketplace is one
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: of the best. Honestly, It's why I do it every year.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: I also do a thing called the Next best Seller
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: out of New York, which is more specialized. They only
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: allow I think ten people in. And then of course
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: there's like Thriller Fest. It depends what you're writing. There
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: are a ton of writers conferences specifically for whatever genre
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: you're doing, but grub Street is is the one that
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: I always recommend because first of all, it's incredibly well
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: run and also just because it's just a it's an
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: amazing opportunity to literally sit across from a writer's agent
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: and talk to them about your work.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: How great is that? You know?
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that is very true.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: I had a friend of mine go to a FI,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: the American Film Institute, and they had that that conference,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: American Film Market, and I and he went to there
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: and he they he was looking around and they said
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of you know, distributors were like,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: we want no zombie projects and no found footage projects
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: because the market is saturated. But you know, it's good
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: that he went there and met them face to face
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: because that's the that was the people that were in
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: charge of buying in the foreign you know, the foreign areas,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: the foreign markets and everything. And they they told him,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: they said, were we every other pitch we hear is
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: a zombie film or a found footage film or the
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Ultimate Lane which is a zombie found footage film.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: The beauty of that is that he got the knowledge
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: that that tells you what they they don't want.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: That's you know, that's invaluable knowledge.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. I mean, and you can see,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: you know firsthand what's what's being sold and what's you know,
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: not being sold. And you know, just what you were
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: talking about with those writer conferences. You know that that
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: is invaluable information. Being able to go there and meet
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: with these people face to face.
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, they're honest to god, I think people are
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: more apt to look at material from someone that they've
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: met or know than you know, some slush pile, you know,
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: faceless submission.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know, I had shown Coin on on
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: the podcast, and he's actually an editor, and you know
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: that that's one of the things he said, you know,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: he sold because he was twenty years he was working
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: in as a story editor, and he said he would
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: just you know, the the slush pile you know what
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, that pile of scripts that they just went,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: you know this, there's nothing we could do. He said,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: it would just get so much every day that he
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: ended up writing a book. So it reminded me similar
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: to to you your story, because you know, you eventually
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: really you know, wrote a book because everyone was saying,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: you know, you should write a book. You've seen all
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: this stuff and it's just you know, it's just pretty interesting.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: The parallel.
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, it's you know It's one of those things
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: where he I think, you never think you're going to
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: do it, and then one day you're like, oh crap,
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: I really got to write.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: This down, you know, Lane. So we've been talking for
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: you know, about thirty five minutes. I know you have,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: you know, a million more books to read. You get
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: a more log lines. So I just wanted to ask,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: you know, in closing, is there anything that you we
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: didn't get a chance to talk about, or anything maybe
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: that you wanted to say that we get it. We
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: didn't get a chance to to sort of put a
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: period at the end of this conversation.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think, I know we brushed on it lightly,
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: but I just I always like to reiterate to writers
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: to think about what's at stake with their characters, because
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: number one, that's the main thing that's always missing from
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: most log lines, but also because for example, I had
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: a woman send me one about her character had a
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: brain tumor that was like allowing him to play golf
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: really well, and her log line had to do with
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: him wanting to to play in the Masters, And I
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: said to her, you know, it's it's such a The
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: problem is if he doesn't play in the Masters, So
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: what he's not playing golf? Oh, well, you know what
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: I mean, The stakes aren't high enough. And it sort
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: of changed everything for her because she had been writing
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: based on that premise it's all about him wanting to
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: play in the Masters, and I said, you know, the
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: stakes are so so, so, so important, And ultimately, the
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: log line on I can't remember the exact one was
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: something to the effect of, you know, if he kept
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: that brain tumor, or you know, he could either have
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: the surgery right, which would save his life, but he
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: can't play golf anymore, or keep that brain tumor play
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: the Masters but die from it.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: Now it's life or death stakes. Now it matters. Now
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: I care. Now that story is so much more powerful.
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: So really, I spent a lot of time reminding writers
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: that those stakes are so valuable and important that they
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: have to be high enough for us to care hair
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: otherwise we're not going to want to read their work.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: You know that. That's actually very good because when you
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: when you were describing that, I actually was going to say, well,
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: maybe he wanted to win the Masters for his parents,
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: or you know what I mean, like something like that.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: But you're you're your idea was much better than mind.
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: Well, if you think about it, if he doesn't play
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: in the Masters, what does it matter? You know, it's like, oh, well,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: he didn't get to do a golf game, and I'm
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: sure the golfers out there are like, oh.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: Come on.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Alan Watt, who was on the podcast, he once said
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: to me, you know, problems get solved, stories get resolved.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: Oh I love that. That's a great quote.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Alan, Is is phenomenal. And that's one of the
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: things you know that I sort of have been noticing
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: more of too, is you know, what is a story
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: problem and how do we resolve that? Because you know
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: it's sort of like a character has that dilemma. Well,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: that dilemma you know, stems. You know, you have two
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: bad options, you know, and you know you have to
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: pick one, which is the dilemma of himself because of
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: the problem. And you know, he sort of says, you know,
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: you have to how does this get resolved? So when
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: he know he was crafting his stories, you know, he
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: was saying, you know, you can't really and he uses
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: a quote from Einstein, you can't solve the same You
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: can't solve a problem with the same perception that caused
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: the problem. She had to have a shift in perception,
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: so uh, and that's how stories get resolved. But it
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: just reminded me because that was, uh, yeah, I think
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: you know your your idea of stakes and why he's
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: doing it. That was actually very good. I like that,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: you know, does he stay and you know, does he
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: stay in the master's but the brain twmer kills him?
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Or does he not play? You know what I mean?
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I really like that.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: Now you care? Right now? It's like life or death?
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Is you know how important is that game? You know?
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: To him it's obviously, you know, depending on his choice,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: it's very important.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: So uh and then we care obviously. But I love
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: that quote.
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: And you know, it's funny. I have a I always
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: talk about this. I went to a writer's conference and
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: Anne Perry was speaking. I've just set up her books
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: with the Lauren Schuler Donner and she's so prolific, and
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: she has this quote that I also memorize because I
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: was like, it's so good. A lot of authors will say,
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: or screenwriters will say, should I write about what I know?
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: I keep being told write about what you know? And
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: she said, write about what you care. About nobody cares
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: what you know. And I loved that. I thought that
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: was so great. It's like it's always my last little
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: comment to writers, write about what you care about.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that is phenomenal. That is absolutely phenomenal.
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: A million books in prints, So you have to quote
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: her anyway.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: You can't argue with sales. Go there, you go, Lane?
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Where can people find you out online?
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: I am at vast vast like a vast array of
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: material Dash entertainment dot com or if they want logline help,
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: they go to sell it in a sentence dot com.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: And are you in any social media sites?
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: I am at.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: Lane chefter bish on Twitter, and I'm on Facebook too.
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: I don't know what the thing is, but you can
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: find me on Facebook too.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: I just actually follow you on Twitter by the well.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: Perfect perfect.
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: I got to get better at that social media thing.
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: I saw Dave that you have all these books on
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: social media. I gotta go buy one of those.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: I participated in one. I actually I actually don't have
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: any other books for social media.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: That one that was on your site. Is that the
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: one that you contributed to.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: The one but with Guy Kalafaki, Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: his hey yeah the Art of social Media. I was
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: able to contribute on that, and then I also help
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: with the book by Paul Holligan on how to Podcast.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: So uh yeah, those are those are my two small
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: additions to the to the to Amazon. One day, I
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: hope to be in your shoes and be able to
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: you have my own book. Uh so uh, I mean,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: you know, like your book is. I'm actually going to
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: pick up a copy very soon of your book. I
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: actually don't know why I didn't pick up a copy yet.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: But when I do pick up a copy, I'm going
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: to make sure to email you with a bunch of questions. No,
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I'm just kidding, but uh but I will link to
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: every all of your all of your website, your all
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: your social media channels in the show notes, Lane, I
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: want to say thank you so much for coming on.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: Well, thanks for having me Dave. I I really enjoyed it.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Oh it was a bleast having you on. And if
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: you ever want to come back on, please let me know.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: The door is always open.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: Awesome. Thanks so much.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Oh my pleasure, take care Landy me too, Bye bank you.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie film Muscle
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: dot com, Forward slash eight sixty and if you have
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: so much for listening to guys. As always, keep that
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: and I'll talk to you soon.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: indiefilm Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: F I L M h U S T l E
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: dot com.