Whether you are pondering a creative movie idea to pursue or sharing your idea with a friend, producer, or investor, you need to know the logline to your movie. 

What is a logline?  It is a one-to-two sentence summary of your movie that follows a simple structure, and it has several valuable uses.

The formula for an awesome logline needs these elements in this order:

1. The protagonist description
2. The objective of the protagonist
3. The conflict that the protagonist has in achieving his objective

 
For example:
Marlin, a clown fish who is terrified of the open ocean (protagonist description), must search desperately for his lost son, Nemo (objective), as he navigates miles of unfamiliar ocean filled with sharks, whales, turtles and hungry seagulls to rescue his only child (conflict). 
– Finding Nemo
 
Diana, an Amazonian warrior (protagonist description), learns of her special powers as she journeys through the war-torn landscape of WWI Europe to destroy Ares (objective), the god of war, who is the cause of all suffering (conflict).
-Wonder Woman
 
Luke Skywalker, a young Jedi-in-training (protagonist description), works with a group of rebels to battle against the Empire (conflict) to destroy their giant weapon, the Death Star, and save the galaxy (objective).
- Star Wars IV: A New Hope

Go through your movie collection and do a logline for each one.  Test to see if it works by playing a game with a friend where you tell them the logline (without the protagonist's name) and then see if they can guess the right movie.  You did a good job if they guess it right away.  If they are stumped, then you need to rework it.  Yes, the objective is for them to "get it" quickly.

This next one is super fun and challenging, and I love doing it.  Every day take 10 minutes and challenge yourself to write down 10 original loglines.  Rules: you can't wait more than 15 seconds to start the next one, and you can't take more than a minute to do one from start to finish.  This is a great creative exercise for your brain because you are forcing it to create whether it wants to or not.  And you will want to cheat - but don't.  The idea is not to come up with good story ideas, but to rather to practice the art of not prejudging your ideas.  Yes, many will be terrible, but that's fine.  After a  few days, you will be able to do this easily and maybe even come up with a logline worth turning into a screenplay!

My passion is making films, and my mission is to help others make films.

For almost 20 years, I have worked with hundreds of students teaching them how to make professional-looking movies with no money.  During the day, I have taught people who knew nothing about filmmaking the basics and advanced techniques of screenwriting, cinematography, editing, directing, producing, and much more.  During nights and weekends, I spent time with my family (of course) and then worked on doing exactly what I was teaching - making everything from corporate videos, commercials, short films, educational videos, feature films, and directing hundreds of live multi-camera shows.  

I couldn't find a single source of material that covered all of the areas of filmmaking that I teach, so I decided to write my own material and teach from it.  I study films, take film classes, read film books, watch interviews and study all the material that I can, and then I would put it to practice in a no-budget scenario and tweak it so that it is actually applicable for a filmmaker with little means.

Not having a big (or any) budget to make a professional-looking film is no excuse anymore.

This site, www.thunderrockfilmschool.com, is dedicated to educating filmmakers in a real and usable way to create the best films possible.  I will be adding lots of free material as well as offering the books that I am finishing soon.

Let's make movies, and live dream!