[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: Mike, on your website you have something about seven log line essentials where if a writer reaches out to you, you will send them sort of a free template and email them back some thoughts?
Mike Thompson, Screenwriter/Script Consultant: Yeah, well there’s two things I offer that are sort of the invitation to the person who comes to my consulting website.
One is idea vetting because. I ask them to submit their idea to me, but use my seven log line essentials. What a log line is for those that don’t know is it’s basically a sentence summarization of your script idea but what it’s really trying to do is show us:
-What the central concept is
-The central conflict that the hero is going to be facing
-What’s at stake
-What are the antagonistic forces that they’re facing
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All of that has to come in one sentence. Basically, its purpose is to convince people to read your script. Really I use it for two reasons. Number one, I write a log line of every script that I’m going to write before I write it. It helps me do is put in a very succinct way what it is that I’m setting out to do so that when I’m writing and I get lost in the weeds of act two or something, I can always come back to it and see what my intention was and see perhaps where I’ve lost my way.
The log line is the North Star. It tells us exactly:
-What this is
-Where we’re going
-What we should expect
It’s creative for me on that respect. I also use it as a vetting mechanism because I like to test my ideas out on people that I can trust. I don’t just come up with an idea and go secretly to my closet and write it. No, you should be unafraid of your idea. You should be unafraid to test it with as many people. Test it with the gardener. Test it with somebody in the elevator. It doesn’t matter but use your log line as a way to test your idea…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Mike Thompson is a veteran Hollywood writer/producer, perhaps best known for his feature films, Dragonfly, starring Academy Award-winner, Kevin Costner, and Love Happens, featuring Emmy-winner Jennifer Aniston. He also co-created and was a showrunner of the FOX television series, John Doe, starring Dominic Purcell, and co-wrote and produced the indie horror film, Choose, starring Academy Award-nominee, Bruce Dern. In the documentary realm, he executive produced the multi-award-winning feature, A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar, and appears as himself in the cult classic award-winner, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. In addition to his produced credits, he is uniquely distinguished for having written and sold dozens of high-profile spec scripts, pitches and teleplays to nearly every major Hollywood studio, including multiple seven-figure deals and at one point, the “highest-paying scripter deal ever” ~ Variety. He has collaborated on projects involving the likes of Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Will Smith, Edie Falco, Chris Pine, Michael Keaton, Richard Gere, Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump), and presently, blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun: Maverick). Upon graduation from film school at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Mike began his career at Paramount Pictures, where he worked as an assistant to Academy Award-winning producer, Scott Rudin (No Country for Old Men), and subsequently for legendary producer, Larry Gordon (Field of Dreams), who set up Mike’s very first spec script sale at Walt Disney Studios. Mike lives and works in the mountains outside of his hometown of Seattle, near the U.S. military’s decommissioned Nike “missile site” where, as a kid, he cut his teeth on his first camcorder short films, thus inspiring The Missile Site Blog.
CONNECT WITH MIKE THOMPSON
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