When a gang member’s girl scout kid sister threatens to disown him after he was convicted for vandalism yet again, he promises to help her make the entire town litter-free during his remaining days of freedom.

Scott:

My response to your premise is also informed by my experiences picking up trash. Specifically, I volunteered to be responsible on a regular basis for cleaning up litter on a segment of the C&O Canal, one of the more heavily visited segments.

I, too, have been thanked by passerby's for picking up trash. But over time it morphed into a "Groundhog Day" ordeal. Because no matter how thoroughly I clean up my segment, the next time I walk my beat the trash will be back. There has not been and never will be a t-shirt solution, a happy Hollyweird ending where the mass of humanity get the message and pitch in to clean up litter. Or even better, people just stop littering.

Anyway, the dramatic question I would pose for your consideration is this:

If your protagonist were to go through similar stages of frustration, anger, depression as Phil Connor did in "Groundhog Day" , and arrives at the final stage of acceptance, what would that scene look like? Specifically, when he's served out his sentence of community service, when he no longer has to pick up trash-- will he continue to pick it up anyway?

fwiw

This is a great idea. I love it.

A gang member's, girl scout, kid sister...

This line is a bit of a mouth full. You should try to break it up a bit.
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"When his sister threatens to disown him after he is arrested yet again, a gang member promises to help her and her girl scout troop clean up their litter filled town."

Hi Scott,

I’ll give this a go.

INTENTION: must make the entire town litter-free. (to win back sister).
OBSTACLE: ? what/who is standing in his way? What/who will make this hard?

To some extent, there’s a ticking clock here. How many days of freedom? A few?

Some notes/ideas:
- To “threaten” to disown him doesn’t seem intense enough. Couldn’t she just “disown” him? I mean that should help him get his act together.
- I got rid of “promises” and made it “he must” because “promises” feels like he could back out or has the option to back out. I dunno.
- “remaining days of freedom” is vague. Let’s give him a clear ticking clock. Let’s make it hard. Perhaps two or three days?

Attempt 1:
When his kid sister disowns him, a former gang member must make the entire town litter-free during his last two days of freedom, in order to win her back.

- I think this is the essence of it. Looking at it - why does cleaning up the town win her back? Why must he do it? Is she a neat-freak? Is it her dream to see the town clean again?
- I added “former”.

How about…

Attempt 2:
In order to win back his estranged kid sister, a former gang member must make the entire town litter-free, within his last two days of freedom, (or else?).

- In this one I changed up the inciting incident.
- Can we make this harder? Push down on the obstacle? (Of course - cleaning up an entire town is hard but curious to see if we could make it harder for him.)
- Some ideas for obstacles? Perhaps his old crowd/cronies don’t want him to change and make it harder somehow?

- I suppose if he doesn’t do it - he loses his sister? But couldn’t he win her back in other ways? Why must he make the town litter-free?

TBH - neither of my attempts are great. Regardless, I hope my input helps in some way. The idea is interesting and I like how “cleaning up the entire town” is somewhat symbolic of his own “cleaning up his act/rebirth”.

Good luck!

That first idea is not far off from an idea Mike Pedley had, where at the end, the judge just says community service has been fulfilled because of everything he's done... it's just in advance... which I guess can lead to some uncomfortable moments with the locals, but realistically, I'd expect they'd ignore him.

The Groundhog Day thing seems fun, and it could go that way, but I'm not inspired by it at least not yet. The reason I wanted to do this is I was actually picking up litter and getting thanked, and wondered about promoting my films on a T-shirt...then I wondered...well, could I help spread other messages with the t-shirt? Could it become a Greta Thunberg thing? Probably not, but what if?

What if the guy is sentenced to a period of restorative justice instead of punitive justice? That is instead of having to do, say, a year of hard time in jail, he has to do a year of picking up litter in the neighborhood (or small town) he vandalized.

And what if that punishment into a never-ending "Groundhog Day" scenario. At first he thinks he's getting off easy. But then he discovers that It doesn't matter how thoroughly he cleans up the area one day, sure enough, it will as badly littered the next... And the next... And the next...

I was attracted to the idea when I thought about how people show appreciation toward strangers who pick up litter, and I thought, well, where could that go? However, I don't see that fitting into the structure of a "proper logline". What I've been noticing, however, is that there's the "proper form" of a logline, then I see a "jazzed up" version that focuses on the hook. If I were to write it with a focus on what attracts me to the concept, it'd be:

When a gang member upsets his kid sister with his vandalism, he agrees to help her make the town litter-free, and wins over the hearts of millions in the process.

There's no conflict there, no sense of urgency, but the hook I'm going for is there. That's the type of loglines I see listed on IMDb most often. What do you think?

Another option is just appending to what I have:

When a gang member’s girl scout kid sister threatens to disown him after he was convicted for vandalism yet again, he promises to help her make the entire town litter-free during his remaining days of freedom, and wins over the hearts of millions in the process.

I think the extra detail isn't going to fill the seat though, although it's useful to have that structure in mind when crafting the plot.

When I read a logline, the first question I have is: what's the story hook? So what's the story hook? The story hook for *you*?

By my count, Scott, this is your fourth version of a logline about picking up litter. What is there about the premise that incites your imagination? Why do you want to -- why *must* you -- tell a story about picking up litter?

This is much stronger in my opinion.

I would consider doing a bit of an American History X type thing, where the kid sister is maybe caught tagging her school or something and the protagonist doesn't want her to follow his path. Maybe he barely speaks to his parents because of his criminal activities but he tries to meet up with his sister without them knowing because they really don't approve and believe he will lead her down the same path. On the flip side, maybe his parents ignored him when his baby sister came along. This would give more scope for conflict externally and internally.

Either way, it's definitely getting there. I can see this as a Dramedy so I reckon you could have it in either Comedy or Drama and it would work.