When the sole survivor of a destroyed lifeboat is pulled aboard a sinking luxury liner, he is plunged into further chaos as the crew begins to abandon the doomed passengers of the SS Arctic.

by Garrett · Initiate · 62 pts 56 views

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Though this logline is written from a single perspective, this story follows a few different character perspectives aboard the sinking ship. I couldn’t find an elegant way to describe the story from more than one perspective, so I’ve described it from a perspective that has an element of irony to it. (That irony being that this character has survived one boat disaster and is now facing another bigger one.)

The to-be screenplay is based on the true events of the 1854 sinking of the SS Arctic.

6 reviews

dogger · Oracle · 87,400 pts ★ Accepted

Strengths Filmable incident Stakes and urgency

Needs work Clear, difficult goal

Since your story is based upon an historical event, I suggest that the logline should include the date.

I couldn't make sense of this version of your logline until I discovered from some online research that the precipitating event for the tragedy was a *collision* of two vessels. So, I suggest that detail should be incorporated in the logline.

As for telling a story from multiple points of view, well, that's tricky. James Cameron, who knows a thing or three about plotting, incorporated multiple points of view in his movie, Titanic.

But all of them hung on one plot spine, the love story between Rose and Jack. The relationship between those two characters is the primary focus of the movie. And a logline should be about the plot spine, the primary focus of the story.

One possible plot spine might be what his objective goal became after the crew abandoned the passengers. That appears to have been why the sinking was not just a tragedy, but a scandal. (Just as in the sinking of the Titanic, a major scandal was that the ship was not equipped with enough lifeboats.)

And like it or not, your script will be compared with the sinking of the Titanic. So, what is the unique selling point that distinguishes this tragedy from the tragedy of that befell the passengers on the Titanic?

Anyway, it's an interesting project. Very best wishes!

Griffyn · Mentor · 643 pts

Strengths Well-defined POV Stakes and urgency

Needs work Active protagonist Action, not decision

What does it mean by "the crew begins to abandon the doomed passengers of the SS arctic". I thought he was pulled aboard the luxury liner? Also, wasn't he the sole surviver (unless your talking about the lifeboat as it's own seperate incident)? Are they now sailing away and leaving other survivors to die? The main thing I'm trying to say is that more clarity would be beneficial here.

"He is plunged into further chaos" is vague as a description of our protagonist's environment, what chaotic things are happening as they abandon them? It is a good mid point reversal for the luxury liner to abandon the SS Arctic (if that is what's happening) but we need to see his action response to this! What must our hero do to save the day? Or what must he do when facing an impossible task, which is how this situation is described, because our protagonist can't do nothing.

In summary, we need more clarity and we need our character's action in response to the events around him.

Garrett · Initiate · 62 pts

It's a bit complicated, the whole logline needs restructuring from the ground up. This logline is based on a historical event in 1854 when a French and an American steamship collided in heavy fog which lead to the sinking of the American SS Arctic. This particular character left the French SS Vesta with 11 others and tried to board the SS Arctic via a lifeboat (as that American ship appeared to be in better condition).

Unkbeknownst to the French, the SS Artic was holed beneath the waterline and was slowly sinking. Just as the French lifeboat was alongside the ship, the SS Arctic begun to make a hopeless dash for land. The lifeboat was churned up by the enormous paddlewheel, and only this character survived as jumped clear and was hauled onto the fleeing Arctic by rope.

This character's ironic position is that he left the Steamship that stayed afloat and was the only person in the entire tragedy to swap for the sinking American ship. Upon boarding the doomed ship the crew and most able-bodied passengers soon go into chaos as they begin saving themselves from the doomed ship. This French character later cannot overcome the chaos and he goes down with the ship.

Somehow this particular character not only survived his lifeboat being obliterated, as he was also amongst the survivors of the sinking of the SS Arctic. This particular instance of unlikely survival was what made me interested in adapting this into a screenplay.

Moving on. It's not perfect, but I've got an alternate logline that might be slightly more readable, (however without context it is still very hard to boil down the larger idea of this character's unique position in this rather obscure historical sinking):

"When the sole survivor of a destroyed French lifeboat is hauled aboard a sinking American luxury liner, he must help prepare his saviours to go down with the ship after the mutinous crew hijack all of the remaining lifeboats."

This logline doesn't include the actual inciting incident which is the collision of the two steamships, hence why this needs restructuring in the future.

Logline Medic · Initiate · 90 pts

Strengths Filmable incident Stakes and urgency Causality and coherence

Needs work Clear, difficult goal

Lots to love here! A specific character, an event that forces the story, no filler or hedging. But 'Plunged into further chaos' is a feeling/situation, not an action. Nothing he wants or does is stated: no pursuit, no endpoint. Antagonist is unnamed—crew abandoning ship is an event, not an opposing force with agency.
I like the irony: he's rescued onto a sinking ship, keeping the survival stakes alive.
You still need a concrete goal (save passengers, secure a lifeboat, expose the crew) and preferably a named antagonist to oppose it.

Here's a bad version, addressing the lack of specificity:

"When the sole survivor of a shattered lifeboat is hauled aboard a sinking luxury liner, he must fight the ship's mutinous officers to force open the last lifeboats before the vessel drags every remaining passenger under."

I understand this is the beginning of the development of the story. Hopefully this feedback helps you focus further brainstorming.

Garrett · Initiate · 62 pts

Hi dogger,

Thanks for making me aware of the clarity issue, which is significant as the ship collision proceeding this event is indeed the inciting incident of the film. As the current version of this logline is currently for my own personal use, I've tried to focus on a unique event that happens shortly after the inciting incitent, which is likely around the Break Into Two story beat (as far as Save the Cat story structure is concerned). Now I'm reminded that this particular maritime tragedy has fallen out of common knowledge—it was after all shunned from public interest after the sinking of the Titanic—so I will need to be more clear about the context of the event when re-writing this is a pitch-ready logline.

Now regarding how to make this idea stand apart from the 1997 Titanic film...

The inspiration of my screenplay stems from my own mixed emotional response to James Cameron's Titanic. Whilst the fictional elements of that film make for an entertaining movie, in retrospect, I find some of the romanticized creative liberties muddy the truth of the sinking a bit too much for my liking. It's with this in mind that I want to differentiate my sinking ship film by presenting a raw, honest and downright horrific retelling of the sinking of the SS Arctic.

The underlying theme of this project is, "truth is stranger than fiction," and the interesting part is that this particular sinking has some very hard-to-believe details that, when presented as truthfully as possible, could appear far fetched to the average viewer. These details, if presented well enough, could juxtapose interestingly with the theme I have in mind.

(Note: The theme I've mentioned is more of a structural theme to help guide the core identity of the screenplay. In other words the character driven plot isn't centered around truthfulness.)

dogger · Oracle · 87,400 pts

Garrett:

>> my own mixed emotional response to James Cameron's Titanic

I have mixed feelings about it, too. But Cameron was/is a savvy business man. He knew he had to attract the biggest, widest possible audience to recoup the enormous cost--US$200,000,000, which in 1997 was real money.

He understood that the story hook for men was spectacle, the special effects; for women, romance, the love story.

>>"truth is stranger than fiction,"

A strong selling point. So I suggest your *marketing* logline start out with "The true story of..." or something similar.

A final observation. There is saying attributed to Stalin -- yeah, comrade Joseph Stalin: "The death of a single person is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic."

IMHO: there is a germ of psychological insight to be gleaned from that quote. And that is, in drama, it is easier for an audience to emotionally invest in a single character, (or in a romance, two characters) than in a cast of thousands.

Can you point to one commercially or critically successful movie with a cast of hundreds, thousands where the plot focuses on more than 2 or 3, maybe 4 characters? At the moment, I can think of only one: Chernobyl. And it was a mini-series, spread over more than 5 hours, 5 episodes. (Obviously, a series gives you space-time to focus on more characters, work out more plot threads)

Even so, I think a marketable logline for Chernobyl can be narrowed down to the struggle of one character. Here's a logline I came up with: "After the nuclear power plant catastrophe at Chernobyl in April, 1986, a Russian scientist battles against incompetence, ideology and lies to contain the radiation while discovering the truth of how it happened."(32 words)

Hope this helps. As I said you have an interesting subject. Very best wishes.

Garrett · Initiate · 62 pts

Hi Karel,

The character action is vague at the moment for two reasons: one, the story follows multiple points of view and I had trouble writing an interesting logline from an ensemble-like perspective; two, I focused on the irony of this particular character's situation in attempt to present a unique angle on the tragedy.

For further context the logline is for a historical event (the 1854 sinking of the SS Arctic) that I'm currently researching. The screenplay isn't written, nor is the outline of the story finalised just yet. In other words I don't know how much active screen time this particular character has because he's not the only character to drive the action beats of the story.

Naturally survival is the goal of all the characters, but the problem of this particular sinking was that both the crew and most able-bodied passengers went against orders and instead cowardly fought to save themselves. This bit of context is a bit hard to boil down into words, hence I used "abandon" as a brief way to hint at the struggles faced during this particular sinking.

At the moment this logline is just a guide to work alongside the planning/writing process. I will definitely edit it once I've got a better idea of the active characters of the story.

Karel Segers · Maestro · 2,970 pts

That explains it. Perhaps look at other disaster movies for reference as to which character to focus on. I'm thinking The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, etc. All are ensemble films, but the arc is usually about 1 character, and I would have the logline reflect that.

Karel Segers · Maestro · 2,970 pts

Strengths Well-defined POV Filmable incident Stakes and urgency

Needs work Clear, difficult goal Active protagonist

Great start! But I expect the story to be about what the sole survivor does in response to the chaos around him. What's the objective, other than surviving? What is his plan?
Rather than posting a new logline, write your changes to the logline in your own "Post review", so we can all see the improvement from draft to draft.
Happy loglining!

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