How to Write a Logline, Treatment & Pitch Deck That Actually Sells | Kinolime Podcast Ep 41
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Show Notes
The Kinolime podcast episode focused on the importance of professional screenplay submission materials beyond just the screenplay itself. Hosts John Schramm and Danny Murray emphasized that modern filmmakers and screenwriters must actively market their stories through polished pitch materials such as loglines, one-pagers, treatments, and pitch bibles. They stressed that strong presentation helps projects stand out in highly competitive submission environments.
The conversation then shifted toward screenplay treatments, which both hosts described as one of the most valuable storytelling tools. They argued that treatments help writers condense a full screenplay into a concise narrative that highlights tone, voice, structure, and major plot points. Examples from Simon Kinberg and Gus Van Sant were used to demonstrate how treatments can effectively communicate both story and artistic identity while remaining engaging to read.
The hosts also discussed pitch bibles and visual pitch decks, especially for television projects. Using the original Montauk pitch deck that later evolved into Stranger Things, they highlighted the importance of visual tone, references, pacing, and concise design. The discussion emphasized that successful pitch decks combine strong aesthetics with clear storytelling while avoiding excessive text or unnecessary industry attachments.
The episode concluded with broader advice for screenwriters: embrace personal voice, avoid overly generic AI-generated writing, and use every submission material as an opportunity to communicate passion and originality. The hosts summarized the hierarchy of pitch materials—logline, one-pager, treatment, pitch bible, and screenplay—and encouraged writers to refine all aspects of their project presentation. The episode closed with promotion for Kinolime’s upcoming screenplay competition and its mission of turning winning scripts into produced films.
Key Takeaways:
- major section of the discussion explored how to craft effective loglines and one-pagers. The hosts explained that a strong logline should clearly establish the protagonist, goal, and conflict in one or two concise sentences, using examples from Kill Bill and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. They also outlined the structure of a one-pager, which includes the title, genre, logline, “why now” section, synopsis, and explanation of why the project will succeed commercially.
Full Transcript
[00:00]
If you're going to be proactive enough to be part of the less than one percent of people
[00:04]
that sell their screenplay make their movie, be proactive in every part of the pitch, every
[00:11]
chance you get to display wire stories great and get more eyes on it.
[00:15]
Do it.
[00:16]
Hey, how are you?
[00:27]
Welcome to the Keenaline podcast.
[00:30]
I'm John Schram.
[00:31]
I'm Danny Murray.
[00:32]
I know.
[00:33]
By now, I mean, we just, you know, throw it up wrong, the names, the titles, whatever.
[00:37]
Yeah, throw it up on this fake back.
[00:39]
They're on this fake back.
[00:40]
We have a identical background and it's actually not this one.
[00:43]
Ron, if you could put the real background in for a hub, no, you can't.
[00:46]
No, no, we don't want to show it.
[00:48]
Okay, it's the exact same one, but there it's like, it's just not the actual background.
[00:54]
It's incredible.
[00:55]
Danny's giving away our secrets here at Keenaline.
[00:59]
Welcome.
[01:00]
We have a very exciting and also informative podcast to talk about today because this is
[01:05]
all about the stuff that I hate to do, but it's unfortunate part of the business is your
[01:11]
submission packages for competitions, producers, directors, whoever.
[01:16]
Look, I'm going to be, I'm going to preface this by saying, I'm all about the screenplay.
[01:20]
I mean, do you need a one-pager?
[01:22]
Do you need a really amazing Bible?
[01:25]
Probably, but like, it shouldn't be about the page and the words, but we live in a different
[01:30]
era, Danny.
[01:31]
You need the gloss.
[01:32]
You need the sizzle with the steak.
[01:34]
But we're going to go through a few things regarding this and look, we, we seen in our
[01:39]
competition the treatments that are super well written compared to those that are not.
[01:43]
It does grab your attention and then these are effective ways.
[01:46]
I find that the best way is to harness your story through this process and really does
[01:50]
help for me when I'm trying to figure out a one-pager.
[01:53]
I'm like, how the hell am I going to get my story into it, but it does get you to think
[01:56]
about antagonists, protagonists, turns, twists, whatever.
[01:59]
100%.
[02:00]
What I find a lot is, you know, you'll see great screenplays a lot that maybe do not have
[02:08]
great treatments, great debts attached to them.
[02:12]
I think, you know, if you have the capability to write a really strong screenplay, you have
[02:17]
the same capability to make a great deck, to make great one-pager, to write a great
[02:21]
treatment.
[02:22]
And again, if you're going to be proactive enough to be, you know, part of the less than
[02:27]
1% of people that sell their screenplay, make their movie, be proactive in every part
[02:33]
of the pitch, every chance you get to display why your story is great and get more eyes
[02:38]
on it, do it.
[02:39]
And this is a really important part of that.
[02:41]
I'm going to disagree on one thing he said.
[02:43]
I don't think personally that everyone, if you can write a great screenplay, I don't
[02:47]
think everyone can write a great treatment.
[02:49]
Honestly, because it's really hard, it's like an advertising copywriter versus a screen
[02:56]
right.
[02:57]
I think there are just different head spaces.
[02:59]
The treatment may be more so, I agree, but on one page, you're really like the salesy,
[03:03]
you've got to be like, pow pow, and get people's attention.
[03:07]
It's different than a longer narrative, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't try,
[03:10]
because I do think they work different muscles and it's a good exercise for you to engage
[03:16]
in.
[03:17]
We're going to go break it down here.
[03:19]
We're going to do the first thing, the log line.
[03:23]
It's essentially a one, two sentence condensed version of your story, right?
[03:27]
It does grip us when we get our thousands of submissions that are competitions.
[03:31]
We always talk about mirror, especially mirrors like a shark with the log line.
[03:34]
He's like, I got this log line.
[03:35]
I got this log, he's so excited to read and he'll like, you know, get all the great log
[03:41]
line screenplays for himself.
[03:43]
So when you have a log line, there are elements to it.
[03:47]
It's kind of like an equation, A plus B equals C, D, wanting to tell us what the magical
[03:53]
equation is.
[03:54]
Again, this is very, for different, this is just a more streamlined basic that we've
[03:58]
seen.
[03:59]
Yeah.
[04:00]
So essentially, like in two sentences, what you're trying to do is, you're trying to articulate
[04:04]
us as simply as you can, you know, where you're kind of meeting your story, who your main
[04:09]
character is, who your antagonist is, and what the stakes are conflict of the story
[04:15]
are.
[04:16]
But it's essentially your protagonist, your hero, goal, and conflict.
[04:19]
Those are the three elements to it.
[04:21]
Make sure you mention your protagonist, make sure you mention the goal, make sure you
[04:24]
mention the antagonist.
[04:25]
It's all fairly trivial, but again, when, like, it seems that most of the really great
[04:30]
ones do kind of follow that formula in some way.
[04:33]
And so we have two great ones today.
[04:35]
We have Kill Bill and E.T.D.
[04:36]
Want to read us Kill Bill?
[04:37]
Yep.
[04:38]
Kill Bill is after awakening from a four-year coma, a former assassin, Rick's vengeance on
[04:43]
the team of assassins, Hubitrator.
[04:46]
And now think about it.
[04:47]
A four, after awakening from a four-year coma, a former assassin, there's your antagonist,
[04:51]
with a little bit of conflict in there, right?
[04:54]
Hubitrator, that wreaks vengeance on the team of assassins, Hubitrator.
[04:58]
That gives us the goal of the conflict, and more, going forward.
[05:01]
Like, really wraps everything up in literally a sentence.
[05:03]
Yep.
[05:04]
So it's like, you know, the first few words there, like the first comma is your
[05:07]
setup, you go straight in to your main character, who's going to, as your conflict,
[05:13]
recvengence on your antagonist, the team of assassins, Hubitrator.
[05:17]
So, you know, there's not one word you could pretty much take out there, hits all the
[05:21]
boxes.
[05:22]
Zero words.
[05:23]
All right.
[05:24]
Next, a troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape from Earth and
[05:30]
return to his home planet.
[05:31]
So again, you have a troubled child.
[05:34]
There's your protagonist.
[05:37]
Summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape.
[05:39]
There's your goal from Earth and Return Home's planet.
[05:42]
So in there's also the conflict about escape as well.
[05:46]
We don't know who is the antagonist, which is also in that film a bit more nebulous, right?
[05:50]
We know they are, but they're not like the big, big, big baddies we see in films.
[05:53]
Again, in literally a sentence gives you everything you need to know.
[05:57]
And that's what this exercise should be is get your story and condense it to a sentence
[06:01]
or two, because it'll really help you start thinking of protagonist, goal, conflict.
[06:04]
Yeah.
[06:05]
And again, it's like you also just think about it as if like you're in, you know, you
[06:10]
walk into a door or something and all of a sudden it is, you know, uh, exactly before
[06:18]
it's John.
[06:19]
See me in the elevator.
[06:20]
Yeah.
[06:21]
You have five seconds.
[06:22]
Hey, I have this amazing story and you have to blurt out, you know, 10 words or so.
[06:27]
What would they be?
[06:28]
Yeah.
[06:29]
Great way to view it.
[06:30]
So next, the Bubba log line is what we call a one-pager.
[06:33]
Now this has gotten to be a lot more common over the last, I don't know, 10 years or so
[06:37]
that I've noticed.
[06:39]
It's a way just to get it out on the page, but it's not a one-pager of your whole story.
[06:44]
There's different methods to the one-pager.
[06:46]
What we're going to do today, we're going to give a shout out to this great website.
[06:49]
If you haven't visited them yet, you totally should.
[06:53]
It is no film school.
[06:55]
They are incredible.
[06:56]
Let's put them up there on, give them a little credit to no film school.
[06:59]
Maybe a little, can we do a little, a little round of applause, a little clap track for
[07:03]
them?
[07:04]
They're incredible.
[07:05]
They're a great resource for all things screenplay and here for your viewing pleasure,
[07:08]
we're going to go through the one-pager.
[07:10]
Now, if you look here, it's broken down, right?
[07:12]
So you have your screenplay title, you have your name, phone number, email.
[07:16]
Obviously, that's your contact information.
[07:17]
Then below it is your logline or genre.
[07:20]
That's again, we went over the logline.
[07:21]
You could also do a slash, enter the genre just to really solidify and paint the picture.
[07:27]
Why it matters.
[07:28]
Now, this is a bit more salesy.
[07:29]
This is like, why are you telling the story?
[07:30]
Why now?
[07:31]
We hear that a lot.
[07:33]
Why does it matter?
[07:34]
You want to explain your vision, but you want to keep it very brief.
[07:37]
Almost in the same size of a logline.
[07:40]
Then you go to your synopsis.
[07:41]
Now, this is your story in three acts.
[07:44]
We know your act one.
[07:45]
What's it about?
[07:46]
Who are we?
[07:47]
What are the problems and where are we going?
[07:49]
Your act two, your success failures.
[07:51]
What makes it more complicated?
[07:52]
How bad can it get?
[07:53]
Then your act three, how does it fall apart?
[07:55]
How does it come back together?
[07:56]
And how does it end?
[07:58]
And lastly, this is, again, more of a salesy section to it is why it will succeed.
[08:02]
A closing sense about why you think this idea will succeed in the market.
[08:06]
It's to really tell the producer, tell the director, tell the financier, like, why will
[08:10]
this work?
[08:11]
And I think this is a really great job of getting everything into one page.
[08:16]
You see this a lot for maybe a bit more of a savvy producer who doesn't just want to
[08:19]
look at a logline.
[08:20]
They want to see a bit more meat on the bone.
[08:23]
100%.
[08:24]
And it's something that we talked about before we got on.
[08:27]
But at the core of every great brief pitch is what this is actually calling for, if it's
[08:35]
an easier way to think about it, is pretty much just like the main plot points in the
[08:40]
story, right?
[08:41]
Like, an act one, they want your inciting incident, they want your setup, they want your
[08:45]
turn into act two, they want your midpoint, they want your turn into act three, and then,
[08:51]
you know, you want your climax, maybe say how it ends, maybe down.
[08:55]
But if you could kind of boil down the structure of your story, it becomes a lot easier to
[09:00]
articulate it in these longer form documents.
[09:02]
And a great, a really great exercise to figure out where your story is working, where it's
[09:06]
lacking, and also kind of an obvious tip.
[09:09]
But we see this all the time.
[09:11]
It's a one-pager because it should be one page.
[09:13]
I've seen one page that are two pages, three pages, there's not a one-pager.
[09:18]
But I get it, you want to put all the info on there, but really keep it to one page, and
[09:21]
don't do eight font, please.
[09:24]
It's got to be 12.
[09:25]
The next one in terms of hierarchy or the progression is the treatment.
[09:30]
Now, this is one of my favorites.
[09:31]
The great, amazing screenwriter, John Colley, look him up, look at his credits, but his
[09:36]
best movie, my opinion is Master and Commander.
[09:38]
He also did Monkey Man last year with Depp Tell.
[09:41]
Happy feet, he's a genius.
[09:43]
He believes that you can get your story to see if it's working in a five to ten page
[09:47]
treatment.
[09:48]
So, one thing we do a keen alarm in our competition is we have a treatment section, or part of
[09:53]
the submission, because we do want to have the voting round where in the first round,
[09:57]
you can also read the treatment.
[09:58]
If you don't have time to read 26 screenplays, you read 26 treatments.
[10:02]
And you'll know if the story is working.
[10:03]
We truly believe the power of the treatment.
[10:05]
It's one of my favorite things to read, because I can really get through a treatment
[10:08]
in a story.
[10:09]
I can digest a lot of them.
[10:10]
And think of your screenplay 120 pages, condensing it to that like, we say five to ten
[10:15]
page range to see where it's working.
[10:16]
It's a little more detailed.
[10:17]
You get to add a little bit more fat to it.
[10:20]
I don't mean fat in the bad way, but more meat for your story and see where it's going.
[10:25]
100%.
[10:26]
And again, it's a creative way to just kind of specifically, I think, when it comes to
[10:31]
any sort of pitch document, right?
[10:34]
What is really at its core, the special part of your characters?
[10:39]
What can you do to kind of establish your tone?
[10:42]
And what can you do to accentuate what makes your story special in a much more concise
[10:47]
way?
[10:48]
And another thing is, it's not a written rule, but no media, no pictures, really all about
[10:53]
the words.
[10:54]
And we're going to show you right now on screen two treatments, one by Mr. Simon Kinberg,
[11:00]
who I know quite well, amazing writer.
[11:02]
I mean, look at his thousands of credits.
[11:05]
But his first big movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, let's go through it.
[11:08]
So I'm not going to read it aloud, but you're going to see first page right here, very
[11:12]
clean, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, treated by Simon Kinberg.
[11:16]
And then we go through an overview.
[11:18]
So what he does here that I love is that it gives you a quick little overview.
[11:21]
It's almost like the one-pager of what you're about to read, gives you a little character
[11:25]
set up, which is essentially kind of like the backstory.
[11:29]
And then boom, page two, he goes into it and look how he writes.
[11:32]
The plots starts with a bang literally.
[11:35]
And assassin, you can have fun with your treatment.
[11:37]
It doesn't have to read like a play by play, like put your voice into it.
[11:40]
This is where it should be fun.
[11:42]
And I just love that the main character that says John in there, John says he needs to
[11:47]
check inventory.
[11:48]
I love that.
[11:51]
And you go through it, look at all that beautiful words right there.
[11:53]
I mean, this is incredible.
[11:56]
And you go all the way down to the bottom of the treatment.
[12:00]
And boom, he got six and a half pages in.
[12:04]
And it's really amazing.
[12:05]
And he sold his movie based on this and became a prolific screenwriter and producer.
[12:11]
Next up, who I love this film so much.
[12:14]
I love him as well.
[12:15]
Yeah, my own private Idaho.
[12:17]
We're going to look here.
[12:19]
Gus Van Sant.
[12:20]
I'm just going to call him Gus.
[12:22]
I'm going to call him Gus Gus because my daughter and I've been watching Cinderella.
[12:25]
Gus Gus, look, my own private Idaho.
[12:27]
He had a little fun with the font.
[12:28]
You could do that.
[12:29]
A story by Gus Van Sant.
[12:30]
Wow, he ate 87.
[12:31]
Woof.
[12:33]
All right, so we got page one, Idaho.
[12:35]
See how he sections it off?
[12:36]
You can read, read, read.
[12:37]
You got everything here that you want to see.
[12:39]
It's a little space differently.
[12:41]
So it gives you a little white on the page.
[12:42]
So your eyes are not straining.
[12:44]
Then the placo, San Francisco.
[12:46]
He keeps, you know, you keep reading about the story.
[12:48]
It's a beautiful, love story, by the way.
[12:50]
If you haven't seen my private Idaho, you should Portland.
[12:53]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[12:53]
We keep going to Idaho.
[12:55]
And then we're 20 pages in where he finishes his screenplay,
[13:00]
and with Phoenix.
[13:02]
And it's a beautiful story.
[13:03]
But again, 20 pages, it's a little bit longer
[13:05]
than the 10 pages we like.
[13:07]
But you know what?
[13:08]
You're Gus Van Sant.
[13:09]
You're trying to make your movie.
[13:10]
I don't mind it.
[13:11]
Oh, 100% and like I think specifically
[13:13]
on the first treatment we just looked at,
[13:16]
what it does a really great job of is like,
[13:19]
again, it establishes the premise.
[13:21]
It establishes who these characters are,
[13:23]
what they're trying to accomplish.
[13:25]
And then like, again, it's a couple pages,
[13:27]
but we're pretty much just leaning into like,
[13:29]
an exciting incident called the action.
[13:32]
The big kind of set pieces that make it fun.
[13:34]
And the kind of genres we're playing it.
[13:37]
Yeah.
[13:37]
And it's the whole thing.
[13:38]
It's fun.
[13:39]
You see the movie.
[13:40]
If you haven't seen it, you read the treatment.
[13:42]
You watch the movie.
[13:43]
It'll feel pretty much the exact same.
[13:45]
That's how you know it's a really good treatment.
[13:46]
And you know, my own private Idaho is a bit more of a drama.
[13:49]
So it's going to be less intensive on the set pieces,
[13:52]
right, actually.
[13:54]
And more about the characters in the story.
[13:55]
You see here, if you look at page 19, a lot of dialogue, right?
[13:59]
Which is okay to do.
[14:00]
You don't have to just have plot driven action prose.
[14:04]
It can be about dialogue.
[14:06]
You get a sense of what you're writing.
[14:07]
I want to, when I read a treatment,
[14:09]
I don't want to just be blown away by the story.
[14:10]
I want to hear your voice.
[14:12]
I want to read your voice.
[14:12]
I want to even get some dialogue examples.
[14:14]
I want to see what you're going to do.
[14:16]
And I think that's why I love treatment so much.
[14:19]
Love, love, love, love, love.
[14:20]
Can't say enough about treatments.
[14:21]
Do you have any last words on treatments?
[14:23]
Yeah.
[14:24]
I think I just want to double down on what you said,
[14:28]
which is that the biggest thing you're looking for
[14:30]
in any sort of short page, pitch doc,
[14:33]
is like you are looking for a voice.
[14:37]
Something that I see a lot in treatments is like,
[14:39]
you know, you could tell people are either
[14:41]
phoning it in or just trying to like put down on the page,
[14:46]
whatever, what they feel like they have to.
[14:48]
Lean into it, make it unique, make it feel like your story.
[14:52]
Because again, if the writing in there
[14:54]
doesn't feel tonally like what you want to see on screen,
[14:59]
it's not going to be worth it.
[15:00]
It's not going to come across on the page.
[15:02]
We're not going to see them.
[15:03]
And you know, it's super cool.
[15:04]
At KinoLime, we have a free course on our website
[15:08]
called Writing the Treatment, which we teamed up
[15:10]
with the amazing people, Alexi, over young screenwriters,
[15:16]
right here.
[15:17]
If you go to KinoLime.com, click on the little hamburger.
[15:20]
That's the little three lines to the left.
[15:22]
You go down, a courses, boom, the crash course,
[15:25]
you scroll down a little bit, writing the treatment,
[15:27]
start treatment course, it's free.
[15:29]
Look at there, there's Alexi, there's Adam,
[15:31]
there's some schmuck named John Schram.
[15:33]
And we're talking about how to fine tune your treatment.
[15:36]
There's some really great stuff we put together.
[15:38]
It's free for you.
[15:39]
So like go, sign up, take the course, learn how to write
[15:43]
the treatment, you know, and polish a little bit better.
[15:45]
And actually learn how to write it.
[15:47]
Because the entire point of the treatment
[15:50]
is look how unique my writing style is.
[15:53]
The chat, like so many people make chat,
[15:55]
GBT treatments, you can sniff it out immediately.
[15:59]
It'll feel homogeneous.
[16:01]
Make your writing yours.
[16:02]
Exactly.
[16:03]
This course we have at KinoLime is like,
[16:05]
I think there's seven lessons of each video's
[16:08]
between three and 20 minutes.
[16:09]
You can do it in a day at your own leisure.
[16:11]
And I love using leisure, not leisure.
[16:13]
That's another mirror thing.
[16:15]
But anyway, go check it out.
[16:16]
It's awesome.
[16:18]
And we made it for you.
[16:19]
So please use it.
[16:21]
The next one, and this is really, I suffer at this.
[16:24]
I don't got the muscle.
[16:26]
I ain't got the talent to do this.
[16:29]
What I'm going to say about the pitch Bible.
[16:30]
And this is more specifically for TV.
[16:32]
You do see film, feature film pitch, Bibles.
[16:35]
But there really are Bibles, a term that came for the TV
[16:38]
side when you got your big document about what the show is
[16:42]
going to be, the week to week, the characters,
[16:44]
photo, collages, et cetera, et cetera.
[16:48]
But it's helpful if you're going to write TV.
[16:50]
And also could be helpful.
[16:51]
And we do see it a lot now in the feature film world,
[16:53]
the vision of your story.
[16:55]
Like it's not just about the words on the page,
[16:56]
even though it should be.
[16:57]
It's also about the aesthetic, the feel, the vibe.
[17:00]
You know, all the time, bye, bye, bye.
[17:01]
So one in particular that we both said at the same time,
[17:05]
it was weird, it was a jinx.
[17:06]
We said the Montauk project, which A.K.A became
[17:11]
Stranger Things.
[17:12]
Actually, I think it was just called Montauk.
[17:14]
But I think I read Montauk project.
[17:15]
Anyway, Ron, we're going to throw it up here for everybody.
[17:17]
We're going to check out Montauk by the Duffer Brothers.
[17:21]
So I mean, man, look at this beautiful, like a static here.
[17:26]
It's like a lived in binder book.
[17:29]
And you got the bicycle with the radio tower,
[17:32]
the introduction, very clean and short and sweet.
[17:36]
Love the color, name drop in Steven Spielberg and Steven
[17:40]
King about the 80s.
[17:43]
This is where it becomes brilliant.
[17:44]
You stills from favorite 80 movies
[17:47]
that they're going to be inspired by.
[17:48]
So not only are you getting a visual,
[17:50]
you're also subconsciously putting in there
[17:53]
the famous movies that they're going to be borrowing from.
[17:56]
Yep.
[17:56]
And just like the bones of this, that's
[17:58]
very important when you're making a deck,
[18:00]
is like you really want your deck to breathe.
[18:03]
You want it to be versatile, whether it's
[18:05]
potentially a producer or a finance
[18:07]
series you're dealing with.
[18:08]
What they do here, that's really smart, is again, outside
[18:11]
of just keeping it down to the kind of stripped down premise
[18:14]
we've talked about.
[18:15]
They have a quick intro that leans on the comps.
[18:17]
So immediately before you even hear about the story,
[18:20]
you know, you're thinking stand by me.
[18:21]
You're thinking Spielberg in the 80s.
[18:24]
You get the premise, you get the quick and siding
[18:27]
incident called action, who are our characters, what's
[18:30]
our tone, what's our genre, character, character, character.
[18:34]
And then what specifically makes this deck great.
[18:36]
Visually, all the text is really short.
[18:39]
Yes.
[18:40]
They split.
[18:40]
There's never going to be two pages of text in a row.
[18:43]
You have a page of text and then a beautiful kind of image
[18:47]
from one of these.
[18:47]
Yes, it became a change of things and the rest is history.
[18:52]
And again, it's just sticking to the bones and accentuating
[18:55]
your tone.
[18:57]
One thing they didn't do here, that again, if you're an independent
[19:00]
filmmaker with a screenplay looking to kind of market your
[19:04]
script and your story to potential finance
[19:07]
series and producers, a great thing to do as well as like,
[19:10]
it really doesn't hurt.
[19:12]
Again, if you're like trying to build your profile, you're
[19:14]
unrepped.
[19:15]
Like if you have a proof of concept, if you have a sizzle
[19:19]
real, a director statement, I'm not a big fan of like, a
[19:23]
lot of people put pages and pages of everyone who's attached.
[19:26]
Yeah.
[19:26]
It's not a list.
[19:27]
There's no one cares.
[19:28]
Like keep it tight.
[19:29]
Show that you have proes as a filmmaker and just lean into
[19:33]
your tone, lean into your characters.
[19:34]
Yeah, and just have fun with it.
[19:36]
You know, and if it's a drama, like pour your heart into it,
[19:39]
I think emulate the genre you're in.
[19:41]
I think we want to feel you as a writer on the page, like,
[19:45]
living through it.
[19:46]
I remember when I first started reading screenplays,
[19:50]
everyone said, oh, you got to read lethal weapon.
[19:52]
You got to read lethal weapon.
[19:53]
And boom, did he not have the best voice for that story
[19:58]
and character?
[19:59]
And you totally get like why he was the kid wonder and sold.
[20:03]
We're talking about Shane Black.
[20:05]
Shane Black became the million dollar sale baby.
[20:09]
He was selling screenplays left and right because he
[20:10]
his scripts just emoted fun and his style.
[20:14]
And that's exactly what happened.
[20:16]
And he became like the it writer because of that.
[20:19]
So have fun with it.
[20:20]
If you're writing a drama, pour your soul into it.
[20:22]
If you're having a comedy, make us laugh.
[20:24]
You know, like just emulate what you're trying to do on the page.
[20:27]
Yeah, I mean, it all pretty much just comes down to like,
[20:30]
understand the bones of your story.
[20:32]
What excites you about it?
[20:33]
And then all of this is essentially just ways to try to capture
[20:37]
people that don't know you and your story.
[20:41]
You know, what is special and what pops about it?
[20:44]
Whatever excites you and you think you could write
[20:49]
well and succinctly?
[20:50]
Do it.
[20:51]
Yeah.
[20:51]
Hopefully this helps.
[20:52]
So in summary, you have your log line, which we know is going
[20:55]
to be a one to two page sentence describing your story
[20:57]
in a very condensed way.
[20:58]
And then we have your one page or keep it to one page,
[21:00]
section off a little bit of the log line genre.
[21:04]
The, you know, why now the story and then why this will sell
[21:09]
or do well, then we have your treatment in which I personally love,
[21:12]
keep that to five to 10 pages.
[21:14]
Have fun with it.
[21:15]
That's where you could put your heart and soul, your voice,
[21:17]
your energy into the pros and what you're writing.
[21:20]
We have your pitch Bible, which typically is more for TV,
[21:23]
but we do see it in features.
[21:24]
That's where you can get more visual and creative with it
[21:25]
and have fun with that too.
[21:26]
And if you're going to put the time in, you know, again,
[21:29]
break up a lot of text with visuals and media style.
[21:33]
And then most importantly, if you've got the last thing,
[21:36]
the fucking screenplay.
[21:37]
You need the screenplay.
[21:39]
We'll travel this.
[21:40]
You don't need it.
[21:41]
We'll just make it without it.
[21:42]
No, but honestly, it does help us to have the materials ahead
[21:46]
of time before we read, but it doesn't really matter
[21:48]
because we're going to be the screenplay anyway.
[21:49]
But it's good practice and a harness your skills.
[21:51]
If we left anything out, if there's anything you have questions on
[21:54]
or other examples, we'd love to hear from you.
[21:56]
Actually, I would love to find a good feature film,
[21:59]
pitch, deck or pitch Bible.
[22:01]
They're hard to find.
[22:02]
They're hard to find.
[22:03]
I mean, so if you have one send it our way,
[22:05]
if you have any questions, hit us up via email, Instagram,
[22:09]
X Facebook, you know where we're at, come find us.
[22:12]
Yeah, I mean, Danny's joke every week.
[22:15]
But we'd love to hear from you.
[22:16]
This is an amazing topic that I think is like,
[22:19]
it's like going to the dentist.
[22:20]
It's like, you got to do it.
[22:22]
It's part of life and it's just going to make your life
[22:26]
way easier with clean teeth and a good media kit.
[22:29]
So we're excited to hear from you.
[22:32]
Thank you for tuning in.
[22:33]
My name is John.
[22:34]
Danny.
[22:34]
See you soon.
[22:35]
If you're a screenwriter, filmmaker, you've got to listen up
[22:37]
because here at Keenaline, we're opening up our third annual
[22:40]
feature film, 3.0 screenwriting competition,
[22:42]
January 23rd to March 15th.
[22:45]
That means you, a screenwriter or filmmaker,
[22:47]
get your movie made.
[22:48]
How amazing is that?
[22:50]
So our submission period opens January 23rd to March 15th.
[22:53]
So sharpen your pens, get your fingers ready,
[22:56]
get that screenplay polished and formatted
[22:59]
and submitted to Keenaline for open competition.
[23:02]
If you don't know about us, Keenaline,
[23:03]
this is what we do here.
[23:04]
We open a screenwriting competition yearly
[23:07]
where anyone from around the world, as long as it's in English
[23:09]
and format correctly, can submit their screenplay
[23:12]
into our competition.
[23:13]
Readers, film lovers from all around the world,
[23:15]
read your work and vote on it.
[23:16]
And if you get the most votes at the end, your screenplay
[23:20]
will get made into a movie here at Keenaline.
[23:23]
Just to give you some updates, our first competition winner,
[23:26]
the Wave and last year's competition winner,
[23:27]
Mob mentality, are going into production in 2026.
[23:31]
Yes, you heard that right.
[23:33]
We were making two movies from the past two winners this year.
[23:36]
That means you could, if you win this year,
[23:38]
we're gonna make your movie next year,
[23:40]
or maybe the year after depending on how production goes.
[23:42]
But at the end of the day, if you want your dreams to come true,
[23:44]
if you want your screenplay to be turned into a film,
[23:47]
go to Keenaline.com right now.
[23:48]
Set up an account, find out all the information,
[23:51]
ask questions, we're here for you,
[23:53]
get your submission ready between January 23rd and March 15th
[23:56]
and we cannot wait.
[23:57]
I cannot wait to read your work.
