Paranormal Holiday

SaveTheCat.com is ending the year with a big meow! Anyone is invited to enter the Save the Cat!® Logline Contest of 2009. To enter, use the STC! rules of a well-written logline to rework the logline of a well-known movie and turn it into a Holiday classic.

For example, these are the five entries I have submitted so far:

Paranormal Holiday: After moving into a suburban home, a loving couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly jolly presence and it’s noisy reindeer. (Paranormal Activity)
Christmas Now: During an on-going winter, Captain Taylor is sent on a dangerous mission into the North Pole to retrieve a renegade soldier who has set himself up as Santa Claus among a local elf tribe. (Apocalypse Now)
SE7ENTH: Two obsessed detectives desperately hunt for a serial killer named “Donner” who justifies his crimes as clearance for the world’s ignorance of the seventh reindeer. (SE7EN)
Blank List: By accident, the 12-year-old Pierce is given a blank Christmas list from a runaway elf and when he fills it out, he is able to get what he asks for! (Blank Check)
Ornament: A struggling mall Santa, suffering from short-term memory loss, uses notes, Polaroids and nostalgic ornaments from the last Christmas he remembers to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife. (Memento)

It’s that simple!
“Keep your loglines short — try for no longer than two lines. The original movie must be universally recognized, and the rewritten movie must be clearly made for a Holiday release. Contestants may place multiple entries, but each entry must be separate. No grouped entries, please. Please include the title of your “remake.” You may alter the original title if you wish, as long as we can determine the original source. Deadline for the contest is December 19, 2009, Midnight PST. Winners will be announced on the Save the Cat! blog site December 21. So get your paws — and your brains — a flexin’, and post your entries in the comment section of their blog!!!”

A logline is one to three sentences that says everything about your story and can be used as a point of reference during the screenwriting process. Your logline should be able to break out every element in a successful screenplay. A good logline has a Protagonist, an antagonist and a an adjective for each of these characters. A lunatic Taxi-driver flows a little better than a brand-new one.

A great logline sparks curiosity with irony, add a twist at the end of the line, something the reader  or an audience member wouldn’t expect.  A good logline should have a great title attached to it, a sense of market and a solid concept. Who will watch this movie? Why will they watch it? And what’s it about?

For more information on prizes and rules visit the Save the Cat!® Logline Contest of 2009

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