By Daniel Rigney
Screenwriting is a foreign language. One week into my first film screenwriting course I’ve already learned several strange new phrases, including “fade in,” “intercut,” “plot point,” and “log line.” The latter refers to the brief “tease” used to pitch a story idea to a studio or audience. For instance, here is my own version of a log line from the classic film, “Casablanca”:
Rick, a hard-edged cynic who sticks his neck out for nobody, discovers two things bigger than he is -- his love of the beautiful Ilse, and his awakening commitment to the underground resistance against the Nazis. He can’t say yes to both. He must choose between them.
On a considerably lighter note, our class’s first screenwriting assignment is to compose five alternative log lines for a single story idea. We are urged not to pitch our stories according to the cliched formula “Z is ‘X meets Y.' " But I can’t help myself.
“Chili Champ." It’s “Best in Show” meets “Archie Comics.”
Chili Champ
Veronica is a smart, witty computer nerd by day, a cuisine artist by night. Reggie is the arrogant chemistry student whose secret recipe has won the College Chili Wars cookoff three years in a row. Veronica wants the crown, and she may just win it -- if she lives long enough to enter her own secret creation in the competition.
Reggie is the Chili Wizard. He’s won the campus cookoff three years in a row with his secret recipe for Chili of the Gods. Only one rival stands between him and another grand prize. Meet Veronica, a nerdy young Latina with a few secret ingredients of her own.
Some people will do anything to achieve the fame and glory that comes with winning the blue ribbon in a chili cookoff. Will nerdy cuisine-artist Veronica steal the reigning Chili Wizard’s secret recipe? Will the Wizard try to poison her before she has a chance to win? The mystery is in the secret ingredients.
There’s not much chemistry between Reggie, the arrogant chili cook, and his comic archrival Veronica. Both have secret recipes. Both have a powerful need to dominate others. And without knowing it, they share the same psychotherapist. Now it’s high noon. They come face to face in the legendary College Chili Wars. And the psychotherapist is a judge!
In a world … where chili is a metaphor for life … the irresistible force of Veronica’s daring new chili recipe faces off against the immoveable object of the Wizard’s Chili of the Gods. Is your stomach for comedy ready to rumble?
Hollywood, I can work from home. I’ll look forward to your call.
http://open.salon.com/blog/danagram/2011/09/17/chili_champ_the_pitch
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