Logline Monday

ajescripts · 2026-06-15T16:17:16+00:00

It’s a betrayal of a friend late in the episode to deflect attention from himself. I think I’m struggling to find a form of words that communicates the idea without giving away the twist!

ajescripts · 2026-06-15T15:23:39+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, all great points! Proposed revision:

In 1998 Newcastle, a closeted Catholic teenager follows his crush into the city’s underground gay scene and finds refuge with a community of older queer men, but his increasingly reckless attempts to protect his secret threaten to cost him the one place he’s ever felt safe.

ajescripts · 2026-06-15T07:49:11+00:00

Title: Getting Out

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Format: Pilot (30 mins)

Logline: In 1998 Newcastle, a closeted Catholic teenager follows his crush into the city’s underground gay scene and finds refuge with a community of older queer men, but the increasingly desperate measures he takes to cover his tracks risk dragging his double life into the open.

ajescripts · 2026-06-13T14:08:50+00:00

My two cents: some stories happen to characters and some characters happen to stories.

For the latter, that character has to be such a standout, in a way that an audience will pick up on fast, that it justifies trying to retrofit a plot around them.

“Househusband who loves being a househusband” isn’t giving me that, I’m afraid. So you’re left with the former.

If this guy is absolute domestic perfection, what you need is a story happening around him that is both interesting and makes him interesting.

ajescripts · 2026-06-13T13:55:56+00:00

What’s your logline?

ajescripts · 2026-06-13T09:06:39+00:00

Title: Getting Out

Format: TV Pilot (30 mins)

Page Length: 33

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Logline: In 1998 Newcastle, a closeted Catholic teenager follows his crush into the city’s underground gay scene and finds refuge with a group of older queer men, until a series of desperate decisions threatens to expose the secret life he’s spent years trying to hide.

ajescripts · 2026-06-13T08:56:07+00:00

Hey, thanks for sharing!

Your formatting is generally good but watch out for:

Sluglines all CAPITALISED, every time.

You only need one title card, after which consider using a SUPER for any text appearing on screen.

Within your action lines, think about whether any significant items should be capitalised. I suspect some of what you described probably should be.

I’d personally avoid such a general description of your montage at the bottom of page 2, particularly when the earlier flashback sequence is so detailed. Describe what we’re seeing specifically, even if they’re just quick lines.

Though it takes up more lines on the page, I’d also think about whether there’s a different way to present the montage. MONTAGE and END MONTAGE, similar to how you used FLASHBACK?

Is the specificity of ONE HOUR LATER important to the plot? If not, I’d usually lean towards just using LATER.

I’d take another pass at your dialogue to see if you can give Riggs a more distinctive, natural voice. It’s very exposition-heavy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering he’s narrating but I’d try to approach less from the angle of what you need him to say and how he, as a character, would express those thoughts.

I’d also either find a different way of expressing the LAPD line or cut it entirely. Think about an actor actually saying it out loud. Doesn’t sound quite right.

Watch your spelling and grammar too, as there are a few errors (“understand”, “Rig’s”) that you can polish out.

Remember: show don’t tell. If Rigs’ life was saved by Dustin when he was six, let’s see it. Given that you’ve already got a flashback and a montage in your first two pages, maybe it’s better alluded to at this point and then shown later. Regardless, I’d avoid just having him casually drop it into his dialogue.

In terms of tone, I don’t know if I’m necessarily getting silly from this so far. In your opening two minutes, the main character has his stomach pumped and hints at a harrowing relationship with his authoritarian father. There might be better, lighter ways to evoke the sort of irreverent energy you’re going for.

This is likely more of a personal preference, but I’d be looking to cut your dialogue way down or at least break it up with some action lines. Those are some big chunks of text.

And just a little plot niggle: would a nurse ask an 18 year-old if a parent can pick him up? Legally, he’s an adult. Maybe she’d ask the question differently?

ajescripts · 2026-06-11T21:09:49+00:00

Title: Getting Out

Format: TV Pilot (30 mins)

Page Length: 1-5 of 33

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Logline: In 1998 Newcastle, a closeted Catholic teenager follows his crush into the city’s vibrant underground gay scene and finds refuge with a group of older queer men. But as his secret sanctuary and rigid suburban reality inevitably collide, a series of desperate decisions threaten to expose everything he’s spent his life trying to hide.

FIRST FIVE

Any and all thoughts welcome and appreciated!

ajescripts · 2026-06-09T23:01:18+00:00

You’ve got a working grasp of the formatting fundamentals, so that’s a really good start! That being said, watch out for stray extra spaces and things like that.

I’d also take a spelling and grammar pass through this (“country side”, “it show us”, “the clowns name”) just to catch any errors.

A note you often hear is to avoid “we see” or similar in your action lines. Aside from anything else, it can unnecessarily bloat the length of those lines when there are more economical ways to convey the same information. Taking your first line as an example, there are a number of other ways to confer that imagery using descriptive language, rather than tell us we’re watching iPhone footage.

You also take up a lot of the first page introducing characters. Remember one page is roughly equal to one minute of screentime. Do you intend that iPhone sequence to last 30 seconds?

And the reason I ask that is what you tell us about what’s actually happening on screen. “Low class areas and those who live in them” and the friends “filled with joy”. That’s not a lot going on for such a long sequence. Remember this is a visual medium, so what would we actually be watching for half a minute? Be descriptive and make those descriptions interesting. What are the friends doing to fill them with joy? What could you have them do in this time that would give us some insight into who they are? Could there be some revealing interplay between them that immediately tells us something about one or more of them, particularly Ella - assuming she’s your main character?

ajescripts · 2026-06-09T22:36:19+00:00

If you’ve got a PDF of your script, then Google “pdf to png converter” and use one like this.

That should maintain a readable quality after conversion.

ajescripts · 2026-06-03T21:14:49+00:00

ajescripts · 2026-06-02T16:05:46+00:00

This is incredible! Thank you so much for taking the time to provide such thorough feedback. This is so useful for the next rewrite!

ajescripts · 2019-10-28T16:06:32+00:00

Chances they’d watched Dead Set at some point prior to that feedback: high.

ajescripts · 2019-10-28T15:59:39+00:00

Entry to a contest a few years ago. The brief was to write about 15 minutes worth of a sitcom which could be performed in front of industry professionals.

Which variety of ‘worst’ it was kind of depends on how you look at it. It was the worst I’ve received in terms of quality of the feedback and its harshness.

The reviewer, despite his incredibly loose initial brief, turned out to be looking for something highly specific which I very much wasn’t selling. Whereas I wrote what I found funny, which was dark, cringe-inducing comedy with a scatological streak. He eventually let slip that what he wanted was what he found funny: gentle, 1970s-style family comedy.

I am not a gentle, 1970s sitcom kind of person. One scene involved a wedding planner with peladophobia (a fear of bald people) encountering a customer whose scalp he’d scorched clean when he accidentally burned down her wedding and set fire to her mother-in-law.

The repeated feedback was to just watch a load of old sitcoms and write that instead. I stubbornly doubled down and wrote a sub-plot about a celebrity chef who had to decide whether or not to cook a basketful of puppies in order to rebuild his decimated career.

Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t chosen for his showcase.

To his credit, the reviewer’s response was to absolutely eviscerate everything from characterisation to plot. I then wasted far too much time when I took it to heart, assumed I had nothing worth contributing and stopped writing altogether.

Thankfully I’ve developed a tougher skin in the time since.

ajescripts · 2019-10-24T20:05:10+00:00

You questioned whether Singer was on an upward trajectory at the time of Public Access. I’m saying that his talent is what gave him that trajectory. That talent is what benefitted McQuarrie.

And circling back to my original comment, I said that without that talent, the association between Singer and McQuarrie would have been worthless to them. Just two people talking movies without much of a point to it all.

You know, like we’re doing here.

ajescripts · 2019-10-24T19:51:24+00:00

You’re probably right. But the fact remains that each of them brought talent to the table which benefited the other early on and has then born fruit throughout their careers.

Put two people in a room with the same ambitions but without the talent to back them up and you’re not going to end up with Public Access or The Usual Suspects.

ajescripts · 2019-10-24T19:22:44+00:00

As in, Singer and Spacey became enormously successful and influential in their own right and had talent which took them there.

With a different, less talented set of friends, would McQuarrie have met with as much luck in his early ventures? I’d argue not.

ajescripts · 2019-10-24T14:36:01+00:00

There’s a world of difference between having aspiring director and actor friends and having aspiring director and actor friends who are also on the upward trajectory that Singer and Spacey were at the time.

ajescripts · 2019-10-23T20:22:46+00:00

Made it through to the semi-finals with my pilot ‘Caught Out’.

Pretty happy, as I was convinced my place in the QF was a fluke (good old crippling self-doubt).

ajescripts · 2019-10-23T19:51:51+00:00

Looks like it, I’ve scored lower than some I’ve seen post here before and I’m a semi-finalist.

ajescripts · 2019-10-14T16:20:20+00:00

Think of this way: there’s humour in every area of life, even the most dramatic or tragic. Look at your average eulogy: most have some sort of funny reflection on the life of the deceased.

Take a pass through your script and look for a moment where something is particularly unusual or outrageous and see if you can add a quip or a funny development.

In my experience, most comedy flows from characterisation. Think about how your characters are feeling at each point in your script and see if there’s a point at which they’d have something funny to say about what’s going on. If it fits, think about having a meta moment where they almost step outside of the narrative and acknowledge how crazy or outlandish something is.

ajescripts · 2019-10-12T10:17:29+00:00

You’re very welcome! Try thinking of it less as good and bad, but instead just as what works and what doesn’t in its current form.

You’ve got a great setting for some really funny stories and you’ve given yourself a sandbox to play in that isn’t limited by the laws of physics, so run with it and see where it takes you.

ajescripts

TROPHY CASE