A good log line is like a good movie. It features a character we can root for driving toward a clear, high-stakes goal against insurmountable obstacles. And all of that gets packed into one or two simple declarative sentences.

Here’s a sample log line for a movie you know:

Log line: Just before the outbreak of World War II, an adventuring archaeologist named Indiana Jones races around the globe to single-handedly prevent the Nazis from turning the greatest archaeological relic of all time into a weapon of world conquest.

Here’s one that uses the Hollywood convention of crossing one successful movie with another to create something, well... completely new:

Log line: In this spoof on dramas that take themselves too seriously, a group of pathologically disaffected high schoolers who bravely defy societal norms by wearing all of their clothes inside-out angst over whether to expose their chain-smoking principal on national television. It’s THE INSIDER meets the OUTSIDERS. The INSIDE-OUTERS.

Log line: AFTER THE TRUTH is the ultimate look at the face of evil. This unnerving courtroom thriller tells the fictional story of the return to modern-day Germany of fugitive Dr. Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s notorious Angel of Death, and the idealistic young attorney Mengele recruits to defend his indefensible acts of 60 years ago.

To learn more about the award-winning film AFTER THE TRUTH click here.

Actual Innocence

Log line: ACTUAL INNOCENCE tells the harrowing true story of two Oklahoma men wrongly convicted of a brutal rape and murder and the battle of a handful of law school students and attorneys to find the truth of what really happened – not just at the crime scene but in the courtroom and the jury room.