We’ve been presented with some interesting challenges with all of this pitch development we’ve been doing. The one thing we’ve struggled with the most has been the verbal pitch synopsis – but not for the reasons you may think.
This particular synopsis needs to be somewhat conversational. Sorta simple, but still convey all of the important moments in a compelling and powerful way. It’s a lot like telling a story around a campfire. This sounds easy enough, but when you get a group of skilled writers in a room together and begin attempting to actually write it, you end up with something far too fancy, complex and “written”. Essentially, you get the equivalent of an attempt to sell a dryer by describing each individual part in detail and then offering the motivation behind the manufacturer’s choice to place each screw where it is. We’re all just so used to writing on something above an 8th grade reading level.
The three sentence synopsis (logline)? No problem. The three paragraph synopsis? Got it. This one? GAHHH! We’ve now started over four times – from scratch. I never suspected that writing “dumb” would be so difficult. You actually have to fight with yourself to not edit your sentences “up”. To make them read in a more comfortable and…not idiotic…way.
We were actually considering finding an 8th grader to read the script and write a book report on it for us. Luckily, Jason finally had a creative epiphany and we began to make some progress. Here is an excerpt from his brilliant breakthrough:
…That is bad aitrus says, pointing with his wrong/left hand. He knows…dead is not good…so he pointed left, not right…
Then the earth shakes. It’s like an earthquake, but underground. Just like the d’ni. Where they live and eat and play. Underground. He says oh no, but not really cause that would be silly. But he does save a guys’s life. It’s veovis. His friend from fourth grade or so. They know each other still and he was a jerk then but he’s good now. Sort of good. He tries, anyway. So they’re friends again because he’s alive thanks to aitrus and he gives him a compass. He likes the compass.
Veovis has a birthday where his dad’s a jerk to him. Veovis’ dad likes Aitrus more. And they eat food together. Then it’s over.
Anna is found by the maintainers. They’re the police down underground. She seems bad to them and she is taken to jail. There’s a lot of discussion about her and even a trial. She is not allowed to go home. She’s got to stay down with the d’ni.
Aitrus shows her around the place and they fall in love. It gets sexy and a baby gets made. Then veovis is not cool with that. He’s against the dirty surface girl. He hates her like hitler hated jews, but not that serious yet. He does get pissed though and starts to gather more people that hate her too. Think Third Reich, but not that serious yet.
Then it does get serious. Some older guy says, we should kill people to save the race and veovis is like, sure…I guess that makes sense. Then there’s gas. It’s poisonous and deadly. Pretty much everyone dies but aitrus and his family and the filthy, filthy baby go through a book page and they’re safe for a while. The gas comes through though. It’s actually a body that used to be alive but not anymore. It has the gas in it and it starts to kill aitrus’ family. They don’t die yet, but they’re going to.
Aitrus is like jesus then. He goes into the gas place, back through the book page, and he’s definitely going to die, but he goes anyway…
[omitted content]
Then there’s some games that have nothing to do with this stuff. You find books on an island that is totally above the surface. You find switches too. And you solve puzzles or something like that. There’s also an old guy that is not the old guy from underground but a different one. He has a beard and he’s on video in the game. His name is like Aitrus’ but it doesn’t have an “I” in it. It’s spelled A-T-R-U-S. He’s the focus of the games, kinda, and he leaves some notes around for a girl named Catherine. I’m not sure how it connects…
Yeah, I think we’ve got it in the bag.
