Act I: I was jogging, one foot after the other under a full moon, when he started telling his mom, my wife, about the offer his dad had made to him, at him, all over him, during the weekend spent at the Other House. I came back, sweat streaming off my face and neck, knees aching, to a very quiet house. Laura wasn't talking from her frozen face and glistening eyes. Josh wasn't talking as he buried himself in Sunday-evening TV. I slipped into my cool-down stretches like a stretcher-bearer tiptoeing through No-Man's Land.
Act II: "Do you know what a whore is?" I asked, straight from the shoulder, man-to-man tone.
His headshake was vertical, but I understood. "I know you've heard the word 'prostitute'," I said. "A whore is a prostitute. Someone who sells his body for money. Someone who lets strangers penetrate his very self for money."
An innocent, fragile cyclops, he stared at me.
"What other films could you equate your project to? This industry is big on _high concept_ comparative descriptions, especially when you're comparing your project to others that have done big box office numbers. Examples would be _Agent Cody Banks_, which sold as a teenage James Bond, or _Alien_, which sold as _Jaws_ on a spaceship.
"A pitch should start with a succinct, compelling logline (the essence of your story in one sentence) that will grab someone's attention. You can't underestimate the significance of a catchy logline, because it's the first thing a buyer will hear (or read if you're writing a query letter) and could mean the difference between immediately grabbing someone's attention or losing that person's interest on the spot. My producer-writer-friend Graham Ludlow likes to give the example of what he thinks the perfect logline for _Liar, Liar_ might be, which is: A lawyer suddenly discovers that he can no longer lie.
"Your pitch should have a beginning, a middle and an end, although you don't havo to compress the entire story into the pitch. The goal is to be able to convey the essence and heart of the project, just enough to entice the buyer to want to know more, to ask questions and to want to read the script.
"... you should have a 30-second pitch, a one-minute, five-minute and 15-minute version."
I'm sure you are quite aware about fervent outcries surrounding privacy on the Internet. Nothing new, really, among the old hands, but some of the people new to virtual reality know no more about their browsers, HTTP, & the rest of cyber-technology than they do about the vehicles they drive, i.e., not much at all. These Newcomers have discovered that their comings&goings can be tracked, in fact, must be tracked to give them the services they're expecting & they've decided they don't like it. Still, I can't fault them because many of the old hands declaim about the subject as well.
Why are some people so excited about maintaining their privacy on the Internet? Oh, I know their primal fear, that someone will see what they're doing & use it to hurt them or their families. But how reasonable are their expectations of going places virtual without being seen?
dedicated to project managers everywhere
Seeds of Disaster
Seeds of DisasterbBook (Outrider Edition) now available at Who Else! Booksin Denver, 32 N. Broadway; call them at 303-987-0281.
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