UPDATE 1/4/2010: We've got some good candidates already, but I feel like there's room to raise the bar even higher. Now that vacation's over, I'm setting a deadline of Noon (Pacific) this Friday, January 8, for submissions for this contest. Winner receives a free month's subscription to www.itsonthegrid.com. Bring it, people.
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When I was deep in the heart of my non-pro years (2004 or so), I stumbled across a blog called Query Letters I Love, which purported to be a compendium of actual, awful query letters from aspiring writers to the guy who started the site, a literary manager whose nom de plume was ManagerGuy. According to the site, ManagerGuy "passed on" in 2006, and the blog remains up in his memory. Such a bummer; I loved that blog, not least because it helped me feel connected to the business, even though I hadn't yet started to think about coming back to town.
These days, I get far fewer awful query letters than one would expect (the volume is high, but the queries are usually pretty professional), and certainly far fewer than I used to receive when I was a TV Lit agent. I chalk it up to how many more good sources of screenwriting and how-to-break-into-the-business advice there are today than even just a couple of years ago (thanks, interwebs!). Frankly, though, I miss the comic relief of a steady stream of clueless queries, and especially all those incredibly bad ideas for movies. I recently started reading KGMadMan's blog, Deep Thoughts of Great Importance, in which he has taken to writing his own awful query letters (on purpose, as you'll see), but one man's effort isn't enough to slake my thirst. It's going to take a village.
So in the spirit of the holidays, inspired by KGMadMan's excellent work in this field, and in honor of ManagerGuy, I hereby propose the "Worst. Logline. Ever." contest. To wit:
The challenge: Come up with the best awful concept/premise/idea for a movie you can think of, encapsulated in a logline.
The prize: A month's free subscription to www.itsonthegrid.com (surprise!).
The rules (such as they are): Like the recent "Give the Untitled Mel Gibson/Leonardo DiCaprio Period Drama Set In The World of Viking Culture Project a better logline" contest, entries will be judged solely and capriciously by me, and I readily admit I may be influenced by comments by other contributors on this blog. Submit as many suggestions as you like. Since so many people are off skiing or tanning or whathaveyou until the week of the 4th, I'll probably leave the deadline for submissions open until sometime that week unless the quality and quantities of entries is particularly high between now and then. If I close submissions before the 4th, I'll update this post.
So there you have it. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled...something, blah blah blah. And make it snappy -- I'm sure KGMadMan's already way ahead of you.
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