Jay Fingers, Author/Screenwriter/Youtuber: Sent to a remote island to bury the dead, a wisecracking
young inmate soon finds his life in danger when the island is overrun by hordes of the undead
who had been killed by prison guards.
Film Courage: Are there different screenwriting
rules for established screenwriters versus those that are new writers?
Jay: I think so. I think that there are unwritten rules. Again I think a lot of it basically boils
down to formatting, how your script looks, how you present your script. Newbies can't do what
established writers can do. I mentioned the Robert Towne thing or I feel a lot of screenwriters don't
use slug lines at all. For me that's a big thing. I think that that's insane but I know that William
Goldman for instance doesn't use slug lines and of course he Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid right
but I feel like a William Goldman can get away with that, Jay Fingers cannot.
So I’m very careful in how I format and present my work so that one day if I do decide
that I want to break a rule here or there I can.
Film Courage: Do you have an opinion about log lines?
Jay: Yes, I do not like log lines. I think log lines suck.
Film Courage: Why, what's wrong with them?
Jay: They're just difficult, they're difficult. Everyone's just like Oh if you can't,
if you're unable to distill your story into one sentence, if you can't tell me in one
(maybe two sentences) what your script is about
then already I know that your script is terrible and I'm like no that's not true. I do understand
the importance of log lines. It's just crafting them is a pain. I just don't like doing it.
My log line for Potter's Field I worked on for weeks before I finally got one that I thought was
decent. I can't even say that I was truly pleased with the final log line but at a certain point I
was just like okay I've got to stop this is this is where we're at and I'm going to see
if this works and it's got me some requests so obviously I did something right with that so the
log line for this film which is Potter's Field feel okay it took you how long several weeks
several weeks several weeks it took me several weeks to craft this one but then that's also
based on just working on it previously just coming up with log lines that just absolutely
didn't work and just me giving up or like whatever so what I when I finally came back to it because
I knew that I wanted to start submitting start getting the script out there I sat down with with
this version of the log line and yeah it took it took several weeks for me to craft it and and
get it into the shape where where I'm finally getting some some hits from it oh may we hear it
yeah sure sent to a remote island to bury the dead a wisecracking young inmate soon finds his life in
danger when the island is overrun by hordes of the undead who had been by prison guards okay
okay so and that what parts did you struggle with like where did you find you well first
like mentioning the protagonist I didn't know how I wanted to describe him there were some drafts
where I used the character's name his name is Amir Addison but then I realized no one cares
that's not what they're looking for in a log line the characters they'll get to the character's name
when they read the script so in in trying to describe who he was succinctly that was that
was difficult for me but then I just thought about the most striking parts of his personality I mean
we already know that he's in prison he's an inmate and he has this kind of uh caustic sense of humor
like he's he's always just saying something smart and not really insulting people but you kind of go
in there and so I thought wisecracking would be a good way to describe him and I also wanted to
kind of bring the mind like a young Eddie Murphy we all kind of remember what Eddie Murphy was
like in his early career with like 48 hours and beverly hills cop and trading places and I wanted
my character to be reminiscent of that so I thought that wisecracking was a great way to
kind of describe him just also just the structure just what should I mention first
should I lead off with a wisecracking young inmate and I did that for a while but that didn't seem to
work so then I led off with assigned to bury the dead on this island just it sets up the the place
you know where the script is taking place and what's supposed to happen and then after I set
it up we mentioned the protagonist wisecracking young inmate but I think the thing that really
made the log line work was at the end I added a little tidbit about the undead who had been
murdered by prison guards that was missing and everyone when I asked for feedback on the log line
they're just like ah this is cool I guess but how about but when I added that one part toward the
end response was it was just like oh wow this is now I get it now I want to read this now this is
it hooks me so that's the log line that I decided to go out with and yeah once I started querying
I started getting hits I started getting requests for the for the split for for the script so you
were sending it out before you had this particular log line no I wasn't sending it out no no just
working on the log line so that I could send it out I see okay so you weren't able to weigh
whether this was was an improved version but you knew from the reaction that this tidbit at
the end where we know like why why these people had died and right okay exactly interesting wow
and did anyone say it was too long it was too short of a long time
no no I don't know how many words it is exactly but I know I tried to keep it kind of within the
recommended limit like 35 words 35 to 40 words I think is what they say your log line should be
so I tried to keep it within that now for your books the description I know on amazon when I
looked at it it's much longer oh yeah it's like a paragraph or so is there something
with books where there's the same type of rules for the log line no it's different okay
yeah yeah I mean they expect a much much longer in-depth kind of blurb so that they can put on
on the back of books on amazon and barnes noble press releases what have you yeah there's log
lines are not really not really a thing at least in my experience yeah in the publishing
kind of like world right so with scripts short log line and then a lot of white on the page
kind of like get to the point and don't race waste the reader's attention sounds like okay.
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