The other afternoon at a 8th Street bar I was drinking with several friends discussing the reasons for my movie script not having found a home.
“BET ON CRAZY has it all, a diamond heist, love, violence.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t says anything.” Jason came from Malibu. He had movie star friends. He had helped me with BET ON CRAZY. “When you pitch a script, you have to think on one line.”
“The tag line.” I knew the process.
“Yes, producers are besieged by countless ideas every minute of the day. You have to think of a better tagline.”
“Diamonds are forever and a crime takes a minute.”
“A little cliche.”
“A diamond belongs to one man until someone else takes it.”
“But it’s not telling the story.”
Jason typed out something on his cellphone and showed me the poster for a black exploitation film from the 70s.
HANG UP
His job was busting junkies.
His mistake was loving one.
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
Jason was right. Those two lines told it all.
“His job was selling diamonds. Stealing one was much easier. Getting away with it was the hard part.”
“Better, but that has nothing to do with your story.”
“And I’m sure that neither does the tagline for HANG UP.
“Work on it.” Jason ordered another vodka. I had a gin tonic. They brought out my mean streak. I left at the end of happy hour and kept my mouth shut on the train. No one wanted to hear mean.