How to Write a Logline for Your Short Film

A logline is a single sentence that says who your film is about, what they want, and what stands in their way. Knowing how to write a logline for your short film matters because it's often the first thing a funder, festival programmer or actor reads, and it decides whether they read anything else.

The good news is that a logline follows a pattern. This guide covers what goes into one, a formula you can fill in, three worked examples from British and Irish shorts, and the mistakes that make loglines fall flat.

What a Logline Is (and Isn't)

A logline describes the story, not the film's themes or your reasons for making it. It answers one question for a busy reader: what happens in this film, and why would I want to watch it?

It isn't a synopsis. A synopsis tells the whole story, including the ending. It isn't a tagline either, the short teasing line you might put on a poster. And it isn't a statement of intent: "a film about grief and resilience" tells the reader your theme but nothing about the story.

You'll be asked for one more often than you might expect. The BFI NETWORK short film fund in England, for example, asks for your project's logline in its online application, alongside a separate story outline that covers the full storyline, reveals and ending included. Festivals, labs, actors' agents and crew you hope to attach will all want the one-sentence version first.

The Four Things Every Logline Needs

Almost every good logline contains the same four parts:

1. A protagonist, described rather than named: "a retired lighthouse keeper", not "Gerald".
2. The situation or inciting incident: the event that starts the story.
3. A goal: what the protagonist now wants or has to do.
4. The obstacle: what makes that goal hard, and ideally what it will cost them.

Put together, the simplest formula looks like this:

When [inciting incident], a [protagonist] must [goal] before / despite [obstacle].

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You don't have to keep the parts in that order, and you shouldn't let the formula show. But if one of the four is missing, the reader will notice the gap even if they can't say what it is.

Why the Obstacle Matters Most

The obstacle is where most weak loglines fail. "A young woman travels to Scotland to scatter her father's ashes" has a protagonist and a goal, but nothing stops her. Add the obstacle and the story appears: "A young woman travels to Scotland to scatter her father's ashes, only to find his second family waiting at the graveside." That's an invented example, but the difference is real. Conflict is what makes a reader want the next page.

Screenwriting teachers have their own names for this. Blake Snyder's book Save the Cat! asks for irony in a logline: something in the situation that pulls against itself. A grieving daughter meeting a family she never knew about has that tension built in.

How Loglines for Shorts Are Different

A feature logline promises two hours of story. A short film logline has to promise something that can play out in five, ten or fifteen minutes, and a reader who knows shorts will check that it can.

That changes a few things:

• Keep the scale small. One location, one night, one conversation. If your logline mentions a journey across three countries, a programmer will doubt the film can deliver it in eight minutes.
• Show the single turn. Many shorts are built around one change or revelation. Your logline should point at it without giving it away.
• Make the stakes personal. A short rarely saves the world. It can change one relationship completely, and that's enough.

If you're still shaping the script itself, our guide to writing a short film step by step covers structure, and ten common mistakes in short film writing is worth reading before you lock the story.

Three Worked Examples From Real Shorts

The loglines below are our own, written for this article to show the formula at work. Each film won the Academy Award for live action short, so they're easy to find and watch.

Wasp (Andrea Arnold)

Andrea Arnold's short follows a young mother in Dartford, her four children and an evening with an old flame.

Logline: A broke single mother leaves her four hungry children waiting outside a pub so she can win back an old flame, who believes the kids belong to a friend.

The protagonist is clear in three words. The goal is a night with him. The obstacle is her own lie, and the stakes sit outside on the pavement. The reader feels the danger without being told what happens.

The Phone Call (Mat Kirkby)

Written by Mat Kirkby and James Lucas, this film stars Sally Hawkins as a counsellor on a crisis helpline and Jim Broadbent as the unseen caller.

Logline: A counsellor on a crisis helpline takes a call from a grieving widower who has decided to end his life, and has only her voice to keep him on the line.

This one shows how a short can be built on a single situation. One location, one call, and an obstacle (the distance between them) that's in every scene.

An Irish Goodbye (Tom Berkeley and Ross White)

Set on a farm in rural Northern Ireland, this black comedy brings two estranged brothers together after their mother dies.

Logline: After their mother's death, a man comes home to sell the family farm and see his younger brother, who has Down syndrome, settled with relatives, but his brother won't leave until they've completed every wish on their mother's bucket list.

It's longer than the other two, and that's fine. The irony is in the set-up: the brother who's meant to be handling things is the one who gets handled.

If one of the four parts is missing, the reader will notice the gap even if they can't say what it is.

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A Step-by-Step Way to Write Yours

Writing a logline is easier as a sequence of small jobs than as one perfect sentence:

1. Write down the four parts separately. Protagonist, incident, goal, obstacle. One line each.
2. Give the protagonist one telling detail. An adjective that creates tension with the goal works best: a timid volunteer, a teetotal pub landlord.
3. Join the parts into one sentence. Ignore length on the first go.
4. Cut every word that doesn't change the meaning. Adverbs, the film's genre (the logline should make that obvious) and phrases such as "a story about".
5. Read it aloud. If you run out of breath or stumble, it's too long or the order is wrong.
6. Test it on someone who hasn't read the script. Ask them to tell you what happens in the film. If their answer is close to yours, the logline works.

Write ten versions rather than polishing one. The best line often comes from a version you nearly threw away.

Mistakes That Sink a Logline

These are the problems readers see most often:

• Too much plot. Subplots, a second character's backstory and the twist all belong in the synopsis.
• Vague words. "Life is turned upside down", "a journey of self-discovery" and "must confront their past" could describe almost any film. Say what actually happens.
• No obstacle. A character who wants something and gets it is a premise, not a story.
• The ending revealed. A logline is a promise to the reader, so never give away the payoff. Once they know it, there's no reason to read on.
• Questions instead of statements. "What would you do if your best friend vanished?" asks the reader to do your work. Tell them what your character does.
• A theme statement in disguise. "A meditation on loss" tells a reader about your intentions, not your film.

A logline is a promise to the reader, so never give away the payoff.

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Using Your Logline Once It's Written

A logline isn't only for funding forms. Use the same sentence in emails to actors and heads of department, in festival submissions, on your crew call and when you're asked about the project at a screening. Saying it the same way every time helps people remember it and repeat it to others.

It also helps you. If the script drifts away from what the logline promises, either the script has found a better story or it's lost its way. Our guide on how to pitch a movie idea shows where the logline sits in a full pitch.

If you're writing a ten-minute script, FILMD Grants gives £1,000 to one FILMD Plus member each round to make a short film of up to 10 minutes, from a script of up to 10 pages. Drafting in the Writers Room lets you share the script with readers and see their comments, which is a good place to test whether your logline and your pages tell the same story.

Final Thoughts

A strong logline names a protagonist, the event that starts the story, what they want and what's in the way, all in one clear sentence. For a short, keep the scale small and point at the single turn without revealing it.

Write the four parts down today, join them into one sentence, and test it on someone who has never read your script.