The “Pursue a great cause” emotional logline often appears in true stories since it requires the belief that someone would actually care about something bigger than themselves. Some common “Pursue a great cause” emotional logline stories include “Schindler’s List”, “Gorillas in the Mist”, and “Erin Brockovich”.
In these three movies, the hero pursues a greater cause than their own needs. In “Schindler’s List”, the hero, Oskar Schindler is a German industrialist who decides to save thousands of Jews in his factories rather than let them get killed.
In “Gorillas in the Mist”, the hero, Dian Fossey, learns to communicate with gorillas and makes it her mission to protect them from poachers who want to kill the gorillas.
In “Erin Brockovich”, the hero is Erin Brockovich, who has discovered that Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has poisoned the water supply of a nearby town without warning the residents. Now Erin makes it her mission to bring justice to the town residents and make PG&E pay for their deliberate mistakes and deception.
The dilemma in the “Pursue a great cause” emotional logline looks like this:
Do nothing as a faceless organization hurts innocent people vs. Take a chance to help people because it’s the right thing to do
This dilemma might sound simple, but doing nothing is the easiest route while taking a chance to help others is the riskiest route. Therefore the hero’s constantly torn between thinking only of themselves (selfish) vs. Thinking of others (selflessness). Both people and a hostile environment work against the hero.
In “Schindler’s List”, Schindler could do nothing, collect profits, and not risk upsetting the Nazi regime. Or he could take a chance, not get rich, but risk upsetting the Nazi regime. Which option do you think represents the easiest path through life?
In “Gorillas in the Mist”, Dian Fossey must constantly fight to be with the gorillas and communicate with them. The path toward the right thing is always the most risk and work.
In “Erin Brockovich”, Erin must fight against a billion dollar corporation (PG&E) and find evidence that they knew they were poisoning the local town. Erin’s in a race against time to collect all possible documents before PG&E can destroy them.
The basic pattern for the “Pursue a great cause” emotional logline looks like this:
- The hero is stuck in a dead end life
- The hero discovers a great cause to pursue
- The hero takes a chance to pursue this great cause
- Obstacles stop the hero
- The hero overcomes these obstacles and commits fully to their great cause
- The hero either succeeds or fails
In “Schindler’s List”, Oskar Schindler initially wants to earn fortune through the labor of Jews in a factory. Then Schindler witnesses the Nazi SS guards massacre thousands of Jews in the street. Suddenly, Schindler has a new mission. Instead of trying to make money, he now wants to save the lives of as many Jews as possible.
Schindler takes a chance by building a munitions factory for his Jewish workers and Schindler must pay a huge bribe. Then his female Jewish workers are accidentally sent to Auschwitz and Schindler has to spend part of his fortune bribing the Nazi officials to bring them back.
Now Schindler fully commits his fortune to bribing Nazi officials to look the other way while buying shell casings from other companies to make it look like his own factory is making munitions. Schindler’s fortune runs out just as the war ends.
Although the SS guards have been ordered to kill all the Jewish workers, Schindler convinces them not to do so. Then Schindler leaves his Jewish workers to head west to surrender to the Americans, feeling like he could have saved more lives but comforted by the surviving Jewish workers that he at least had made the effort to save as many as he could.
In “Gorillas in the Mist”, Dian Fossey wants to study primates by working with anthropologist Louis Leakey. She finally manages to convince him of her sincerity and they travel to the Congo. Unfortunately, Congolese soldiers evict them, accusing Fossey of being a spy and wanting to send her home to America.
With the help of others, Fossey sets up in neighboring Rwanda where she learns about the communication and social groups of gorillas, which helps her gain international attention.
National Geographic sends a photographer to document Fossey’s efforts and Fossey and the photographer become lovers. Unfortunately to continue her relationship with the photographer, Fossey would have to spend less time with the gorillas, which leads to the end of the relationship.
Seeing rampant poaching of the gorillas, Fossey leads anti-poaching patrols and even burns down the poachers’ villages, creating enemies. Then in 1985, someone murders Fossey so although Fossey managed to save the gorillas, she sacrificed her own life to do so.
In “Erin Brockovich”, Erin gets injured in a car crash and hires a lawyer, Ed Masry. Unfortunately during cross-examination, Erin loses her case. Since Ed said that everything would work out, Erin takes it upon herself to start working at Ed’s office.
Ed gives her a real estate case where PG&E has been supplying a doctor at their own expense. That’s when Erin learns about chromium poisoning the water supply of the town. After several days of research, she’s fired by Ed because he thought she wasn’t working.
Now Erin starts digging into the medical problems of other townsfolk and learns from a former PG&E employee that he failed to destroy crucial documents, proving the company knew about the poisoning of the water supply, yet did nothing about it.
Erin commits fully to the cause with this new evidence and winds up getting PG&E to pay $333 million to all the affected townsfolk. Erin has won her case and helped the people get justice.
What makes the “Pursue a great cause” emotional logline so powerful is that it puts the hero as a lone underdog against a large, faceless organization filled with different types of villains who can oppose the hero. Despite the odds against them, the hero wins out in the end, defeating the villain and the faceless organization.
The “Pursue a great cause” emotional logline must leave the audience with the feeling that a single individual can make a difference, even if they lose their life as in “Gorillas in the Mist” with Dian Fossey. No matter what happens, the hero’s triumphant victory at the end must inspire the audience through their act of selflessness, and that’s the strong emotional experience people want to feel at the end.
The key is that each scene should tell a story where someone’s life drastically changes from the start of the scene to the end. Look for the character whose life changes the most and that’s the right character to emphasize in that scene.
(Updated versions of “The 15-Minute Movie Method“, “Story Starter“, “Emotional Log Lines” and “Writing Scenes For Screenplays” are now available on Amazon.)
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