Ah, Copeless, I understand your plight and I feel for you. I agree:
the film and TV industry should be open 24/7, never closed, and interminably
open to your script submissions. Who cares if the Bob Cratchet's
(translation: script readers) in their "coaless" offices have to
sweat and slave over that script during the holidays when their Scrooge boss
execs are off to Fiji or Bali? So what if it's your script that keeps
those Bob's from being home with their families and spend their last days with
all their tiny, little, Tim's? Why should you care? I bet your final
thoughts are "God bless us, one and all the screenwriters who haven't sold
anything for a year," isn't it? You cad. Where's your humanity?
Actually, Copeless, the holidays aren't always the easiest time for
screenwriters (unless they sell a script for many hundreds of thousands and are
off to Fiji, Bali, Bora Bora, The Cayman's -- to deposit their screenwriting
profits in offshore accounts -- or anywhere else where they are planning on
spending their holidays and new-found cash). It does take an adjustment
when studios start shutting down and are no longer in a feeding frenzy to find
that next Script Of The Golden Ring. There is a definite and apparently
abrupt change in the "studio atmosphere," which I advise you to
prepare for so that it will not throw you each time of the year when it comes
around.
There a few things that you can do from this time until the new year that I
have always found work well and help you not obsess about your lack of script
submission opportunities.
Halloween time:
Go trick or treating dressed up like a screenwriter (forlorn, anxious mask;
fingertips done to the bone) at homes of known film producers (forlorn anxious,
tanned faces; fingertips marred with ink from handling so many checks
and cash) and, when they take pity on you and give you some sweets, hand them
your script. If they have no candy for you, TP their homes, but, instead
of using toilet paper, use pages of your screenplay (then you would SP their
homes).
Thanksgiving time:
Drop off turkeys to producers that are stuffed with your screenplays (the
turkeys, not the producers).
Christmas and other holidays time:
See if you can make it down producers' chimneys in Santa attire and leave
gift-wrapped copies of your screenplays under Christmas trees and other symbols
of holiday cheer. Be careful about drinking the eggnog, though, because
producers don't always favor screenwriters and Hemlock Eggnog is selling well
lately. (especially, for some odd reason, New York, Los Angeles, and other
major metropolitan areas that have a strong affiliation with the film industry).
If Easter time gives you the same problem...
1. Wear a bunny outfit and hop around the entrance driveway of William
Morris (both William and Morris are nice guys and will probably not shoot you)
and hand out large eggs with your screenplays inside.
In case, none of the aforementioned suggestions suit you, you can always go
to Fiji and not come back until the first of the year. No wait, it's
probably better to come back around January 20th. Come to think of it,
that's near Chinese New Year (I mean, there are Chinese producers, you
know). Better to come back in February. No, that won't
work: Lincoln's birthday. Come back in the middle of February.
No. President's Day. How about around the 20th of February.
Sorry. Washington's birthday. (There are producers with
wooden teeth, you know. Although, I'm not sure they can not tell a
lie.) Maybe you better wait until March. But, then again, you'll run
smack dab into Saint Patrick's Day. April might work. No... Earth
Day...
DcH
