Unsolicited Material
ALAN NAFZGER
Unsolicited Material – Pecan Street Press
Unsolicited Material – Lubbock ● Austin ● Fort Worth
Unsolicited Material is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Amazon edition
FREE DOWNLOAD – http://freeebooks.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/UnsolicitedMaterial-converted.pdf
Copyright © 2015 Alan Nafzger
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781072241683
Unsolicited Material
A screenwriters story by Alan Nafzger
Unsolicited Material – FADE IN:
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INT/EXT. CONSTRUCTION COMPANY WAREHOUSE AND YARD – NIGHT
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Joseph Jefferson (81) is an African American man still working in East Los Angeles. Joseph looks amazingly like Morgan Freeman. He is a uniformed overnight security guard. His hearing and eyesight are diminished, but he has a tiny Chihuahua, Hercules, who assists him. Jefferson squints and wears reading glasses. There are noises outside and he doesn’t respond until after the dog.
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The Chihuahua rests in essentially a milk crate with a pillow in it. The Chihuahua seems alert and is ready to spring out of the box at any disturbance.
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We see Joseph with his laptop at a desk inside the dark warehouse. The Chihuahua gives an alert bark. We catch a view of the title page…
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Unsolicited Material – RED LOTUS
Written by
Joseph Jefferson
and
Juan Rodriguez
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The Chihuahua settles down and is quiet. So, Joseph scrolls down to a page that looks amazingly like this page – slugline, action lines and dialogue.
Joseph begins to type. Every once in a while, Joseph glances at a yellow legal pad.
Joseph
What a colossal waste of time. That damn kid thinks I can turn his lame brain adventure into a million dollar script. He’s delusional.
(beat)
I’m delusional.
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The dog looks up. There is a pause.
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Joseph
It’s a pie in the sky cluster fuck, if you ask me.
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The dog remains looking up, trying to understand.
Joseph
Hercules, that is a very good question.
(beat)
Hell, I don’t know why I’m doing it.
He and the Chihuahua rise and walk around the property. Joseph returns and writes another scene.
Joseph stops to eat. He opens a brown bag and he and the Chihuahua share a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Joseph opens an antique thermos of cold milk. He and the dog share this as well.
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Suddenly the dog goes ape shit and barks like there is a murder going on outside. Joseph pauses and listens. There is nothing audible. But Hercules persists.
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Joseph reaches into his desk and pulls out an antique pistol. It is an inexpensive 1930s revolver. He puts it in his belt. He takes a large industrial flashlight and (with the dog) walks out into the construction yard.
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Hercules stops and starts to growl. Joseph whispers.
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JOE
You think someone’s here, Hercules?
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The two proceed slowly down a row of lumber piled high. Hercules begins to bark, then takes off around a corner.
Joseph zigzags through lumber following his dog.
Finally they reach the 6’ chain link fence with the razor wire on top. The Chihuahua barks loudly, it would sound ferocious but it is coming from a 4 pound dog.
There are three black men drinking beer and shooting the shit across the street. They are harmless enough.
They look up and they see Joseph with the flashlight pointing to the ground. They see the dog just giving them hell through the fence.
BLACK MAN
Don’t worry old man, we just chillin’.
Joseph
All right. Good night!
(to the dog)
Come on Herc. They aren’t hurting anything.
The dog walks back to the warehouse with Joseph but turns and contemplates returning to the fence to bark more.
Joseph
Not to worry friend. Those guys are too lazy to steal anything from the yard.
The Chihuahua barks one last time.
Joseph
They would have to haul it off, first of all.
The Chihuahua whimpers as if trying to talk.
Joseph
I know I’m grumpy.
Again the Chihuahua whimpers.
Joseph
Look, I’m an old man. You are a young dog. Of course, I seem a bit irritable but you aren’t starving to death. You have a nice warm bed. So why the fuck do you care about my mood?
The Chihuahua cocks his head as if trying to understand. Perhaps the dog is contemplating.
The Chihuahua settles back into his box and pillow. Joseph settles back into his chair. He places the pistol back in the desk.
Joe refers to the note pad.
Joseph
Now where was I?
He scrolls down the laptop document and begins to type.
Time passes. It is 4 am and the alarm on Joseph’s watch goes off. He packs up his laptop and with the dog and they move to a huge box of nails. It is 2’ x 2’ x 2’ and full of roofing nails. He puts on a leather glove and places two heaping handfuls under the dog’s pillow. The dog doesn’t mind, in fact this might be a ritual to steal nails at the end of each night. There are millions of nails and he takes two handfuls.
Joseph arms the security system, locks and leaves the warehouse. In the parking lot he attaches the Chihuahua’s box (with nails to the rear of his Moped. The eighty one year old man drives out of the parking lot.
EXT. STREETS OF EAST LOS ANGELES – 4:05 A.M.
We see Joseph cruising through the dark streets. There is no traffic and he seems to be making fairly good time for 35 mph. He is wearing a helmet and seems to be a good motorcyclist for a man over 80.
Joseph pulls out a book and seems to be looking up an address. He pulls out his phone and uses the GPS. The device says “18.9 miles and 45 minutes drive time”. He drives west and times the lights just right.
Joseph is happy and smiles at the mostly empty city. He begins to slow at a red light and a lone prostitute think she will approach him. But the light turns green. He zooms past the prostitute who shouts at him.
prostitute
(shouting)
Stop that thing and let’s party!
Joseph smiles and waves without looking back.
Joseph encounters three or four policemen at a convenience store robbery. And thirty blocks later there are police, an ambulance and a fire truck at a car accident. Joseph is unphased. He is relaxed and happy.
We assume he is going home, but he is not. He is entering the Century City area – office building and condominiums far over his pay grade.
EXT. NATIONAL ARTISTS AGENCY, Los Angeles – 5 A.M.
Joseph hits one red light and from a block away. The parking lot is all but empty as Joe approaches on his moped. He observes the night security guard just now leaving.
While the guard is leaving, Joseph drives into the alley and notices the dumpster it over flowing with paper. He stops and we get a better look. The papers are screenplay.biz/top-screenplays/" 786 target="_blank">screenplays and there must be a thousand in the trash and at least 20 or 30 have spilled out onto the ground.
Joseph circles the block until the guard’s vehicle is gone. Joseph looks left and right and the streets are empty.
Nearing the entrance to the lot, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a box of ROOFING NAILS and opens the top. Passing the entrance to the lot, he dumps the nails in the entry lane side, some of which land “point up”, then puts the empty box back inside his jacket.
JOSEPH
Have a nice day, ya bastards.
Hercules lets out a bark, seemingly in agreement.
Joseph
Okay, Herc. Let’s go home.
Joseph pats the dog and pulls out into the street.
Unsolicited Material
Every producer of content has a problem. Potential false claims that the producers stole somebody elses idea.
There are only a limited number of themes, plots, characters, locations and situations that writers can choose from so at any given time lots of writers are jamming around with similar writing blocks. Out of sheer coincidence similar ideas from mulitiple sources can be developped independently. There are lots of people writing things.
So for instance I come up with a sketch about a Man that thinks he is a dog. He meets a woman who thinks she is a cat. (Or whatever). I send my idea into a producer … 6 months later I am watching SNL – what??? shit! It’s a sketch about a man and woman thinking they are animals! Crap they STOLE my idea! I blog, I mount a smear campaign and I sue! Meanwhile 12 other writers who sent in unsolicited material are also bad mouthing, blogging and suing. It turns out that in my case SNL can prove they were working on the human animal sketch before my script arrived to them so my lawyers drop the case. The same happens for all the other claims. But for the producers all the hassle, the legal fees, the bad press, the huge amount of time and all the bad blood is horrible.
So as a matter of course every producer of content firewalls themselves off from any potential perceived idea cross contamination. Even in our tiny production company we do not read any outside material that we have not directly asked for.
So in answer to your question:
Unsolicited : “Sorry, we did not ask you for this. We will not read it. If you call us we can’t listen. If you send us an envelope or email we won’t open it”
Solicited: “ We really like your work, send us X script, in X timeframe, under X conditions”
Removing the UN From unsolicited on an existing pitch requires more energy than the Universe has to offer. To become a writer that people solicit content from requires the writer to become prolific, well known, critically acclaimed and with a stellar agent. (And a bunch of luck)
However there is nothing to stop you creating your own sketches on Youtube/Vimeo and building a solid following. If you can create enough of a name for yourself you may get noticed. People solicit content from writers not because they have one or two good ideas, but because they have and can create thousands of good ideas. A track record counts in both Oylmpic running and writing.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-unsolicited-and-solicited-material-How-can-one-turn-unsolicited-material-into-solicited-material