Life in the movies

The job hunt continues, though in a different form. Alright, I did send in an application to Philmont, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to grow up and get a job that lasts more than a few months at a time. I'm taking a slightly different tack right now; I'm looking for an agent to take some of these screenplays off my hands. The process is as grueling as looking for a job anywhere else: it took me an hour and a half at the library to even come up with anything remotely like what I wanted, and this turned out to be a three year old list of agents that somebody considers credible. Highly convincing, I know. Some of the companies have folded, others never seem to have serviced screenwriters in the first place. Most of them don't have web sites, meaning that I have to just stick a query in the mail and hope that the person that opens it even has a clue as to what I'm asking about.

The one thing I do like about the process is the query letter. The query letter is much like a resume, but not as presumptuous. With a resume, you try to drown your reader with facts and history and accomplishments and hope that you've done a better job than all the other guys. With the query letter, you are apparently rewarded for making it as short as possible. No florid prose or drawn out pleasantries are required. You write it with the expectation that you have three lines to impress the reader. Fail there and he'll never even get to your signature. You've got time for a title, a logline (sum everything up in two sentences, and they'd better be good) and that's about it unless you have credits to your name.

I wonder what a resume would look like if you wrote it like a query letter:


Dear Mr. Employer

I'm looking for the full time possition: PROGRAM DIRECTOR. I'm a cold but intelligent individual, trying to use my years of camping experience to turn your plucky little camp into a juggernaught of the tourism industry. But conflict arises when old, hidebound employees encounter my forward thinking attitude and must be quelled by my unusual people skills.

Please contact me for a full manuscript.


Cut, print, toss it on the slush pile.