Flat Out Rude?

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  • Flat Out Rude?

    Hi:

    It's one thing to be told "no unsolicited material " but I've noticed on the phone rejections lately have been just flat out rude. Today I was even hung up on while in mid-sentence!

    Sorry but unsolicited calls are part of the job. Don't like it? Take up knitting. Has anyone noticed this in their cold callings?

    I'm polite and professional. A simple no is fine.
    sigpicWriting is re-writing

  • #2
    Re: Flat Out Rude?

    Originally posted by pickerman123 View Post
    Hi:

    It's one thing to be told "no unsolicited material " but I've noticed on the phone rejections lately have been just flat out rude. Today I was even hung up on while in mid-sentence!

    Sorry but unsolicited calls are part of the job. Don't like it? Take up knitting. Has anyone noticed this in their cold callings?

    I'm polite and professional. A simple no is fine.
    Wait, is this a parody post? Sweet jesus, please tell me you're not really cold-calling agents and managers.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Flat Out Rude?

      I'd hang up on you, too. There's a system of querying via email in place so people won't cold call. Wow...

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Flat Out Rude?

        Originally posted by EdFury View Post
        I'd hang up on you, too. There's a system of querying via email in place so people won't cold call. Wow...
        I've had successfull cold calls in the past as I have failures. It's just I noticed the rudeness not the polite and professional "no" I'm used to getting in the past.
        Seems I'm going from 50/50 to 100% email querying.

        No problem but I will miss the one on one interaction. Developing relationships takes time and I've always felt that was best suited when both parties could hear one another on the phone.

        Oh well..
        sigpicWriting is re-writing

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Flat Out Rude?

          Originally posted by pickerman123 View Post
          I've had successfull cold calls in the past as I have failures. It's just I noticed the rudeness not the polite and professional "no" I'm used to getting in the past.
          Seems I'm going from 50/50 to 100% email querying.

          No problem but I will miss the one on one interaction. Developing relationships takes time and I've always felt that was best suited when both parties could hear one another on the phone.

          Oh well..
          if it will make you feel any better this type of rudeness exists in other industries, too. i don't understand it. the most important thing is to NEVER be rude back, because one day that person may be in a position to help you and people have long memories. short memories, too, but long ones when you least expect it. haha.

          sorry you had to deal with that, but email is the preferred way. then they can just politely ignore you. haha.
          "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Flat Out Rude?

            Originally posted by finalact4 View Post
            ...the most important thing is to NEVER be rude back, because one day that person may be in a position to help you and people have long memories. short memories, too, but long ones when you least expect it. haha...
            Of course, it should work both ways... that we may be in the position to be pursued by them. And, oh yes, I am always courteous even to the discourteous, but I absolutely do have a lonnnggg memory! The ones (there aren't that many) who are on my "ignore" list won't have a clue!
            Last edited by catcon; 03-23-2019, 06:55 AM. Reason: The "s" on my keyboard drops out sometimes; had to fix something

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Flat Out Rude?

              I used to work a desk and HATED getting query calls. Emails were annoying enough, but when I'm rolling calls for one boss, readying submissions for the other, and dealing with about 20 other things at once, the last thing I want is to pick up a phone and hear an unsolicited pitch. As a writer who has done the querying thing myself, I understand the difficulty of trying to get reads and representation. But please, for the love of all that is holy, DON'T COLD CALL.

              Thank you.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Flat Out Rude?

                Originally posted by pickerman123 View Post
                It’s one thing to be told “no unsolicited material “ but I’ve noticed on the phone rejections lately have been just flat out rude. Today I was even hung up on while in mid-sentence!
                Originally posted by pickerman123 View Post
                I've had successfull cold calls in the past as I have failures.
                Emphasis mine on “in the past.”

                Originally posted by finalact4 View Post
                if it will make you feel any better this type of rudeness exists in other industries, too. i don't understand it.
                It’s a sign of the times. For this, I’m ready, willing, and able to blame the Internet. There’s also no longer much sense of karmic justice.
                “Nothing is what rocks dream about” ― Aristotle

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Flat Out Rude?

                  Originally posted by docgonzo View Post
                  I used to work a desk and HATED getting query calls. Emails were annoying enough, but when I'm rolling calls for one boss, readying submissions for the other, and dealing with about 20 other things at once, the last thing I want is to pick up a phone and hear an unsolicited pitch. As a writer who has done the querying thing myself, I understand the difficulty of trying to get reads and representation. But please, for the love of all that is holy, DON'T COLD CALL.
                  The other thing to consider about email is the ever-important "audit trail" that it provides.

                  I'm not talking about the nonsense of how it provides a record that lets us sue if somebody claims they never saw my idea etc. etc. and they go and make the same movie. I mean how email as a business tool lets me do better marketing. I've been querying for so long, that now I can re-pitch individuals on the same (updated) screenplay.

                  The logic being: The script has undergone a few polishes and is 10 percent shorter, the person who received the original pitch is no longer with the company... or is now higher up, the logline/pitch has changed, etc. Sometimes, if I find someone has moved on, I can approach them in their new position by reminding them of my past pitches.

                  Note that with all of these re-pitches, I include the header of the original email so that the current recipient - even if it's the same person, years later - doesn't think I'm full of baloney about pitching them before.

                  Incidentally, even an original response of "we don't take unsolicited" may, years later, be a good enough reason to revisit the issue (courteously) to ask if "your policy is the same".

                  And on all of the foregoing, always be sure to include your website/IMDB/LinkedIn profile link or any other relevant URLs, etc. in your signature block.

                  What I've just described is MUCH more difficult if there's no audit trail of your contacts. Doing searches through your email means you don't even have to keep a separate database tracker (though I do both, due to my background in the latter and the EXTREME metrics that I can run on said data).

                  Meanwhile? Phone calls are a big blur to me, within 30 seconds of hangup.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Flat Out Rude?

                    Originally posted by catcon View Post
                    The logic being: The script has undergone a few polishes and is 10 percent shorter, the person who received the original pitch is no longer with the company... or is now higher up, the logline/pitch has changed, etc. Sometimes, if I find someone has moved on, I can approach them in their new position by reminding them of my past pitches.

                    Note that with all of these re-pitches, I include the header of the original email so that the current recipient - even if it's the same person, years later - doesn't think I'm full of baloney about pitching them before.

                    And all this while I believed that the reason to not put a date of creation on a screenplay title page was so that when someone who had not yet read it got it in their hands, they saw it as "fresh- material.
                    “Nothing is what rocks dream about” ― Aristotle

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Flat Out Rude?

                      Originally posted by TigerFang View Post
                      And all this while I believed that the reason to not put a date of creation on a screenplay title page was so that when someone who had not yet read it got it in their hands, they saw it as "fresh- material.
                      In general what you wrote sounds logical and may be the norm, but...

                      Emphasizing a script's been through the mill isn't all bad. I've seen "no first drafts, please" both on websites, InkTip, etc.

                      I have something being read right now because I announced it as being newly polished. The reading company had read it "hot-out-of-the-oven" back in 2014. But I'd been doing some legwork to secure attachments, which probably piqued their re-interest.

                      Another read I have going on asked for the history of the project, which I took as read history (and option history, if it had one).

                      I got a read last Summer (though they eventually passed ) with one of my re-pitches in which I mentioned that it'd been polished, is several pages shorter, and that I considered "still the best thing I've written." The pitch went to one of the company's partners and it snagged a read within the hour. And (ha ha) as mentioned previously, this is the one in which I'd pitched the company (but not always this individual, of course) 38 times before getting this request.

                      As I say... "you just never know".

                      I take with a grain of salt many "rules" about pitching, such as not pitching during major film festivals or Summer months etc., because it all depends on so many factors. For one thing, if most everyone follows the rules, that leaves you with less competition.

                      The one courtesy-based rule I avoid is weekend pitching, but you never know then, either. I haven't done it for a few years, but I have sent a few info@ emails on Sundays, thinking they wouldn't land before anybody's eyes. But funnily enough two of those instigated back and forth dialogues from senior folks who might have been on-call or something. I apologized, but in both cases (on in U.K., the other in HW) their courtesy was beyond surprising, and we had 2-3 helpful emails back and forth in the next several minutes. Maybe they were just bored... or Sunday dinner wasn't ready yet!

                      Note: Of course I am talking only email pitching, where the recipient can generally just read and respond at their leisure (the phone vs. email pitch discussion is going on elsewhere here on DDPro, as we speak/write).

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Flat Out Rude?

                        Catcon,

                        re: "this is the one in which I'd pitched the company (but not always this individual, of course) 38 times before getting this request."

                        Am I understanding this right that you pitched the same script to the same company 38 times???

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Flat Out Rude?

                          "Sure, I pitched this one script to a junior floor sweeper in the company once, and then the company partner 37 times, before he requested the read."

                          No, I have 51 screenplays that I'm marketing, regularly and repeatedly, after constant polishes and refinement of the script/pitch/logline.

                          Just this past Friday, I found an Indie Brit company that has a couple of dozen films under their belt. I noticed one of them was a period piece, with characters in military uniform. BINGO! I saw my opportunity to pitch my low budget WWII script, my second-ever, from 2010. I'd last polished it in August 2018. Within an hour they got back to me with a read request.

                          That was my only response from about a dozen pitches that day (slow day for me), but oh yeah, that'd be a particularly great one to land as my first deal! A script from 2010 that's "good enough to produce", to which any producer on the outside might now ask "Cool, so, you got anything else?"

                          "Ha ha, only 50 more, ladies and gents! And all more recent scripts than the one that sold!"

                          This isn't a boast. I'm just an extreme example of "stick-to-it-iveness" and I mean to inspire everybody here with it.

                          In fact, we should start a different thread about "what do I do with my old scripts?" I'd like to hear what others do; I certainly never give up on mine.

                          But thanks for the morning laff.

                          38 scripts to the same dude: "Fu&#, here's another one from that ba$tard!?#@. The lettering on my darn <DELETE> key is worn off!"
                          Last edited by catcon; 03-24-2019, 07:18 AM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Flat Out Rude?

                            Catcon,

                            Your response brought a smile here also... also inspiring...

                            When (not if) you sell that period piece, let us know... that'll be inspirational too!

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Flat Out Rude?

                              Originally posted by catcon View Post
                              "Sure, I pitched this one script to a junior floor sweeper in the company once, and then the company partner 37 times, before he requested the read."

                              No, I have 51 screenplays that I'm marketing, regularly and repeatedly, after constant polishes and refinement of the script/pitch/logline.

                              Just this past Friday, I found an Indie Brit company that has a couple of dozen films under their belt. I noticed one of them was a period piece, with characters in military uniform. BINGO! I saw my opportunity to pitch my low budget WWII script, my second-ever, from 2010. I'd last polished it in August 2018. Within an hour they got back to me with a read request.

                              That was my only response from about a dozen pitches that day (slow day for me), but oh yeah, that'd be a particularly great one to land as my first deal! A script from 2010 that's "good enough to produce", to which any producer on the outside might now ask "Cool, so, you got anything else?"

                              "Ha ha, only 50 more, ladies and gents! And all more recent scripts than the one that sold!"

                              This isn't a boast. I'm just an extreme example of "stick-to-it-iveness" and I mean to inspire everybody here with it.

                              In fact, we should start a different thread about "what do I do with my old scripts?" I'd like to hear what others do; I certainly never give up on mine.

                              But thanks for the morning laff.

                              38 scripts to the same dude: "Fu&#, here's another one from that ba$tard!?#@. The lettering on my darn <DELETE> key is worn off!"
                              Am I reading this correctly? You wrote 51 scripts in nine years?

                              Comment

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