Maybe you've covered this in another post but I'm missing something here. How did a complete outsider with no representation get his spec script to the creative executives at 20th Century Fox for the weekend read in the first place? Did you know anyone at the studio?

During the hip-pocket phase when you weren't officially signed but still getting work, was taking a cut?

This time without the missing word...

During the hip-pocket phase when you weren't officially signed but still getting work, was CAA taking a cut?

@Teddy: My writing partner at the time had gotten an internship at Fox through the USC Peter Stark grad school program. The exec he worked for kept him on in an ad hoc role. My partner slipped the script to a couple of other execs at the studio who liked it, even giving us notes which I incorporated before our formal submission.

Mind you, this is back in the old days before studios went all Death Star re submissions.

That said every year, there will be one or two specs that sell without representation, typically a project the writer worked on with a producer. I'll try to remember to go through my spec script database to locate some of those since 2008. But it's highly unusual as almost all scripts have formal representation, at least an established entertainment lawyer, most often an agent and/or manager.

@TUL: Yes, the agency took their 10% commission even while we were hip pocket.

Interesting piece, thanks. Having a way in, however tenuous, seems the vital part (provided the talent is there to back it up). Unfortunately, I don't know anyone, in the movie business, or in life generally.

Do you think it's possible for a self-conscious and twitchy misanthropist living outside of L.A. to place their script on an exec's desk? Perhaps the world might benefit from an agency of incredibly confident, white toothed people impersonating writers, vicariously haranguing production companies and studios...