NARRATIVE - Odd Jobs

Narrative Feature

Title: Odd Jobs

Page Count: 89 pp

Project Status: In Development

Logline 

Recently laid off from work, Tim Arends charms his way into the home of the elderly widow Mrs. Phipps, who hires him to care for her crumbling property. Mrs. Phipps offers him higher and higher pay to play the role of her deceased husband -- growing as emotionally dependent on him as he is financially dependent on her.

Synopsis

Tim Arends, a blue-collar type guy who's found himself wedged into a cubicle, loses his telemarketer job after blowing up at a rude customer. He lies to his girlfriend, Ginette Mendez, as to why he can't pay the rent this month, saying his company is having payroll issues. He frantically searches for work behind her back. He lands on a Craigslist post by an older woman named Mrs. Phipps, seeking help with yard work.

Tim turns on his charm and plays the lonely old woman, inventing new yardwork tasks in order to get more money out of her. He gleans that her husband, Wendell, passed away several years prior. He adopts Wendell's behaviors to further charm Mrs. Phipps. She's fully aware of what he's doing - but she leans into it, ordering him to wear his clothes, do his chores, and bring her breakfast in bed like he used to, in exchange for higher and higher pay. They form a kind of friendship, as Tim feels useful and appreciated in his strange role. Ginette learns of Tim's lie, and calls Tim a bum - as she is the sole breadwinner - revealing that Tim has a habit of losing jobs quickly.

Ginette gets a better job offer in a different state. Mrs. Phipps fakes an injury to prevent Tim from leaving. Tim refuses to go with Ginette, claiming he has to take care of Mrs. Phipps, and tacitly because he does not want to go back to being a "bum" as Ginette sees him. He takes on increasingly ridiculous tasks for Mrs. Phipps, who grows guilty at seeing Tim abandon his girlfriend for this "job". Mrs. Phipps fires Tim and tells him to go take care of Ginette. Tim takes the car and runs away, abandoning both of them.

Additional Project Information

I have done more than my fair share of “odd jobs” in my time as a young artist struggling to make ends meet. In my early 20s, I did lots of weird Craigslist gigs for lonely, wealthy people -- people who had lost or alienated the natural relationships in their lives, and sought to buy one for any cost. And in order to keep my income, I had to discover and satisfy the unspoken emotional needs of the one who held the checkbook. Odd Jobs is my way of making some humor and sense of it all.

Odd Jobs will make my community more awesome by shining a light on the reality of work today, both for myself and so many of my peers. The true unemployment rate (TRU) for April 2024 was 24.2%, according to the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, when accounting for workers only working part-time, gig work, or making poverty wages. We live in the economic age of the “precariat”. Odd Jobs explores the financial and emotional realities of this state of affairs, and the toll it takes on relationships. What are we willing to sell of ourselves when we can’t afford next week’s groceries?

Team

Director and Writer: Kyle Andrews
Producer: Nicholas Santos

Financials

The projected total shooting budget is $58,000.
I have already raised $21,000 via crowdfunding, and a fundraising event in my home town.
The project is also currently a finalist in the Roy W Dean grant competition.
I have several other potential investors lined up in both the US and Canada that I intend to reach out to once the project is a little bit more developed. The founders of the Napa Valley Film Festival and producers of Bottle Shock are also early backers.

Seeking

Primarily I am looking for investors and / or production company connections who have means of accessing financing.

I intend to reach out to Kyle Gallner (Smile, Dinner in America) to play the lead role via a casting connect I have -- once I have key casting onboard and the project looks adequately impressive on paper, I want to reach out to these investors and production companies.

Project Website

https://www.instagram.com/odd_jobs_film/

Contact

Kyle Andrews

kyleandrews888@gmail.com