The Pitch Meeting
Nina set her phone next to the manuscript, just in case the hospital called again. Then she took a moment to absorb the appearance of her visitors, these people who had come bearing a treatment about Bertha of Savoy.
They did indeed resemble the staff of a car lot—luxury vehicles perhaps, but definitely the pre-owned section. A man and a woman. Bradley and Renee. Each had eaten exactly one koulourakia, without tarnishing the sparkles of their smiles. The man had the blank earnest face of an athlete waiting at the starting line. The woman met Nina’s look with a gentle half-smile, half-sad eyes and tentative half-pursed lips that seemed to convey empathy or something like it for the burden of caring for an elderly parent and at the same time issued just the right half-apology for having been forced to eavesdrop on a private conversation. Well, thought Nina, there’s something in that head—not intelligence, necessarily, but an awareness of what people actually do feel and are supposed to feel, a sensibility of the gaps, a cognizance that Nina had often seen before in the eyes of good actors. Nina wondered what Renee was doing with a guy like Bradley.
She began the meeting with her usual speech about gripping narratives, unconventional protagonists, unlikely heroines (yes of course heroes too) and above all the human appetite for stories with moral complexity.
“In simpler terms,” she said, “I’m looking for sex and violence. Extreme human passions, that is, but never clichéd, and always rooted—deeply rooted—in character.”
“That’s us—that’s our story!” said Bradley. He had been trying to interrupt since the words “sex and violence.”
Nina smiled. “I have to confess,” she said, “that I’m a big fan of the Spanish language telenovelas—I love the long narrative arcs, the stories that go somewhere, but come to a resolution—to an end. And as a business person I particularly appreciate the capacity of certain telenovelas to draw a substantial male audience.”
“Absolutely,” said Bradley. “On Spanish TV, the men have cojones!”
Nina paused for a moment and looked at Bradley and Renee, then at the notes her assistant had prepared.
“So,” she said. “You two work together... in real estate?”
“Well,” said Bradley, “my business started as a production company. In the mid-90s we made a couple of, uh, genre pictures. But yes, our main profit center these days is the commercial real estate. For industry-related businesses, mostly.”
“Of course,” said Nina.
“And I... ” added Renee, “I do some freelance sales, leases, relationship management... when I’m not acting.”
“Renee Alcala,” said Nina, ruminating on the name and face. “You were very good in that series—the one set in New Orleans... ”
“True Bayou,” said Renee, beaming.
“Too bad it didn’t last,” said Nina. “Well, you both must be fascinated by the 11th century. It’s an unusual era.”
“Definitely,” said Bradley. “We really love the eleven-hundreds. Especially Renee—she did all the research. I’m just the wordsmith.”
“Right,” said Nina. She went on to tell her visitors how some of her colleagues had just wanted to translate and repackage a Spanish-language series, preferably a show with a pre-established brand, but Nina had told them, No, this is America, this is Hollywood, can’t we generate something original?
“And then this treatment appeared.” Nina picked up the document on her desk, a stack of photo-copied pages secured with a black binder clip. Before the meeting, her assistant had set it solemnly in place, while Renee and Bradley watched from the couch.
Ever so slightly off-axis, the treatment had been the only object on the gleaming surface for the entire duration of Bradley and Renee’s uncomfortable wait. For twenty-seven minutes the document had exerted a strange power over Bradley’s attention, like a kinky sexual impulse or a beckoning animal in some weird dream. As he sat there staring at it, Bradley had fought the urge to pick it up and cradle it—just hold it a while, maybe peek inside—make sure every word was in its place—even though he was the one who had retyped the damn fax himself, the whole thing, because he didn’t trust the security on Renee’s laptop—so what if his urge didn’t make sense? He just wanted to check!
Renee would not allow it. At one point, during the long wait, she had to slap his reaching hand. She squeezed it now, and Bradley focused.
Nina was paging thoughtfully through the treatment. “What amazes me about this story,” she said, “is your choice of the central character. Completely unexpected, and yet—it works! What led you to Bertha—poor little Bertha of Savoy?”
“Oh, we just had a feeling... ” said Renee.
“Well, it’s brilliant,” said Nina. “As experts on the period I’m sure you two wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to hear how many Matilda proposals cross this desk—but I love how this story uses Bertha, I really do. The child bride, the rejected teenage wife, the beautiful young mother who blossoms into a warrior queen... or the word you use here—burgeon—she burgeons into a veritable force of nature. In any case, I think Bertha will have much broader appeal, over the run of the show, than Matilda would have. And Matilda, she does make some troubling choices, doesn’t she?—not so much sleeping with the Pope—our audience wouldn’t mind that, if we cast the right Gregory, but sending the assassin to murder her disabled husband....”
Nina shook her head.
“No, Matilda’s a much better fit for the part of scheming female antagonist. I love how she calls the pope Hildy in bed.”
“Yeah, Matilda—what a bitch!” said Bradley. “At least, that was my reaction. When I read it. After... we wrote it.”
Nina seemed not to hear him. She was flipping slowly through the pages, with pleasure, even perhaps with admiration. Renee and Bradley looked at each other—were they about to get the green light?
“On the downside,” said Nina, “there are the challenges of producing a costume drama on a basic cable budget. But the 11th century, it’s not Louis Quatorze at Versailles, now is it?”
Bradley realized that Nina was looking at him. Had she just made a joke?
“The quality and detail of the costumes,” explained Nina.
Bradley chuckled and shook his head. “Absolutely! Ab... so... lute... ly....”
“And the setting,” Nina continued, “Southern Germany, Northern Italy, the Alps—a thousand years ago. With a digital castle or two we could probably do most of the exteriors in British Columbia. That might keep the costs under control.”
She turned a page, and frowned slightly. “Oh there are still a few—what should I call them?—undigested nuggets of scholarship in here, Renee. The word ‘allodial,’ for example. It all comes down to who owns the land, doesn’t it? Can’t we make a feudal concept like that part of the visuals? or better yet—a plot point, part of the action? After all, we want our viewers to feel smart, not dumb.”
“Why sure... ” said Renee. “I’ll... ”
“Just cut that line,” said Bradley. “It’s gone!”
Nina smiled at Bradley. Then she closed the treatment and set it down upon her gleaming desk, beside her vigilant phone.
“Renee, Bradley,” she said. “Let me be honest. I love this project, and I’m so grateful that you brought it to my attention. If you don’t mind me saying so, you two represent our target audience—upwardly mobile Americans—and the fact that you saw something in this story of the 11th century, that you perceived value in this—well that fact excites me. It intrigues me.”
She picked up the manuscript again. “But the thing is.... I don’t believe for a moment that the two of you could possibly have written this story.”
Nina studied her visitors, who now were very busy avoiding each other’s eyes.
“So here’s the deal,” said Nina. “Renee, I can guarantee you an audition for the part of Bertha—and Bradley, well, I won’t press charges—if you tell me who really wrote this treatment.”
Next episode: Patricius
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