WILD
PITCH
I
went to a Hollywood pitch meeting as a writer and emerged as a criminal defense
attorney.
In
my pre-Hollywood life, I had counseled over a thousand clients as a lawyer, on
charges ranging from first degree murder to trespassing at school. I used the
same deep, slow voice for nearly all of them. My clients often suffered from
some kind of attention deficit disorder, so I rarely used big words, repeated
the key points over and over again, and emphasized the positive as I explained
the difference between a deferred and a suspended sentence in the plea
agreement.
My
“Hollywood pitch voice” was sort of my lawyer voice on speed. Hollywood
producers also have attention deficit disorder, so I rarely used big words,
repeated key points over and over again and never talked for more than five
minutes straight. I just talked much faster and never mentioned anything
remotely negative. Again, the ultimate
goal was often getting to an agreement, but this time I wanted it to be a “pay
or play.”
This
meeting was at a producer’s home on the west side. As I pulled into this
meeting, I was happy enough to find parking on the street near the three story
modern-looking apartment complex. Inside, the home was a collection of artsy
artifacts and the Producer reminded me a bit of my own mother. She had a nice
quality about her in the way that she offered me tea and cookies that would
remind anybody of their mother, or perhaps the mother they never had. I swore I
could smell last night's apple pie in the air.
The home was immaculate, yet all the other
doors were closed. If it had been my home, all the dirty laundry would have
lurked behind one of those doors, but I figured that all the rooms were
probably just as clean as the living room. She seemed that kind of a mom.
The
pleasantries over, we started off on a good note. The producer informed me that
her assistant had read my legal thriller script and she wanted to hear about
all of my other potential projects.
I talked about my various experiences as a
lawyer and how I wrote about “law and life.”
“So
you really were a lawyer, then?” She asked. "So do you have any true crime
stories?"
“I
guess so.”
It
was time to switch from a curve to a change-up. “As a matter of fact, I based
most scripts on my real experiences. For instance when I used to represent
juvenile delinquents on murder charges . . .”
She
stopped me in mid-sentence. “Then you should talk to my son.” She paused for a
moment. “Not about scripts, but about law.”
Before
I could regain my balance, she hurried over to one of the closed doors and
produced her son. Perhaps she did have dirty laundry after all. On first glance,
he was hardly my vision of a juvenile delinquent, but was indeed on probation
for various minor charges. Yet the charges were getting progressively worse,
and his six months probation kept getting extended until it now stretched for
two years. Some of his friends had been busted on weapons charges, so his
mother was justifiably alarmed.
He
sat down and was surprisingly polite. He reminded of the nice kid that I
represented on the trespassing at school charge, who had graduated to murder.
I
told the boy my standard stories about staying out of trouble, yet I somehow
managed to make them seem both “commercial and edgy.” It was weird, but I was
seemed to be talking to the son, yet pitching to the mother.
After
about twenty minutes of cautionary tales about the juvenile justice system, she
stopped the meeting to take her son to therapy, and told me to meet her to
continue the meeting. We played the second half of our double-header in a
coffee shop as we waited for her son to “talk through his issues” and get his
court-ordered urine test. The mother was tense, but she still seemed eager to
hear my ideas -- both legal and literary. One moment we were talking about “setting
something up at Showtime,” and then the next we were talking about “alternative
sentencing” for her son.
After
an hour or two, the boy came back from therapy and apparently had filled the
specimen jar with no ill effects. As his mother got up to buy him a Carmel Frappuccino
for his troubles, I talked with him some more. Now I was totally in lawyer
mode, yet he seemed to want to hear the funny story I had about the criminal
who...
I
thought about Samuel Goldwyn's famous quote about “if you want to send a
message, use Western Union.” The fact that the boy was even opening up to
someone at all was a good first step. I then told him about the time I met a
female killer with my zipper down. He laughed.
His
mother returned. It was getting late, so we called the meeting on account of
darkness and they went on their way and I went on mine. I felt confident that
the boy would be all right, after perhaps a few more detours outside his
mother's friendly confines.
I
may not have sold a script, but perhaps I had saved a life.
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