It had been a brisk lunch of hot tea and something he assumed was on bread Blake scrounged from the commissary. Ian found himself waiting for the arrival of a writer whose scripts he thought interesting enough to take a chance with. Ian knew first time writer’s were a risk at his level, but he was also keenly aware that at this stage of the game any risk was better than nothing at all.
Sharply at one, Wella knocked on Ian’s door to let him know that a gentleman was waiting to see him. He told her he’d be right there. Ian slipped his black double-breasted jacket back on, waited a moment, and then strolled casually into the foyer.
Sitting, trying hard not to look desperate and nervous, was a man in jeans, a knock off designer pullover, and an inexpensive but flattering sport coat. His elbows were on his knees bouncing from the nervous energy escaping through his feet. The man’s head was turned off to the side trying to focus on the hubbub of staff members making phone calls, typing, wheeling and dealing.
Ian walked over, thinking the man must look exactly like he did waiting for Kovak that first day at HRT. He cleared his throat and the man looked up at him. He seemed a little surprised. Ian extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Ian…”
“Call me Jenson”, and Jenson took his hand in a firm grip and a healthy shake.
“Jenson, it is then. Why don’t we step into my office?” Jenson nodded his head. Ian stopped by Blake’s desk momentarily. “Blake would you mind getting Jenson and I something to drink? I want something sweet and with ice. Jenson?”
“Uh…that sounds good. But nothing diet.”
“Thank God.” Ian agreed. Blake nodded his head, and was off. Quickly, but trying to control the casualness, Ian offered Jenson a comfortable chair near a window next to the really great view. Ian took the chair next to it.
“I apologize for being nervous,” Jenson blabbered a little. “This whole thing just seems to be one surprise after another.”
“Nothing like you expected?”
“Not at all.” He said, “I’ve been trying for some time to get someone to read my stuff. Then to get a call out of the blue from HRT, right down to you, I’m kind of in a fog.”
“Jenson, just relax, this is all kind of new to me, too. As Blake told you in the phone call, I am not making any promises or offering any deals. This is a just a preliminary, just to see what happens.”
“Yeah, okay.” His elbows went back to his knees. The man kept looking at Ian intently.
“Is something wrong?” Ian asked. “Do we know each other from somewhere?”
“Uh…no…I don’t think so. It’s just that of all the surprises, you are the biggest, not what I expected at all.”
“Why?”
“I had this idea in my head of the networks suits. I just expected someone much older, and not younger than I.”
“I hope that’s not going to make a difference.”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“Good. Right off the bat, let me just tell you that I am seeking to earn my place here at the network, and my age does come into play. I’ve been given some unexpected opportunities in which I must earn respect very quickly but get the feeling I am expected to fail miserably….”
“Which very well be exactly why you were handed those opportunities so readily?”
Ian smiled. “In think we both see the broad picture.”
Jenson smiled back, and scratched the neatly trimmed goatee on his chin. “So let me cut to the chase, uh…Ian…exactly how is it that you think I might fit in to all of this?”
“On a lark I had each staff member go to the unsolicited pile of…well…crap…we get by the tons. It hangs a round a while and then gets tossed, mostly unread. Each one was instructed to grab five scripts open to a spot at random and read five pages. They were then to bring the best of those five and put in a box in my office. During our final afternoon meeting of the week I had each staff member, right down to the secretaries, take an equal portion of those scripts home, read it and rate it one to ten. The five best rated scripts, I read, on the chance that one might be interesting.”
“And mine was the cream of the crap.” He smiled.
“Well, yes.” Jenson nodded his head and looked at his hands, which had started bouncing again with nervous energy, as Blake entered and placed two cans of Pepsi, and two glasses with ice, on napkins on the small table between them.
They opened and poured their drinks. When Ian sat his glass down, he reached to another small table where he had placed the script.
“Your script easily stood out from the rest. It’s been passed around to most of the staff and we all agree, there is a lot of potential here.”
“Potential? How about promise, maybe even a little talent?”
“I like the ideas and the way you move the script along. I like the fact that you are generous with subtly and write intelligent plots with aggressive yet gentle twists. It isn’t often these days that you find anything that is this consistent a surprise with a strong satisfying payoff you haven’t seen before or seen coming.”
Jenson sat up. “Wow! That sounds impressive.” The leg jiggling began in earnest again. “But…”
“Your dialogue sucks.”
“Ouch.”
“It comes off as stylized, unnatural to the characters and lacks the subtle colors of the plot and action. Ironically, it’s actually great dialogue, it just doesn’t belong in this script, but it’s fixable.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Ian scratched his head, “How do I put this?”
“Just keep talking and we’ll figure it out.” Jenson was intrigued and eager. Ian liked that.
“The words don’t roll off the tongue as easily as they should. Some of it can be fixed by editing, just paring it down. You have created a great canvas, with small vibrant strokes, but the dialogue is sometimes over detailed.”
“I see.” Ian got that he did.
“Have you heard the dialogue read out loud, somewhere besides in your own head?”
“Huh?”
“Have you had someone read the script to you, like a play reading?”
“No. I just bang away at the keyboard and write down what I hear in my brain.”
“Not a mistake, but sometimes harmful to a script writer whose never had his work produced before. I am assuming that this serves as a pilot.”
“Of course, but I think the one script stands alone.”
“Jenson, I want you to look at this again, then bring it back to me. Take it and get a couple of people to read it out loud--cold, no one who has seen it before. You’ll be able to hear what I am talking about and decide how you want to fix it.”
“Oh, okay.” He sensed disappointment, obviously in Jenson’s head this scene ended in happily ever after.
“But I want you to bring this back to me, no one else, and I am willing to pay, not a lot, to ensure that that happens…”
Jenson brightened up, “Thank you, we can do that…”
“There’s a catch…”
“A catch?”
“I want to see the rest.”
“Well, I do have some other ideas for the series. Episode break downs, and…”
Ian cut him off. “That’s not what I mean…”
“You don’t think that this has series potential then?”
“Oh I didn’t say that…Jenson, let’s be honest. You have obvious talent, you wouldn’t be here if I thought different. This script reeks of great idea heaped with guns, car chases and sex to make it sellable. I want to see the real stuff.”
Jenson slowly sat backup and blinked. Ian thought for a moment that he’s been wrong about what he read between the lines. It wouldn’t be the first time. He took one last shot at getting what he really wanted. “Trust me, Jenson. I know that’s not easy in this town.”
Jenson nodded his head and scratched that goatee again. “When?”
“Whatever you got and I mean whatever…scripts, novels, scenes, post-its…as soon as you can. If it’s anything like I think this is…”
Ian’s gut was screaming and he made a rash decision he hoped he wouldn’t be sorry for. “Jenson, you bring me whatever has come out of your hot little hands and put it into my hot little hands. I will guarantee, at minimum a five-year development deal that we can hammer out as soon as I know exactly we’ve got.”
“No shit?”
“It’s not much, but enough to enable you to just write for a little while, and just long enough for me to figure out if we can get something usable. Then…we’ll go from there.”
Jenson pumped Ian’s hand like a comedian in a really bad sitcom. “Anything you want. You got.”
“You’d better mean that when you say it, because I may call you Monday and tell you I need finished product by last week.”
“The impossible is yours, my friend, the impossible is yours….”
And that’s exactly what Ian needed, the impossible, exactly how he was going to achieve that was yet to be determined. He called Blake to arrange for a standard promissory contract with a small check to be cut for Jenson immediately. He figured the guy could use a little cash, so he arranged to have it cut sooner than later.
Ian’s gut told him this man would become very important to his tenure at HRT. He just didn’t know how.
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