Screenplay
William J. Arkin was the special programs editor for NBC. His office was on the seventeenth floor of the Security Bank Building in downtown Burbank. From the pushily carpeted corridor just outside the only thing that could be seen was the walnut door with a plastic sign saying, William J. Arkin, Special Programs Editor. I knew that that was all that could be seen because I’d just spent the last hour and a half sitting in the corridor staring at that massive door trying not got get psyched out while he sat inside in air conditioned comfort passing judgment on my first screen play. What was taking him so damned long? He’d read the thing the night before, surely, or else he wouldn’t have called me to come see him. He had sounded confident on the phone, though he had guarded his language so as not to make any promises. What was he doing in there?
The story, a made for television movie, had been ridiculously easy to write. The conception had come in one flash at 3:30 one morning when sleep was impossible. I had thought about it for all of one day refining elements and considering alternate endings and plot twists, but basically changed nothing from the original idea. Three more days went by and it was written. Sometimes that is the way the muse strikes. Usually she just ties you to a chair and whips you with ideas screaming, “Choose! Choose!” – leaving you dizzy and exhausted and forcing you to do all the work. You’ll choose an idea or a metaphor or phrase and she’ll beat you with half a dozen alternatives forcing you to give up your choice or it not that, giving you great misgivings and doubts about the choice you made. But when she is sweet, she’ll just pad softly up and lay one in your lap, which is so much better than anything you could have written that you stay up all night typing, praying that you’ll get it all written out before you forget it.
The fact that I was here, in front of W. J. Arkin’s door, instead of at the desk of the Pioneer, was a testament to the power of the muse. The idea had come as a television movie. There could be no other medium for this one. I knew nothing about screen play writing, had never even considered trying it and then this plot had flashed out. I didn’t know what W. J. was doing but I knew that my movie was the best damn TV movie he had ever seen. It sure beat the hell of anything that you’d see on the Waltons. The gist of the story was this.
The main hero was Giles, John Giles, theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate. He would be in his late thirties, early forties, and had done his work on the fine structure of matter at a very early age. He was intimately familiar with basic Quantum theory and in particular with the quark theory. One evening he absent mindedly turned on the TV and started contemplating on why colored quarks always come in inseparable groups of three when a Sony Trinitron commercial came on showing a close up of the single picture element of their set. It consisted of three differently colored phosphors, red, green, and blue, all sitting next to each other. Every picture on the TV was mad up of hundreds of these picture elements each of which had those three colors. “Ah ha!”, he thought, “Maybe we’re all on TV.”
But of course he realized that that was not possible. It was a nice analogy but beyond that it fell apart. There were too many differences between the TV model and reality. For instance in reality quark groups moved in three dimensions, in TV they were fixed in space in a two dimensional array. When something moves in real space it really moves. When it moves on TV nothing really moves on the screen, but rather there is a phase velocity to the intensity level of the separate picture elements. Suddenly a cold feeling began to creep over him. Didn’t quantum theory predict that matter could be described as a spatial fluctuation of energy packets? Maybe the dimensionality problem wasn’t really a problem. The TV set continued to run but he was paying no attention. He was completely absorbed in the calculations of trying to represent 3D quantum theory as energy intensity modulation over a two dimensional manifold. It was working out! He couldn’t believe it. He called to his wife to tell her of this great insight. While he was talking to here another idea suddenly flashed by and he stopped in mid-sentence.
“John, what is it? Why are you looking at me that way? Are you all…”
“Quiet. Don’t say anything. Let me do all the talking.” All this time he is craning his neck trying to look through his wife and slightly past her. “You see, while I’m talking, they do a close up on me with the camera and you’re not really there. That is just the effect that they want to create. Maybe if I can think hard about the two dimensional screen I’ll be able to look out of it and see the audience.”
“What are you talking about? Have you lost all your marbles, John? I don’t think…”
“Helen, will you please be quiet. Whenever you talk they shift the camera to you. I could almost see out.”
At this point the camera angle changes to a long shot of the room with the physicist mumbling to himself trying to attract the camera’s attention and the wife backs slowly out of the room convinced that he has lost his mind.
SCENE 2
The scientist, in further contemplation of the parallels between reality and television has recognized that time is not the continuous thing which he once believed it to be, being interrupted by commercials and all. He tries to set up and experiment to measure the existence of the commercial in an objective way. He gets the machinery set up and throws the switch.
There is a quick station break; “This program is brought to you by Campbell’s soup.”
And then back to our friend Giles who has just thrown the switch on his commercial detecting device. Needless to say it could not detect the existence of the commercial because after the commercial is over, time returns to exactly where it was before the commercial came through. Recognizing the inability of the scientific method to deal with an essential discontinuity in the time coordinate, our hero turns to eastern mysticism in an attempt to directly experience the reality that escapes the common senses. He takes on a Guru who through meditation allows John to come into contact with his previous existences. He did a stint as Randy on one of the daytime soaps and various walk-ons on prime time adventure shows. For a while he had a steady role as the government heavy on the Six Million Dollar Man and of course he had done countless toothpaste commercials. He is amazed as to how much better he understands the nature of existence than when he was doing his Nobel work. The one-ness of it all seems so obvious now. He realizes that Nirvana is merely a step away. To exit the endless cycle of reincarnation one must simply get out of the TV biz. While he is reciting this revelation to his guru the camera is in on a tight close up when he suddenly stands up and instead of looking into the camera as he has done all his life, he looks past it to the director and says, “Krishna, I quit. This script is fucking insane. I’ve had it with these stupid TV movies. I’m tired of all these moronic roles.”
“Cut!”, yells Shiva.
“Look,” says Krishna, “the filming is almost over. You’re tired. We’re all tried. Let’s just call it a day and we’ll finish up tomorrow.”
“No. I said I’m finished. I don’t care about my contract. I’m not going to finish this stupid script. I’m not going to be on television any more. You can go ahead and sue me. I just don’t care anymore.”
Sure enough, he reuses to go on with the filming. They sue him. His agent deserts him because he refuses to take any job that gets televised. Fortunately he is a talented actor and gets a job doing live theater with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London where he earns the reputation of being a solid character in spite of his eccentric television phobia.
THE END
Yes, it was a good script. It would definitely need someone with a very solid reputation to play the title role, maybe Newman, or possibly Nicholson. It would be expensive to get one of those heavies to do it but it would sure be worth it. Come on now, don’t expect too much. This is my first screenplay. They’ll probably find some less well known but competent actor for the part. I wonder what they’ll pay for this? What if he asks me what I’m asking for it? I don’t even know the ballpark we’re playing in. Fifty grand at least, maybe a hundred. God, I’d take thirty. Hell, I don’t even care what they pay; the exposure is the important thing. If he asks what I want for it, I’ll tell him to make me an offer and then act insulted when he tells me and say that they offered me almost double that at CBS. I think I’m going to tell him that I want Newman for the title role if he is available. What is taking him so long? He said to be here at 9:30 and it’s almost 11:30. I hope there isn’t a lot of red tape to go through before I get paid. It took almost everything I had to fly down here from Walla Walla. Oh well, I’m sure if it’s going to take some time I can get a small cash advance. I think that that is pretty standard.
The knob on the walnut door turned and William J. stood there beaming.
“You must be Mr. Eller. Welcome. Come on in and have a seat.” He pumped my arm up and down with a firm handshake. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“Um, no thank you. I’m fine.
“Good. Have a seat there,” he said crossing in front of me and seating himself behind his desk. “I’ll get right to the point. Marvelous! I loved it. I think you have a real talent, kid. I don’t believe in beating around the bush, you know what I mean? It’s a waste of time. If I see something I like I come right out and say it. I like your style. You’re good with words. The idea of the Physicist is great. It’s a change from the cops and the cowboys. It’s ORIGINAL, you know what I mean? I think we can do business. I can see it now, we’ll have this lab set up with lots of test tubes and stuff and we’ll get someone hot for the title roll, like Dennis Johnson, or maybe even Larry Storch.”
“Larry Storch? You mean the guy from F-Troop?”
“Yeah, great show, huh? I still watch the reruns. Now I’m not saying that we can get him, but he does owe me one and maybe with a little work we can swing it. Hey, now does that sound great? I don’t know who we’ll get for the lovely female assistant but that’s minor stuff. There’s always plenty of broads looking for work. We can have a great chase scene down highway one when the heavies steal the guy’s secret formula. I love it!”
“Chase scene? Lovely assistant? What are you talking about? John Giles is a theoretical physicist, not a chemist. He doesn’t work with test tubes. Are you talking about my screen play?”
“Sure I am. It’s great. Didn’t I tell you that? Of course, it will need a little rewriting to work in some of those action elements and take out some of that Hindu philosophy bullshit, but I think the concept is workable. Hell, I know the concept is workable. I’m prepared to offer you a cash advance for you to do the rewrite.”
“You want me to put in a chase scene?”
“Yeah, you know. We’ll have these Indian fellows dressed as Gurus steal this guy Giles’s (don’t worry about that name, we can think up a better one later) Quark formula for improving the color in TV sets. I like that name, Quark. That’s real creativity. I don’t know how you guys come up with that great stuff. You’re from Walla Walla, right? Do they put something in those sweet onions, huh? Yeah, kid, you’ve got a great imagination. You’ll go far.”
“Wait a minute. The monstrosity you’re describing has nothing what so ever to do with what I wrote about. I was showing the essential link between the ability to analogize and the scientific method. I was showing how that method leads to a conception of reality which is totally different from that obtained by religious or mystical thought. That in fact there are, or there could be, things which by their very nature can be perceived by the mystic or the theoretician, but whose existence cannot be objectively demonstrated. You’re talking about some stupid spy movie that doesn’t have a damn thing to say about anything.”
“Look, kid, let me tell you something about TV. I’m glad that you have something to say. I’m glad that you know what you were trying to do with what you wrote. I didn’t understand any of that what you just said, but that’s OK. I deal with you creative writer types all the time. All of you are trying o say something. That’s what keeps you writing. I’m not a writer. I couldn’t do all those creative things that you do. I’m just an editor. My job is to hack out all the stuff that doesn’t make sense and leave all the good parts. I have a great admiration for you, kid. You lost me after the first page. The words were good, but it just did not make any sense. Believe me, I know good stuff when I see it, and you’re good, but it’s all too cerebral. If the plot of your story can’t be summarized in one line of four letter Anglo Saxon words, then we can’t list it in the TV Guide, and if we can’t list it in the TV Guide then it’s just not TV now is it? Need I say ore? I know you can do the rewrite. Just leave in the part about the physicist with the test tubes and throw in some romance and a chase scene. It’ll be easy for you, I’m sure. Now I’m prepared to advance you one hundred dollars for the rewrite of the script and of course I’ll pick up your plane fare here and back home. Your hotel bill, though, is on you. Now what do you say?”
“A hundred dollars?”
“That’s right. And if you do a good job of it, I may be able to swing you a shot at a script for the Waltons, you know, something like John Boy wants to become a physicist, or better yet, he meets this GIRL who is a physicist, but… you’re the writer, I’m sure you can come up with a better idea.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“So is it a deal? A hundred clams plus your plane fare?”
“I’d like to think about it for a bit.”
“Hey, no problem,” he said getting up from his desk, “Take all the time you need. Let me tell you one more thing. Don’t bother taking this over to those guys at CBS. They’re a bunch of shits. They wouldn’t know a good script if they saw it. I mean, look at the crap that they put on the air. If you want to do it to compare what sort of deal they’ll give you, go ahead, but I can tell you in advance you won’t get a better deal that the one I’m offering. I think you’ve got a place here at NBC.”
He shook my hand again as he ushered me to the door. “Quark theory, I love it!”
I watched the large walnut door close behind me and then headed for the washroom. I wanted to wash off my hands before I got on the plane to Walla Walla.