The Pitch

I just finished this one.  Fun with voice.  Fun with Satire.  I love this now, but will probably hate it tomorrow.  I guess that's what rewrites are for.  Are you there, Irony? It's me, Sam.  Enjoy, and please let me know what you think.

The Pitch

Okay, so this is it, right. This is what'll do it for you, right. This is what'll get you there, okay. This is what'll get you in the ring with the big three, no question. This is what'll get those poor bastards with nothing more than a “Basic” Cable package to skip a meal or two, right.

What's a little malnutrition to the entertained anyway? What's a little tapeworm to the enthralled?

This will sell your channel. This will top your programming, all programming, yes. They will have to have it, right. There won't even be a choice, okay. Lives will be incomplete, right. We're talking something that goes above reality, okay. Something that transcends art, yes. Entertainment that goes so much further than entertainment, okay.

They will have to have it.

Have. To. Have. It.

Your channel.

They'll have to have it.

A “reality” show, yes. Reality, as usual, being a completely subjective term, right. Reality being perception, okay. Reality as a construct, yes.

Okay, so here we go.

Off to the races.

Three, two, one, contact, no?

It's zero hour.

The end is nigh.

We open, right. This is the pilot, of course. We open, yes. We open on his face. An old and haggard soul. The shell of a man, eyes welling with tears. The man breathes. Struggles to breathe. Fights to breathe.

The man will not make eye contact with the audience. We know, right. We know, as the audience. We know that this is a real man. This man is our brother, our father, our grandfather, our grandfather's grandfather.

The point is, we know him, right.

We are him, okay.

We love him and we hate him, yes.

We want him to comfort us. We want him to hold our hand. We want him to wipe away our tears. We want him to take away all our pain. But most of all, we want him to die.

He slowly closes his eyes in an extended, contemplative blink. As he breathes one last deep sigh, we close in on him. The shot is so tight nothing more than his face fills the screen. A voiceover accompanies this haunting image. Its the voice of an angel, right. An angel with a predilection for Black Velvet nights. Black Velvet nights and Marlboro days.

“The script for dad was never a filmable property until then.”

Something out of frame clicks, okay.

“You're nothing until you're nothing,” she scratches out through her damaged chords.

His eyes slowly close, right. They don't open, okay. This is no blink, yes.

Bam!

Buckshot Breakfast, right.  Shotgun Sherbert, okay.  Scattershot Scampi, yes.

Fade to black.

Slow fade on what can be assumed by our would-be audience as the angel's face. She's distraught, yes. She's sad, right. She's down and out. At her lowest. Beyond that breaking point they so often talk about. Over the wall. Destroyed. The frame pulls back. She looks down at her feet as she walks down an all too familiar suburb.

Its your suburb, yes.

Your neighborhood, right.

It's your city, town, village, province, okay.

“In many ways we pulled that trigger”

As those last four words cross that sandpapery floor of her throat, we cut to the angel in the confession room. The room the man cleared his head in moments ago in our little drama, right.

The room that we will see throughout our tale, okay. The room where life will fly by, slow down, crawl. The confessional equally familiar to the faith-stricken and TV hounds alike. Critics say that if you've seen one reality show, you've seen them all, right. There's this formula, okay.

If you follow the formula, you win, yes.

There will be the formula here, yes. But components will be added. Things will be turned on their ear. Nothing and everything will be the same.

The angel is crying, but it is obvious that the corners of her mouth are turning ever-so-slightly upwards. One can only wonder whether this vision of damaged beauty is trying to hide the smile, or the tears.

She tells us more about the man, explains what he meant to her, what he meant to their family. She paints a picture of the Pack leader. The alpha lion protecting his cubs at any price. Tells us how he would do anything for his sons. His seven sons, okay.

He would do anything for his daughters. His three daughters, yes.

Anything.

Any. Thing.

Even Kill.

The screen goes black, okay. Just like before, yes. Just as it had with the shotgun blast. And the magic of television, the magic of storytelling, yes. The magic takes us back.

ONE YEAR EARLIER, a title card tells them, the audience, okay. This is exciting, no. Non-linear storytelling, okay. We show them where we are, right. Then we show them how we got there, yes.

So its a year before. When our alleged documentarians first started following the angel and her father. She's in that familiar death confessional, and she's much more beautiful than before. The year that has passed has not done her face any favors. Nor her body, okay.

The lighting and lens give her that glow you notice in old movies. That grease on the lens sort of look you would always see whenever the actress of the day would occupy the old strips of celluloid.

She's glowing, yes.

“It's the annual Isaac's reunion.” She's positively beaming, teeth showing and all. “and Jason said he's got some sort of surprise for Dad this year.”

Her smile grows bigger still, as if that seemed at all possible, okay.

“My guess is its one of those 'Its Your Life' deals. Jason's gonna give him the big thank you we all think he deserves,” she tells the rapt viewers. “Lots of laughs. Lots of tears. I genuinely can't wait to see what he's got. His student films are all so fantastic. Poetically simple. Cut-to-the-chase Profundity.”

The camera holds her glowing face, yes. The video slows down, accenting every minute movement of her features, okay. Jason's voice comes over the image, right. Jason has this gruff but comforting voice. Soothing in its masculinity, yes. Comforting in its quiet power.

“Welcome, Welcome Isaac family,” the disembodied voice pours out like honey into a steaming cup of tea. Her soft image, accompanied by his soft tones, okay. The ambient sound of a room filled with chattering people blankets itself over the soundtrack, right.

“Quiet down please,” he politely asks the room. The smattering of drunken familial ramblings begin to fade like they're being turned down from some offscreen control room. A Wizard behind a curtain moves the faders, okay.

“As you well know,” He begins, just as the silence is absolute, “This is the 35^th year my father, Old Man Colton as you all know him...” Like a trained comic, he pauses for the laughter. Of course, it comes--and goes--like a flashing red “Applause” light has told the room just how much time it should take to respond.

“This is Old Man Colton's 35^th year attending the Isaac family reunion. As a special treat in celebration of Dad's many years of commitment to his family, I have made a little film for,” a beat long enough for a slick smile, “and about him. A little piece that will paint a picture for you of the man you all know so well. And, if you watch close enough, you might catch a bit of a man you only thought you knew.”

With these cryptic words, okay. With this selling point, right. This market-researched teaser, yes.

With these words, the lights fade to pitch black on the family reunion.

Jason hollers, almost threateningly, into the darkness, “Roll it Cameron!”

And Jason's film fades in to fill the home-viewers entire screen, right. This is a better way for them to see it, okay. The story Jason is telling is integral to our little show, yes. So much hinges on the images here, okay.

Soft violin plays over home video footage of a young Colton pushing an even younger Jason on a backyard swing. “He would never hesitate after a 12-hour shift,” a softer, less whiskey-soaked version of the angel's voice says over the image, “to spend time playing with us.”

More colorless, washed out, poorly lit, grainy, time-and-date-stamped imagery fade into one another. More cliched words of remembrance for the living. This part might be hard for the home-viewer, okay. Boring documentation of ordinary day-to-day, yes. Life without light meters and steadicams, okay. No boom operator catching the sound, yes.

We only show this for the juxtaposition, okay.

We only give them this as a relative.

And we won't have them suffer for long. Without warning, the home videos become yelling matches. Rougher than necessary arm-grabs. Open handed slaps to the face. Full-force punches to the gut. Daddy Colton is screaming expletives in the face of a 5-year-old blonde angel, pieces of spit flying into her eyes as they drain salty tears down her cheeks.

During this shift in tone, okay. This change in the nature of Jason's doc, yes. Its during this massive left turn, right.

Its now, that we return some of the family reunion soundtrack. Gasps. Sobs. Full-on screeching and wailing.

“What the *beep*?!”

“Aw, *beep* no!”

“You *beep* son of a *beep*, piece of *beep*, eat *beep*!”

The natives are getting restless, okay. Total Springer Scandal, right. Complete Montel Mayhem, okay. Judge Judy Jostle, yes. Kardashian Kerfuffle, okay.

Daddy Colton is a child-beater. The same working-class family man seen pushing his kids on the swings, puts red handprints on their faces. The same man rolling around in the grass laughing and tickling the onslaught of two rambunctious siblings grabs their arms violently, leaving sausage finger bruises.

Shakes his kids. Pushes his defenseless seeds to the ground. Yells words they shouldn't be familiar with until public schooling into their open, crying maws.

This is good television, yes.

No, this is great television, okay.

Cut to: Daddy Colton is old and gray, crying in the slowly illuminating room where the video has just ended. His family is screaming in his face from every angle. His whole support structure crumbles around him as aunts, uncles, cousins, twice-removed nieces and once-removed nephews spew their hate-filled words into his hearing aids.

He is as frail in this aged state as his kids were in the videos, okay. As defenseless as a child, right. The old is abused by the young, yes. This time in high definition, right.

Fade to black.

“In many ways we pulled that trigger”

Another title card opens the third act, yes. Classic all-caps white-on-black title card, okay. No special fonts, nothing fancy, right.

ONE MONTH EARLIER.

The familiar confession room that bookends acts. The angel, younger and more beautiful, still. Non-linear storytelling. Put the car in reverse and go as fast as the transmission will take you, okay.

“Angel Isaac, age 24” she basically sings, pitch perfect, to the over-greased lens. “Audition tape, 'Un-named Reality Program 34,'” she says.

The Wizards voice, okay. The Great and Powerful, yes. From out of frame, right.

“Tell us about your family.”

“Not much to tell. 2 sisters. 7 brothers.”

“Catholic?”

“Something.”

“Violence.”

Her smile fades. “Pardon?”

“Did he hit you, okay? Did he leave sausage finger bruises on your arms, yes? Red handprints across your face, right?”

This Wizard, this unseen questioner is a big fan of self-response, giving credence to his own statements, right.

Okay, okay. Right, right. Yes, yes.

She shrugs.

“He yelled at me a few times, but what dad doesn't? He spanked me once or twice, but what dad didn't back then?”

“I'm not talking about scolding and spanking, okay."

She squirms, visibly uncomfortable now. The glow from the lens no longer fits the contents of the frame. Beauty fades under stress. The scars come to the surface in moments of duress. Her eyes are filling with tears now as they level to look at the questioning self-responder, then directly into the greasy lens.

“My father is one of the most genuine, honest, gentle, kind, caring,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, okay.

More boring, kind cliches.

Heart strings are tugged, tears are shed, et cetera, et cetera, right.

“And, no,” She says, “He never hit me. Never grabbed me. Never slapped me.”

Without allowing so much as 1.3 seconds of silence, the Wizard fires back in his trademark emotionally devoid tone, “But you would be willing to say he did, right?”

We're really pulling back the curtain with this one, okay.

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess I would.”

Cut to: Jason in the room. The Confessional, okay. The glow is gone, right. Nothing masculine about the Hollywood celluloid glow, yes.

“So you're gay, right?” the Wizard booms, almost accusingly.

Nothing masculine.

“How'd you know?”

“Dad approve of this?”

“Not the reaction you read about. He just told me he had always known. That it didn't really change anything, anyway.”

The curtains are sliding along with ease.

“Wow, okay. That's the 21^st century for you, right. The new normal, yes.”

“I think that's oversimplifying.”

“Your work in documentaries. Pay well?”

“Rewarding in its own way. I like to think that most my work is in the field of Humanitarianism more than documentary film making.”

We all like to think things are a certain way, right.

“ I just needed the film education for a baseline storytelling structure.”

Jason is as beautiful as his sister, but in an old, James Dean sort of way, okay. Maybe more Rock Hudson, right. His kindness is as cliche and boring as hers, okay.

“Understood, okay. Ever consider television, yes?”

“I'm here, right?”

“Daddy like your films?”

He smiles. “Pop watches everything I make. Even cries, when he's supposed to.”

There it is, right. The language of modern infotainment: “...when he's supposed to.” The applause sign is lit.

“You pull the heart strings in one direction, yes. We'll pull them in the other.”

“They're going to hate my Dad, aren't they?”

“In the end, no. He's not the villain in the end, okay. Just in the middle, right. That okay?”

“How much did you say this is going to pay again?”

Roll Credits, okay.

And just like that, they're hooked, right. You're channel is piped through every cable in the ground, yes. Through every satellite feed. Everyone is a subscriber, hooked on the junk, yes. The TV heroine. The everyman loves the everyman, right.

Loves the hubris of the girl next door, yes. Loves the dangerous levels of pragmatism in the handsome upperclassman. Loves the ennui in the corporate scumbag, right.

So what do you say, okay? Is this going to happen, yes? Do we have a deal, right?