Hearthstone Entertainment
46 New York
LATE SUNDAY MORNING, Maggie, Jess, Amy, and Jessica joined us for brunch. There was an air of excitement among us all. Jess had the approval cut of the Redress pilot. We all wanted to watch it but were determined to keep our business in the barn after brunch. We cleaned up in record time and headed out to the big screen TV in the studio.
It was beautiful. It was surprising. No one would ever confuse Maggie’s directorial style with Hannah’s or with Lauren’s. It was so simple. I’d given Maggie the authority to hire a second camera as she needed it, but the whole show was done with a single lens—Jess’s. We looked into the world of a teenager, Kate, who was uncertain about her self-image and a little frightened of the world around her. Jessica looked like a big sister who just talked her through it all.
HEAVEN: Tell me about why you think you need a new dress, Kate. What is the event?
KATE: It’s our fall cotillion—a sort of semi-formal dance. They used to call it the fall ball, but…
HEAVEN: I can imagine. [Shared laughter.] You really want to impress your date, I guess.
KATE: [Head shaking.] I don’t have a date. [A tear.]
HEAVEN: Tell me more, Kate. [Her arm around the younger girl’s shoulders.]
KATE: I’m tired of not going anywhere because I don’t have a boy that I let grope me all the time. Or more. I’m a little disillusioned, but this is my senior year in high school and I shouldn’t have to put out in order to go have fun.
HEAVEN: Dances usually mean dancing, honey. Who are you going to dance with?
KATE: I don’t care if no one dances with me. I can dance by myself. I might even prefer it that way.
It was breathtaking. They walked through stores together without trying anything on—just window shopping. Then they would go talk some more. They had soft drinks in the mall. They went to a park and Kate showed some of her dance steps and even taught a few to Heaven. Eventually, they chose a dress and Heaven bought it for her. They chose just a few accessories: shoes, a bracelet, and earrings. But we didn’t see her in the dress. Not until after Jessica did her concluding remarks.
HEAVEN: Being a teen is hard work. It’s not really the work of school, or chores, or sports, or even growing. The really hard work is discovering who you are and accepting yourself. Kate, you—and you who are watching this show—you are beautiful. You are everything you need in life. And everything your heart desires will come to you. Like to Kate.
Jessica turned her head and the camera followed her gaze as Van Morrison’s ‘Moondance’ filled the speakers and we watched Kate in her new dress dancing alone in the moonlight, and then with an unknown partner. Finally, she was dancing alone again with the biggest smile on her face I’d ever seen. How Jess managed to tape that sequence was simply beyond me.
Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
’Neath the cover of October skies
Kate danced her heart out and every one of us fell in love with her.
We sat stunned for a minute with tears running down our cheeks and then burst into applause. We all wanted to watch it again and Jess rewound the tape.
“You did the whole thing with only the two characters!” Hannah said, hugging Maggie. “It’s brilliant! A one-hour show and there are only two girls walking, talking, and trying on dresses. And only one camera!”
“It doesn’t look too low-budget, does it?” Maggie said. “We were going for intimate, not cheap.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t cheap,” Jess laughed. “I spent over seven grand just editing it.”
“And we did use a third actor at the end,” Maggie said. “I had to.”
“Who was it?” Samantha asked.
“Oh!” Maggie said. “Warren, of course. He was great to work with and Kate was ecstatic. He’s even taking her to the real dance next weekend. And she doesn’t have to worry about being pawed.”
“She knows I’m gay,” Warren said. “She was relieved, I think.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Jessica, you’ve just become every girl’s ideal big sister. You were so beautiful!” She looked at me for a moment and I could see her trembling with her lower lip caught between her teeth. Then she ran to me and hugged me. I just held her. This wasn’t Jessica play-acting a beautiful and gracious guest. This was the Jessica that I remembered and loved. We held hands as we all sat and watched the full hour again.
“I think we should proceed with taping six more episodes,” I said. “That’s the equivalent of one of their mini-series or a half the replacement season.”
“Can we afford it?” Jessica asked. Her hand was still in mine as we sat to talk about the strategy from this point on. “I mean, do you need me to put in more money? I will if we need it.”
“At the moment, we are able to budget the production within our revenue stream. We also have an investment group that has given us a pretty good line of credit if we need to bridge the gap,” Hannah said.
“We do?” I said. I was supposed to be the executive producer and know about the money. Hannah nodded and didn’t say anything else so I filed that away to talk about later.
“What about pitching it?” Maggie asked.
“I actually have done some of my work,” I laughed. “You and I, Miss Eyes, are slated to meet with the screening team of Lifelong Women’s Network in New York on November 26th. I’m sorry that might cut into your Thanksgiving break, but I promise to take you to a Broadway show that night. Maybe that will make up for it. We’ll fly back on Wednesday.”
“And as a backup, Brian has a file folder full of responses from our syndication team,” Hannah assured us. “We are safe moving ahead with six more shows.”
“Jessica, how does your schedule work? Will we be able to plan enough ahead to get you here for taping?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” she said. I looked at her with a puzzled expression. She glanced back to Maggie.
“Brian, we don’t expect to do any of the shows here,” Maggie said. “We aren’t even focusing on big cities, though there will be a few. Part of the charm of the show will be to pick a dress or outfit in the market where we are taping. I’ve cleared most of the shooting dates with Heaven, but the locations are not all tied down yet. We have several options and the ad I ran in Mademoiselle is already generating inquiries.”
“Where?” I asked.
“New Orleans and Denver are the largest cities. Laramie, WY, Athens, OH, St. Augustine, FL, and Syracuse, NY are the top contenders for the first six shows. It will just be our team of three meeting Jessica, Amy, and the teen guest in each market. We’ll keep the costs as low as possible,” Maggie said.
“Three? You aren’t planning on me going to the shoots, are you?” I asked. I had my own show to record and classes to attend. I took a deep breath and assured myself I was panicking over nothing.
“No,” Maggie said. She blushed. “I’ve asked Lamar to be our chief of security and logistics when we are on location.” Oh! I nodded. Oh!
“Brian?” Jessica asked as we walked back toward the house after our meeting. We were still holding hands.
“Yes, love?”
“I… I’m still not ready to be lovers, I guess,” she sighed. “But I miss my friend. Can we be okay like this?”
“We are okay like this, dear. I’m learning—slowly—that there are all kinds of relationships. Being lovers is not the only option for two people who care about each other,” I said. Danielle was teaching me that. I was learning.
When we got to the house, she gave me a friendly kiss on the lips and then we joined the family.
Whitney’s team ran out onto the floor on the thirteenth ready to start a new war against Mexico as they met the Mexican national team. This was a big year for international competitions as the Olympics would be in the summer. We weren’t looking that far out yet.
The first thing I noticed was that Whitney was tall. In fact, she was the tallest on the team and there were only two others over six feet tall according to the scorecard. As a result, she had been moved to center. It wasn’t her strongest position. I don’t think Whitney had ever played center before. She snagged several rebounds, but her shooting was almost exclusively tipping in missed shots by her teammates, and not many of those. The Mexican women were overpowered, so Whitney’s low-scoring performance wasn’t noticed. They had speed in the backcourt, but without a reliable three-point shooter, they had to make a lot more baskets to score as many points. I sure hoped they’d move her to where she could do the most good.
They didn’t, and on Sunday the seventeenth, they met the Lady Hoosier alumni and got a narrower victory. It was good to see Zan play again, but Whitney was being held to minimal scoring by her position. She was the pivot on which the team turned but they desperately needed her scoring. She was in a pretty foul mood when she got home and I felt the brunt of it when she dragged me to the cold wet field to spar. We took a long time in the master bath shower and I doctored her bruised body and bruised ego in privacy all night long.
I got to go to the football game to watch Adam and our team win back the Old Oaken Bucket from Purdue. Vaughn Dunbar set a new school record with 1800 yards rushing in a single season. People were already talking about him as a Heisman Trophy candidate. Since next week was Thanksgiving, we wouldn’t find out if we’d be in post-season play until we got back to school the first of December.
Danielle was concerned that she wouldn’t get any cuddle time with me Saturday night, so the triplets fixed an incredible feast in the studio for the whole clan that was ready when we got home. Clothes were flying as soon as we walked in and saw the three girls wearing nothing but their ‘Brian’s Girlfriend’ aprons.
“We’ve got clean-up,” Rose whispered to me. “Take her home.” I knew Rose didn’t mean for me to take Danielle to her home, but rather up to the house. I caught Danielle’s hand and dragged her out of the studio.
“We wanted to do something special for your clan tonight,” she said. “Was it okay?”
“Hell yes, Dani. You see what Lionel and Carl are doing over there?”
“They’re lighting a fire in your firepit.”
“Right. But it’s too cold to run around naked outside, even with a campfire. I, on the other hand, have a perfectly good fireplace, a soft, comfy chair, and a beautiful naked girl to cuddle up with,” I laughed.
“And go to sleep?”
“If that’s what you want, honey. Or we can talk.”
“I don’t care what we do, Brian, I just want to be held by you.”
“I can do that.”
The party and celebration outside lasted a long time, so it was eleven before we woke up to people coming in from outside. I put the triplets to bed in the master and went up to join my hearthmates.
I was a little upset that traveling on Monday meant I’d miss Whitney’s first regular season game against Ball State. It was a good one. Coach Casey moved her from center to forward and she nailed three three-pointers from the corner. We beat Ball State 98-42 and it felt like the Lady Hoosiers were ready to roll.
Of course, by that time we’d met Amy, Heaven and her manager, and our contract lawyer, Barb Smith, in our hotel suite in New York. Conrad Dole, Heaven’s manager/agent set out trying to run the meeting. I said simply, “I need to talk to Barb and Maggie for a while so we can set our strategy for tomorrow. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to tell you.” Conrad started to sputter and shake, but when he saw Jessica’s smirk he threw up his hands and shut up. In the long run, he was nodding his head as we got the strategy set. At least the guy recognized a good plan and was willing to participate. I think Jessica had told him in no uncertain terms how committed she was to this project.
“It’s a lovely video,” Ms. Stills said. “For kids, you’ve done a great job.”
“We’re pleased with it, no matter what age,” Maggie said. She smiled and sat straight. The program director at Lifelong Women’s Network was a tough negotiator but I could almost see her salivating to get her hands on Redress for their network.
“And excuse me, Mr. Frost. Exactly what do you do on this show?”
“I write checks and sign contracts. I’m the executive producer.”
“I see. Well, of course, we’d put our own executive producer in charge. We’d be setting the locations and the guests. We have a much longer reach than you have. We’ll probably want a professional director and a few more cameras on it, as well.”
“I’m sure your executive producer will want to share her ideas with me,” I said easily. “But we’ve established the directorial look we want and I won’t be shifting Ms. Kwan off the show.”
“Well, if we buy the show, we’ll do what we want.”
“You seem to have misunderstood us, Ms. Stills. We aren’t selling the show. We are offering you first run rights. Hearthstone Entertainment is the production company and Heaven has signed a contract with us to produce this show,” I said.
“Well, thank you very much, then. It’s a good idea, but an immature concept. We’ll approach Heaven ourselves,” she said. Mmmhmm.
“Why don’t we connect you right now,” Barb said. My lawyer was right on cue. “Brian, can you dial Heaven?” I reached for the phone in the middle of the table, punched nine for an outside line, and dialed the direct number to her hotel room.
“Conrad Dole,” the voice on the other end said. I punched the speaker phone button.
“Conrad, it’s Brian Frost. Lifelong Women’s Network wants to make a direct deal with Heaven. Is she with you?” I said.
“I’m here, Brian.” They were obviously also on speaker phone. “Didn’t you explain the terms of our contract?”
“Terms are all negotiable, Ms. Heaven,” Ms. Stills said. “We want to take this concept to a higher level that befits your stature as a supermodel. Better production quality. Professionals in directing, scripting, and videography. While this is a nice first effort, it doesn’t come close to the level we’d like to take it to. Of course, if you are committed to Hearthstone, we can probably find another model for a similar show.”
“You would be risking copyright violations,” Barb said. “Having been offered licensing, doing a knock-off would be extraordinarily bad form.”
“You know that is how the industry works. If we took this the way it is, we’d be out-produced by NBC in a month. You won’t get out of this building without the industry knowing the concept.”
“Just a minute,” Heaven said. She rattled off a series of numbers. “That’s Cindy Crawford’s number. You can probably get her for around two million an episode. Of course, her voice sounds like Minnie Mouse. Let me see. Oh, this is more your speed. Christy Turlington just signed as the spokesperson for Maybelline for only $800,000. Maybe a sponsor for you. Oh. Except that was for only twelve days of work a year. If you want to go inner city, you might get Naomi Campbell. I really don’t have anyone in my rolodex who has fresh, approachable, and friendly written next to her name.”
“We simply want to get the best possible exposure for you,” Ms. Stills said.
“Ma’am, I gave complete artistic and financial control of this project to Hearthstone Entertainment. The only two people I am confident in to pull this off are sitting in front of you. And you should be very thankful that neither of them is their CEO. She’d eat your lunch. Good day.”
“Well, I think our business is done here,” I said. We stood to leave.
“A major broadcast network, our cable network, and PBS will all run similar shows within the next six months,” Ms. Stills said in a last effort to sway us. “You can’t last in that environment.”
“We have independent stations ready to broadcast in forty different markets the first week of January if we aren’t picked up by a major network before then. Your best shot will be an also-ran. We’ll have an entire season under our belts before you can effectively get contracts signed. And we will poll better than you. You should check the numbers for Elaine Frost’s Chick Chat. It is already running ahead of your MyLife talk show. And it’s not even live. We are here to stay, and Redress will only be one of many new shows we’ll be broadcasting as we grow.”
Barb lagged behind us and put a contract and business card on the conference table.
“We’re flying out at eleven tomorrow morning. We could get back here to sign contracts at nine, but no changes. What’s walking through that door, Ms. Stills, is the future.” Barbara turned and walked out with us. I paused and popped the video tape out of the player and took it with us.
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