Free Emerald City by David Williamson Page B

an eighties series in a visual medium, mate. If you can’t tell your story in images, don’t tell it at all.
    COLIN : Mike, we share ninety-nine percent of our DNA with the chimpanzee. The bonus of that extra one percent is language. An astonishing facility for language. There are sixteen distinct meanings for the word ‘beat’, but we can instantly recognise which of the sixteen is intended by context. When the most advanced language computer tried to translate ‘The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’ into Russian, it came out ‘The vodka’s strong, but the veal is pallid’.
    MIKE : What point are you trying to make?
    COLIN : How can we ever know our characters if they’re never allowed to speak? We’re writing a series about chimpanzees! Before you can be interested in a character, you’ve got to know how they speak and think, how they justify what they’re doing, to themselves and to each other, how they cope with the big questions: life, death and meaning; how they view the tragic irony of being transient specks of living matter in an infinite and incomprehensible universe!
    MIKE : Okay. What do you want him to say?
    COLIN thinks.
    COLIN : ‘We’d better check this one out, Zac.’
    MIKE hesitates, then taps it out. COLIN frowns and stares at MIKE . He doesn’t understand the new assertiveness.
    Some weeks later, MALCOLM , the merchant banker, enters. COLIN and MIKE stand in front of him. MALCOLM has a thick script in his hand.
    MALCOLM : [ indicating the script ] You really think this is going to sell to a US network?
    COLIN : Yes.
    MALCOLM : You’ve sent the script across?
    COLIN : Yes.
    MALCOLM : You’ve had some response?
    COLIN : Nothing definite, but a high level of interest.
    MALCOLM : From who?
    COLIN : The reader at NBC said she found the concept intriguing.
    MALCOLM : The concept is five years too late. It’s ‘Miami Vice ’ Down Under.
    COLIN : On the surface it’s a little similar—
    MALCOLM : [ interrupting ] Colin, this is the seventh ‘Miami Vice’ I’ve been given in the last six months.
    COLIN : There are a lot of novel twists. One of the cops, Zac, is a PhD.
    MALCOLM : In astrophysics? A cop in Darlinghurst? And the other’s an ex-world surfing champion and cordon bleu cook? Colin, this is shit .
    COLIN : So is ‘Miami Vice’.
    MALCOLM : That’s classy shit. This is absolute shit.
    COLIN : I can’t see the difference.
    MALCOLM : Which is exactly why the chances of you getting a network sale are about the same as the monkey accidently typing Hamlet . The writers of ‘Miami Vice ’ don’t sit down and say to themselves, ‘I am going to write shit’. They write at the highest level they’re capable of and when they finish they think they’ve written a masterpiece. When someone who can write at a higher level tries to imitate them it’s a disaster.
    COLIN : [ taking the script ] I hope you’re big enough to admit that you were wrong.
    MALCOLM : I’ll be delighted to admit I was wrong. You get a pre-sale from the Americans, we’ll finance.
    COLIN glowers and moves towards the door. MIKE turns to follow.
    [ To MIKE ] That project you’re working on with Elaine Ross sounds like something we’d be interested in, Mike.
    MIKE : [ embarrassed ] Oh. Right.
    MALCOLM : Send me a script when it’s done.
    MALCOLM exits. COLIN and MIKE stand outside the office.
    COLIN : What’s the script you’re doing for Elaine?
    MIKE : [ embarrassed ] It’s about a guy whose kids die in a fun park accident. Said she offered it to you and you turned it down.
    COLIN : I couldn’t see a film in it. Seemed like a worn-out theme to me.
    MIKE : I think it’s strong. I think it’s a winner.
    COLIN : [ waving the script ] We’ll get this one up. He’s not the only merchant banker in town.
    MIKE : That’s the game