For many years, I was engaged to script the annual stockholder’s meeting video for a massive global enterprise headquartered in a Spanish-speaking country, despite the fact that my knowledge of the Spanish language is limited to “Soy innocente, no hecho nada.”
The most prominent stockholders of Empresa de Hormigón Huerta (EHH) were the elderly widows of the fabulously wealthy investors who bankrolled the firm’s initial foray into commerce in the first half of the 20thcentury.
These ladies were known affectionately as Las Abuelas, and the young, tech-savvy executives who took control of the company shortly before the millennium were obsessed with currying their favor, as they constituted a powerful voting block.
The fear was that a competitor might dazzle them with a superficially plausible financial pitch, prompting them to move their assets elsewhere.
It was absolutely vital, they felt, that Las Abuelas find the annual stockholders meeting video to be not only persuasive but entertaining and, even more important, emotionally engaging.
At this point, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, they turned to a Montana-based film production company referred to within EHH as “those gringos.”
Those Gringos (TG), for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, hired a Bostonian (me) as their ‘go to’ writer instead of some hardy frontier wordsmith from Bozeman.
I should add, parenthetically, that modern technology has vanquished limitations of time and space, which is why ‘going to the office’ has become a silly and anachronistic concept.
As an example, I have a buddy who produced promos for the X-Files, a popular TV series shot in Canada, from the comfort of his home in Winthrop, MA. Where was I? Yes.
TGs and I assumed that Las Abuelas were big fans of Telenovellas, spicy, extravagantly mounted soap operas featuring hot-blooded Latinas and supernaturally handsome men.
With this in mind, I wrote a script whose central character was a young, supernaturally handsome photojournalist whose first big assignment is to document the production and practical uses of concrete around the world.
The young man, Edwardo, is filled with despair upon being handed such a pedestrian topic, and goes to his beloved Uncle Hector for advice. Uncle Hector patiently explains that concrete is the material that enables civilization and commerce to flourish.
Concrete is, in fact, “the stuff that dreams are made of.”
His eyes now open to the wonderfulness of this magical material, Edwardo creates a photo essay so utterly dazzling that it appears as the cover story in the world’s most prestigious business publication. Edwardo himself is idolized and his future assured.
All because of concrete.
TGs did a masterful job at creating the actual video, which was a stunning success, garnering rave reviews at the annual stockholders meeting.
Las Abuelas were particularly enthralled by the Edwardo character, their bosoms heaving with palpable enthusiasm whenever he appeared onscreen, which was 97% of the time, the other 3% being occupied by concrete factories, buildings, bridges, and Uncle Hector.
It seemed that the ladies were consumed with varying combinations of lust and maternal pride. And the most curious phenomenon of all was that, in a milestone in the history of stockholders meeting videos, many in the audience, overcome with emotion, cried.
For many years thereafter, the prime directive from EHH was that the audience must cry.
For better or worse, a decade or so later Las Abuelas had been largely supplanted by hot shot New York investors, with the result that it was no longer necessary, or even remotely desirable, that the audience cry.
The End
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