Chapter 29

Stanford House

Thursday Afternoon, November 2004

Barbara Buchanan, her Jamaican assistant Jimmy Powell, and a handful of interns, dressed the studio for the TV symposium scheduled for the next afternoon. On the platform, six armchairs were set up in a semicircle and Barbara didn’t like what she saw. Two of the chairs were a little bit different. “Let’s use six identical chairs.”

“Ok. I’ll have to get them from the boardroom, but this was all I could find down here,” Jimmy replied.

“It’s going to be all knees and crotches in a long shot. Everybody’s got to be equal. What about a table?”

“I thought Mr. St. John liked to get up and move around.”

“I want Mr. St. John stationary for this. We must have a curved conference table somewhere. I want this to look like the UN.”

“Okay.” Jimmy visualized the set. “We can do a semicircle with the cameras in the middle. That way they’ll be looking at one another and we can have name plaques in front of each speaker.”

“Good,” Barbara said. “A neutral color on the skirt; not green or white or red. Have an oak veneer on the top and let’s use table mics, not lapels. What about the background?”

One of the interns showed Barbara a sketchpad with ideas for the backdrop. As Barbara flipped through the drawings the intern said, “I kind of like the collage with all the religious buildings and symbols. The other one I like is the picture of London at night. It would make it look like they’re sitting in a window, overlooking the city.”

“No religion. We’re not a religion and this is not about any religion.”

Jimmy said, “How about we just do a paneled wall, like a library? This is a meeting of scholars, right?”

“That’s it! Let’s bring in the table and chairs from the boardroom and have the set convey an academic feel,” Barbara said.

“Why don’t we just broadcast from the boardroom?”

“No, it’ll feel too much like a Ministry event. All these people are used to television studios, so they’ll be more comfortable here.”