Concrete Pencil: Breakfast at Tiffinbites
Dan Bourke is in cinemas from Friday
There is, in Hollywood, a pretty well defined structure for what makes a perfect screenplay. It delineates, minute-by-minute, what should happen when.
Obviously, it displays an appallingly cynical attitude to art, and movies that I like can't possibly obey something so hideous.
Except, of course, they all do. The Big Lebowski follows the classic three-act structure to the letter. Not to mention Withnail And I. They really all do.
Perhaps it's something more fundamental than a Hollywood template - perhaps it's the natural, innate way we tell stories: the beginning, middle and end: Act I, II and III.
Who can say? All I can say with any certainty is that it's very easy to start applying the structure to your own life, what with having nothing to occupy an idle mind melting at a workstation.
In other words, welcome to Lunchtime: The Movie. First of all, we need a protagonist.
We'll call him Don. Tall, handsome, sometimes bearded, probably hungover.
In the first 10 pages of the screenplay (10 minutes of the film) we need to see him at work, rest and play.
So there he is, pressing buttons on a keyboard (work); pressing buttons on a keyboard (play) and sitting at his desk with his eyes closed (rest).
Now, we need an inciting incident. Hunger. We should also introduce an antagonist - the picky boss. And a seemingly irrelevant factor: a flirty email with a girl at a law firm in the Wharf.
And then comes a plot point, that spins the action in a new direction at the start of Act II.
Let's say, there's a computer crash, so our hero can't work or play at his workstation, and we already knew he was hungry, so he decided now's the time to venture out.
Now our protagonist needs to have some obstacles.
It's 1pm, so it's hellish busy. He gets to the front of the queue at Birleys, but he's got no money.
So he goes to the bank - resolution at last - except no, the problems escalate, he has no money in the bank.
This is the mid-point climax, spinning the action on again into Act IIb.
And enter the antagonist: the boss calls, the machines are back up and something urgent needs to be done. So Don hasn't time to go back to the office to borrow money, and no one at Birleys will give him credit.
All is lost. The forces of antagonism peak. The point of no return.
But then, he sees the girl from the law firm. But she gets on the DLR.
Start of Act III.
He chases her south. They get a sandwich at Asda. And maybe the possibility of romance.
Epilogue: back at the desk, full of sandwich and full of hope, he returns to work.
Even his boss seems happy. Roll credits. An Oscar beckons.
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