The 1-Minute Structure Lesson
Still looking for the original video of this commercial, but this will do for now. (If you have a link to the original, please post in the comments and I’ll be forever grateful.)
This is, without doubt, the best and fastest example of story structure I’ve ever seen. In sixty seconds. Set up, reaction and resolution neatly tied up with a little bow. And the only dialog is spoken by the dog (the hero of the story)
Take a minute (literally) and watch this.
Okay. From this, we know that there are four roughly equal quarters to a story. Act One, the first half of Act Two (to the Midpoint), the second Half of Act Two (to the Second Plot Point) and Act Three. The proportions can be a little loose in a book (the midpoint will work anywhere around page 200 of a 400 page book). In a movie, the transitions will be within a minute or two of the appropriate points.
In a one minute commercial it has to be to the second.
In a 60 second commercial, the four quarters will be transitioned at 15, 30 and 45 seconds.
Act One, the first 15 seconds. We need the setup and the inciting incident. Dog and the Lady are having the time of the Dog’s life. Jogging makes dog happy. Life is perfect. Then the Lady (at 7 seconds) sees the Jeep. Inciting incident. So far, not a problem for Dog, since riding in a Jeep is almost as fun as jogging. Just Dog and Lady, splashing through puddles, head out the window. Status quo is awesome for dog.
The end of Act One in a sixty second “story” should be at 15 seconds.
Act Two starts at 16 seconds. Lady meets Man. Lady likes Man. Lady goes jogging with Man and Dog stays at home. Talk about a serious hit to the status quo.
The Midpoint (thirty one seconds of the sixty second bit) changes everything. A woman pushes a baby stroller in front of the Jeep. Man and Lady look at it, then at each other. Dog knows his life will be over if they go through with that thought. Dog goes into action. At the end of Act Two he’s gone through the Lady’s lingerie drawers and at 43 seconds Man wakes up in bed with Dog decked out in Lady’s finest.
Act Three starts at exactly 45 seconds, just where it should. Lady comes home from a jog and at exactly 45 seconds, she walks by the bedroom and sees Man in bed with Dog. A little bit of implied Zoophilia will tank pretty much any relationship. There’s a couple of seconds of Lady’s gobsmacked reaction to Man in bed and then Dog is happy again, in the passenger seat of the Jeep, going for a ride with Lady. Man is history.
Those Jeep ad guys really know what they’re doing.
