I was recently told a story which goes, in some small way, to lead ones thoughts toward the differences between short and feature length narratives.

I met an old friend of mine and conversation turned to a mutual acquaintance we both still held in some passing contempt. Though nothing but a decent human being, our acquaintance was also, the last time I saw him, the sort of smugly high achieving young go-getter that brings out the worst in me. He was, once upon a time, going to be a major brain surgeon and I had since heard conflicting rumours that he had either failed completely or succeeded almost to the point of revolutionising brain care.

My dear old friend was able to tell me what had actually happened. It turns out that our past acquaintance has not ended up specialising in brain surgery. (And no he’s not a rocket scientist either, don’t run ahead). He is a doctor and a specialist of, apparently, no small accomplishment. He is an arse doctor. A bum doctor. A successful man whose triumph is built upon bottoms.

I find great humour in this. Both as I write this and when my friend told me, at which point I laughed uncontrollably for roughly four minutes. Speechless and convulsing I temporarily forgot all of my mundane troubles and just shook from side to side with filthy, ruthless guffawing.

I take no great pleasure or pride in this fact. My laughter is in part, utterly puerile. I’m laughing about the phrase “bum doctor” which is funny only because it includes the word “bum”. My laughter is also cruel and bitter. I am laughing at the fact that someone who doubtlessly leads a more comfortable, more respectable, more successful and more useful life than mine never the less does so via the medium of arses.

Wiping away the tears from my eyes it strikes me that, though I don’t make short films anymore, this story would make a good one. It would depend upon the vicarious enjoyment of watching someone else laugh uncontrollably for four minutes and you’d need a very good performer to pull that off, but were you able to find someone to do that then it would be both funny and oddly compelling. Especially if you were able to convey the pathos of the situation, the laughing man is only laughing because he knows the butt of the joke is a better person than he is. The depth of the laughter is a bitter acknowledgement of his own hopelessness.

Then my friend told me that, oddly, now he is a successful doctor our old acquaintance is “actually a really nice guy, apparently he’s no longer such an arse.”

And in an instance I saw an entire perfect feature film pitch. A man is an arse. He is an irritating, self assured, annoyance who thinks too much of himself and is going to be a brain surgeon. However when instead he finds his career drawn to the study of arses he becomes a nicer human being. By studying arses he stops being one. Ricky Gervais could play him. Or Simon Pegg. “The Arse Doctor”. “Dr.Bum”. “Top to Bottom”.

I’m not going to write it, but as I say, I thought it an interesting working example of the difference between short and feature length narrative. Paralysed by laughter a man is never the less confronted by a realisation of his own short comings – short film. A man who used to be an arse finds redemption through his study of arses – feature film.

Here endeth some sort of lesson.