FILM TREATMENT 101

When you’re trying to create a successful film, there are many different stages you have to go through. You need to find your story, your characters, the setting and, of course, the dialogue. Struggling to begin and want a tip on how to get started? Whether your magnum opus is a drama or a romance, an action-filled superhero extravaganza or a comedy, kick off the process by writing a film treatment.

What Is a Film Treatment?

Put simply, it’s a short document that presents the story of your film, outlining the plot and giving a description of the characters.

It can be useful to prep a film treatment before you start writing your script, to map out what’s going to happen and break it down into manageable chunks – not to mention turbo-charging your creative process.

Film treatments are also used to pitch your film to producers, studio execs and potential financiers, directors or actors.

Why Do You Need a Film Treatment?

You need to know how to pitch your film effectively – not only to studio execs, but also to a potential audience. The more you can hone your film at this stage, the easier the writing – and selling – process will be. So, you need something amazing to seal that deal!

Once you’ve figured out how to communicate your passion and vision through the short form of the film treatment, then it’s easier to work out how to tell that story – and for a director to be inspired to turn it into a reality.

It’s also a great way to identify what elements your story needs to make it work. Some of the key points to bear in mind are:

• How to set up the world of your film
• Lay out your story structure
• Create the characters in detail

As you work through these points, you may also find that there are characters that are either unnecessary or, conversely, should play a bigger part in the story than you originally thought. And you can potentially identify plot holes, or story arcs that need more development.

Your film treatment can also be used as:

• • A reference for a screenwriter to give a framework for the full script
  • A detailed summary to share a plan for the script, prior to it actually being written
  • A deconstructed summary of an already-written script, distilling it down and simplifying it
  • A way of ‘stress-testing’ plots, characters or scenes before writing a draft

Writing a Film Treatment

When it comes to how to write a film treatment, there are some key things which you need – such as a title, a log line and a description of the action – and some which are down to you, like how long your treatment is.

Here are the ‘must-have’ elements:

• • • Title
    • Logline – this is your story, summed up in one or two lines
    • Characters – give a description of the main characters – this is your chance to make the reader fall in love with/be wowed by them…
    • Summaries of all three acts, including plot points and characters
    • The important scenes and sequences – capture the ‘big moments’
    • Convey the tone of your project

And, of course, don’t forget to include your name and contact details!

How Long Is a Film Treatment?

Some scriptwriters will produce a single page, some will run to fifty pages or more – the short answer is, there’s no set length! However long it is, though, the treatment should be your story, broken down into an easy to follow document that grabs the reader’s attention. It needs to be long enough to cover all the relevant points and convey the story, whilst also being snappy and engaging.

If you’re writing for a reader at a production company or studio, then ask them what level of detail they’re looking for and a specified page length. As a rough guide, a quick read is 1-10 pages, a fairly detailed treatment is 10-20 pages, and a full, bells-and-whistles one runs to 20+ pages. James Cameron is known for writing ‘scriptments’ that are 70 pages or more. But then, Cameron’s Titanic clocked in at an epic three hours thirty minutes, and Avatar was two and three quarter hours – there’s a lot of ground to cover. But honestly? There’s only one James Cameron, and he’s already one of the world’s biggest directors. Remember, for pretty much all of us, time is money – keep it a reasonable length, and leave ’em wanting more.

How to Write a Treatment

Right, let’s get down to how to put together something that not only snags your reader, but also helps you to organize your vision.

The key thing is that it’s written in prose – in a style that evokes the tone of your film - and is a synopsis, with action and possibly some snippets of dialogue. It’s written in the present tense, describing events as they happen.

Here’s a ‘starter for 10’ way to write a film treatment:

• • • The title
    • The logline – your one or two sentence summary which sets out the plot, the central conflict and the main characters’ goals
    • An explanation of the first act. What’s the film about? Where’s it set? Who are the main characters and what are their motivations? Is the tone of the film funny or tragic, action-packed or romantic? What’s the ‘inciting incident’ (the thing that sets the story in motion)? What are the stakes – either physical or emotional?
    • Act two – aka ‘the conflict’ – what brings your characters together, or breaks them apart? They start going through big changes as a result of what’s happening. How, and why are they changing?
    • Explaining Act three – your characters confront their problems. How do they get out of a situation – or not? How does the story come together and what’s the resolution?
    • The wrap up – what happens at the very end? Where are we leaving the characters? Could there be… a sequel?

What’s the best way to keep people reading? Make sure that the emotional beats are heightened. Those romantic highs? You want to feel butterflies in your stomach, or as though no-one’s ever been in love quite like this before. Crushing lows? They need to be devastating.

And some don’ts? Don’t be too specific – especially don’t hang your ideas on a particular actor’s looks or style – there’s no guarantee that they’d be available for the project.

If your movie has a twist in it, then don’t reveal it in your treatment until the point where the audience finds out. If you knew Bruce Willis’s character in The Sixth Sense was dead on page one, would you have been excited about how the story played out? Your reader needs to experience your story the same way an audience would.

Film Treatment Template

There’s a range of existing film treatments online, which are great for research. Find your favourite films and see what story beats they included or left out in their treatment – not to mention how the original treatment differs from the finished film.

You can divide your treatment into sections, such as Theme, Concept, Characters and Synopsis – which can be useful if your reader wants to quickly skim your treatment, or pick and choose which sections they want to read.

Looking for a film treatment template? Try this one from StudioBinder.

Here are some film treatments which demonstrate different approaches:

1. Aliens (Aka ‘Alien II’)

This treatment, by David Giles, Walter Hill and James Cameron, demonstrates the ‘scriptment’ route – albeit at a more manageable 46 pages.

2. Mr and Mrs Smith

Simon Kinberg’s treatment kicks off with a classically hooky ‘high concept’ logline:

Mr and Mrs Smith is a sexy, stylized action-comedy that’s a duel to the death between the world’s top two assassins… who happen to be husband and wife, hired to kill each other.

You definitely want to know more about that set up.

This treatment clearly shows how to execute a more straightforward Overview/Character/Story treatment structure.

3. Godzilla

This treatment features headings, like a novel’s chapter headings, making it super easy for an exec to skim it: you can read the whole story just by reading those. What’s happening to Godzilla? He’s ON THE MOVE and CAPTURED. It’s clear enough to get the story across, but there’s plenty of detail missing, so that you still want the full story from a finished script.

Need to create a short film treatment? Follow all the steps above; the principle is the same, no matter what the length of your film. Just remember to keep it super snappy!

Documentary Film Treatments

A documentary film treatment will be between one and ten pages long and should summarise your project’s essentials: the topic, the budget, where filming will take place and who’s involved. It’s your who, when, where, what, why and how.

It’s similar to the treatments above, in that you need a logline to introduce it and grab the reader’s attention. The proposal then details the scope of the project, the filming schedule, proposed budget and the production plan. As with a film treatment, you’ll need to include a synopsis of what the documentary is about, and who is involved – such as the film-maker and photographer. You’ll also need a list of participants, for example, who you’ll be interviewing – and where the interviews will take place, depending on the nature of your story.

Documentary director and producer Nina Rosenblum takes you through the three act structure of documentary-making and how to create a highly effective treatment in this video:

A documentary treatment is useful to map out which scenes you’ll need to shoot, and to help you to craft a compelling story, as well as identifying how it appeals to an audience (and what that audience might be.)

An effective documentary treatment needs to make the story come alive - describe your prospective situations, people and characters in vivid detail, with both narrative and visual descriptions. Plus, you need to capture the personal elements of the story – or where the drama will come from in, for example, a nature documentary. Is it the fight to survive in a hostile environment? The change in seasons and how that affects the wildlife you’re focusing on? Or perhaps a heartwarming tale of one particular animal group, showcasing the different generations. Keep your focus on the story – you don’t need to include shot lists at this stage.

Want a bit more guidance? Ira Gardner covers creating your documentary film treatment in this video (from around 2 minutes in), with examples to help you.

So, now you know how to nail your film treatment, what else might you need? We’ve got a whole range of expert advice, from camera shots to video editing software. And, of course, there’s all the music you could possibly want, from intro music to playlists for every style, mood or production genre. Plus, we refresh our playlists every fortnight, so you’ll never run out of options or inspiration.