Writing treatments
It’s important first of all to establish what a treatment is and what it is not. A treatment is not the same thing as a synopsis, for example, which is a condensed version of the plot of a film. It is also different from an outline (see below) which is a diagnostic or development document used by a writer in the course of getting a script onto paper.
A treatment is a selling document. It is used either to generate interest in a script before it is written or to sell it once it is completed.
Treatments should feel like pictures rushing together to form a story in which you can see the characters and hear them speak. A treatment should never read like a synopsis, like dull beats of a plot moving forward, trudging toward a predictable outcome. When you’re reading the pages, however simple, the thrill of the story must be captured.
And how do you do that? You forget that you’re writing a treatment and tell the story like a classic around-the-campfire cliffhanger – as if every event happened before your very eyes and you can’t wait to share it”.
Victoria Wisdom (Agent)
Anyone who writes scripts is going to be faced with the task of writing a treatment at some time. The most common situation is when you have a completed script that you want somebody to read but they ask to see a treatment first. This happens to even established scriptwriters and is a reflection of the commitment required by a reader to give a full-length script proper consideration.
The second situation is when you are pitching an idea for a film to somebody that may be in a position to help you get it made — but you haven’t yet written the script. This is more likely to happen when you have built up some credibility as a scriptwriter and is inevitable if you’re a professional because you can’t afford to write scripts purely on spec if you need to pay your rent and put food on the table.
It is not easy to write a good treatment!
Many writers say they find it harder than writing an actual script. It’s certainly an art form in itself; one with many pitfalls and requires skills that go beyond those normally needed in writing a script. On the plus side: writing, or trying to write, a treatment can be a very useful exercise because it exposes mercilessly any flaws or weaknesses in your story.
To sum it up: writing a treatment is about selling your story as you’re telling it – but without making it too obvious what you’re doing. Getting the balance right is where the art lies.
Making Your Pitch
You should pitch your project to a few trusted friends. If you can’t get them interested in reading your script before you write it, don’t write it”
Alex Epstein, Intermediate Scriptwriting
The ‘live’ counterpart of a treatment is a pitch — an opportunity to give a verbal presentation of your ideas to the person or persons you want to impress.
Here you are relying not just on your words but on your talents as a presenter. Nervewracking as such an experience can be, it’s a good situation to keep at the front of your mind when you’re doing the equivalent on paper.
It’s the way you tell it – or sell it – that counts
Imagine this: you’ve just seen a film you really liked and you’re trying to convince a friend to go and see it too. Do you try to describe it scene by scene, giving a blow by blow account, and communicate your enthusiasm at the same time?
We’ve all probably succumbed to this at some time and the usual result is a glazed eye and a fixed smile from the listener.
Why? Because enthusiasm isn’t enough. Your experience of the film was created by more than just the events; it was made up of many subtleties that are hard to pin down and the more you try to do it, the less convincing you become.
Do you try to describe the characters in the story? Or the highlights of the actors’ performances?
Make references to other films your friend might have seen?
Do you try to summarise the whole film in a few words or sentences that you hope capture the film’s essence or theme?
None of these methods is intrinsically right or wrong, and they are still all used as ways of pitching films, but they can often be hit or miss in terms of achieving your objective: to get somebody to invest in your concept.
If you have unlimited time, of course, that doesn’t matter so much. But if you only have five minutes – or two pages – to do it, then you need to adopt a much more rigorous approach.
In the room
There are some excellent books (see the recommendations below) on the subject of what to do when you ‘get in the room‘ – i.e. achieve that crucial meeting with the person or people who have the power to ‘greenlight’ your project – but most of them can be condensed to a few essential bits of advice:
Know your story inside out. In particular, you should have identified the ‘spine’ of your story, meaning the main storyline, and be thoroughly familiar with that. This should come across as something you have lived with; ideally, something you eat, drink and breathe.
Be able to answer the question “why now?” You will almost inevitably be asked the question: what is it about your idea, your project, that makes it important to get this film made now? This is another way of testing your awareness of audience appeal. If you don’t know – or care – who’s going to pay to see your movie, the chances are nobody will.
Be able to answer the question “why this film?” If your idea is similar to other films that have been made, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Total originality is not only a rare commodity, but it can also actually count against you. But you should be very clear about what makes your film different from all the others. This means that you should, at the very least, be aware of similar movies or movies that belong to the same genre. You don’t need necessarily to come across as a total film geek – but try not to appear completely ignorant of the most obvious comparisons.
Most of all, pitching is something that requires practice and becomes easier the more that you do it. It may be terrifying the first time but after a while, it will still be terrifying (you’ll just get fractionally more used to it).
These examples of live pitches from three film students could easily be graded as ‘not so good’, ‘better’, and ‘best’. It’s apparent from looking at them that presentation skills are equally as important as content.
All film clips can be expanded by clicking the x symbol in the bottom right corner
“Selling Your Script in 60 Seconds” by Michael Hauge (Pub: Michael Weise Productions) Detailed practical advice on pitching, including templates.
“The Pitch” by Eileen Quinn (Faber & Faber) Insider tips from an experienced producer.
Don’t forget to try Bill Meyers Automatic Pitch Generator
The Player 1992
Robert Altman’s mischevious take on Tinseltown includes this credits sequence where a producer is listening to pitches. Although it’s satirical in its tone, it’s a not-that-inaccurate portrayal of the process in which producers are fed ideas – sometimes of the dubious variety.
Treatment formats
A treatment should tell the story clearly but it should not be entirely plot driven. It must retain some of the mood, atmosphere and feel as well. The pace is important. It should be single-spaced and written crisply in the present tense. Use dialogue if it helps – but only for colour and sparingly.
The Scriptment
The scriptment is halfway between a script and a treatment. It contains samples of dialogue, lists of characters and generalised notes on the mood, atmosphere and setting of the story. It can be quite a large document, sometimes as much as 30 pages, so it’s usually only employed by auteur scriptwriters on projects that already have a strong chance of being made. The old Hollywood studios often developed very detailed treatments before going into production.
Someone who frequently uses scriptments is James Cameron ( director of Titanic, Aliens, Spiderman). You can find a sample here.
The Eight Pager
The eight – or twelve – pager is closer to being a synopsis. It’s written in a prose style but employing visual language to preserve its filmic qualities. This is one of the hardest formats to write. Ideally, it should read like a short story or novella that grips the reader through its own literary merits but doesn’t get too far away from being a film. Even if you’re adapting your own story from another medium, you have to keep this constantly in mind. A good example of this format can be found in Michael Hauge’s book “Writing Screenplays That Sell“
The Two Pager
The two pager is a fairly recently introduced format but has now become quite a common requirement. It’s tricky because you can’t be as concise as a one-pager (see below) but you haven’t really got the space to expand that much either. I suspect that this format was adopted to reassure more ‘business orientated’ executives and producers who increasingly run the industry.
One approach is to present your story in a schematised fashion, using sub-headings: i.e. ‘World of the Story’, ‘Set up and characters’, ‘Complications’, ‘Resolution’ etcetera. Be careful not to get too dry with it though.
The One Pager
A one-pager should be in the style of a classic Hollywood pitch; a verbal trailer where the main idea is to whet the reader’s appetite for more.
The most important thing about it is: it fits on one side of A4. The second most important thing: the fewer words and more white space, the better. It has to create interest in the story but to do this it doesn’t have to tell the whole story. A one-pager is designed to let the reader imagine the project and also indicate who the possible audience might be.
Here’s a tip: if you have a promising idea for a script that you’ve been thinking about for a while, and maybe tinkering with; but you don’t have the time to sit down and work out all the details; it’s a very good idea to try and turn it into a one-pager. Not only will it force you to give it a more definite shape, but it will also provide you with something that you can show to a likely prospect.
You’d be surprised how many careers have been launched by a producer saying to a writer: “What else have you got to show me?”
Okay, so what’s an outline?
An outline is something used by a writer in the early stages of script development to pin down ideas and get a sense of story structure.
It is a diagnostic document; written by the writer to help the writer and not usually intended for public consumption.
It can take any form or shape, be any length, and be written on anything from post-it notes to napkins. Some professional writers use big corkboards to lay it all out like crime investigation rooms. Others like to have boxes of file-cards. For technophiles, there is specialised software you can buy.
However you do it, this is what you create at the planning stage. It needs to be very flexible.
One of the commonest ways of getting to grips with a story is by writing a Step Outline. This means breaking a story down into the steps that make up its basic progression. It’s a useful exercise but it’s important to keep it simple. You shouldn’t be thinking yet about scenes, acts or any other structural units. Just concentrate on the story itself:
Step 1: Goldilocks gets lost in the woods
Step 2: She finds the three bears’ house.
Step 3: She goes into the house and finds it empty … and so on.
Using Plot Points
The steps can be as small or large as you feel comfortable with. If it feels like too large a task, a variation on this exercise is to work out the steps between two plot points (a ‘plot point’ is a significant ‘landmark’ in the plot narrative) and focus just on that segment.
For example:
(1) A young girl witnesses the murder of her family. (2) She finds a martial arts master and (3) trains until she is a deadly warrior. (4) She returns and avenges the death of her family.
There are many potential ‘steps’ between each of these plot-points but if we focus just on those between (2) and (3), this might be one possible step progression:
Step 1: She is rescued from bandits by an old man with amazing sword skills.
Step 2: She begs the old man to teach her his skills but he refuses because she is female.
Step 3: She follows the old man and eventually persuades him to relent … and so on.
Writing an outline is most useful as a first stage in the writing process, the thing you need to do to get everything straight in your head before you proceed to write your treatment. Remember, it doesn’t have to be exciting or even readable to anybody else but you – just so long as it helps you and thus performs the function for which it was intended.
You might also enjoy reading this on Chuck Wendig’s blog: “Ten Stupid Writer’s Tricks That Might Actually Work”
David Clough © 2010
Aliens 1986
James Cameron’s sequel to the groundbreaking Alien has the rare distinction of being as good, if not better, than the original. In the short extract here from his long scriptment, you can see him martial his ideas as both a writer and director; sometimes in the form of notes or lists or with snatches of dialogue.
In the draft first script, you can see the same ideas in further development, and the final version (on the clip) shows you where they ended; exposition that needed dialogue, for example, becomes converted to imagery and action – as in the ‘knife scene’.
Mr and Mrs Smith 2005
This action thriller about a husband and wife who are, unbeknownst to each other, rival hitmen was a slick vehicle for its stars and relatively successful. The treatment is what got it made and its slightly unusual format is provided here to show how important it is to try and give a relatively old idea (Prizzi’s Honour anyone?) a fresh spin.
The writer has adopted a format based on an expanded version of the schematic two-pager style but not as long as an eight-pager and adding quite a bit of analysis and description. It is modern – or post-modern – in its approach and ‘industry aware’; selling the concept very much as a marketable product.
David, this is very useful — although writers should be aware that there is not a consensus between what constitutes a treatment, outline and synopsis amongst producers and, to some extent, development people. The best thing for a writer to do “in the room” is establish exactly what the commissioning producer is expecting. It is rarely a step-outline, but almost always a selling document.