Film Treatment tips!
How to write a film treatment
First, you’re asking what is a film treatment? A treatment is a basic narrative tool that
helps a screenwriter flesh out ideas and potential story scenarios that can
help you also develop a good character base.
What this basically means is that you create the narrative
of your story first before you spend all your time writing the actual movie
script. A film treatment outlines what your film will be about, the working or final title, your logline, a short story summary, and the
descriptions of your main characters in the story itself.
You need a film treatment to entice investors to give you
the money to make your film. These investors want to know what type of movie,
the genre, the story concept, and what kind of characters you want to have in
your movie. Here is what they want to see in your treatment:
What kind of world do you want your audience to envision.
What is the structure of your storyline?
What are your plot points and is there any missing parts to
your story?
Overall fleshed-out character biographies and the
importance of each character
This film treatment is basically your roadmap to the journey
of your film.
Basically, you’re writing the following in your film
treatment:
1)
What’s your title?
2)
What’s your logline – the short sentence that gives
a person a basic idea of the story.
3)
What’s your plot summary? This would be a short
summary that breaks down your story and plot scenario and the objective of your
main characters.
4)
Who are your key characters? What’s the
objective of your main characters – protagonist and antagonist argument of the
story and what will the arch be for your character development within the
storyline.
Once you’ve gathered all the above information, start to
write your treatment:
1)
Title page this should be the object of your
storyline and give you the essence of the movie’s story itself. Titles should
be original in nature and not close to any other movie title so there is no
confusion.
2)
The logline is your brief sentence that gives
your general premise of the movie. This also shows who your protagonist is and
what objective they are up against.
3)
Then you’ve got the summary of your storyline.
This is where you establish your genre, the theme, the tone, and the relevant background
to the story.
4)
Who are your main characters and their relevance
to the story. Also, who are your characters and why are you including them in
the story, what is their purpose to the story?
5)
Then begin how your story begins, the action of
the story, the arc of the story, the lessons learned by your character, have
they found their answer to their problem in the story, then the conclusion to
the story, how does it end.
Elizabeth Kilbride is a Writer and Editor with forty years of
experience in writing with 12 of those years in the online content sphere.
Graduating with an Associate of Arts from Pheonix University in Business
Management, then a degree in Mass Communication and Cyber Analysis from Phoenix
University, then on to Walden University for her master’s in criminology with
emphasis on Cybercrime and Identity Theft and is currently studying for her
Ph.D. degree in Criminology, her work portfolio includes coverage of politics,
current affairs, elections, history, and true crime. In her spare time,
Elizabeth is also a gourmet cook, life coach, and avid artist, proficient in
watercolor, acrylic, pen and ink, Gouache, and pastels. As a political
operative having worked on over 300 campaigns during her career, Elizabeth has
turned many life events into books and movie scripts while using history to
weave interesting storylines. She also runs 6 blogs that range from art to life
coaching, to food, to writing, and opinion or history pieces each week.
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