From Wikipedia:
A film treatment (or treatment for short) is a piece of prose. They read like a short story, except told in the present tense and describing events as they happen.
Firstly, I have researched on the internet how to correctly write a film treatment. From Light Film School I have found the following:
A film treatment states how the audience will experience the film. It's important to write treatments in an active voice and avoid the use of hyperbole (such as "this unique film will explore" etc). When writing treatments you want your audience to be able to visualize your film. You will want to write in present tense and provide an overview of the characters, locations and details of the film. You can write your treatment creatively. The purpose of a treatment is to allow your audience to smell, taste and experience your environment. Reading a treatment (second only to reading a full script) is the closest written equivalent to the look of your film.
Similarly, you won't want your treatment to have an editorial tone. Rather than saying things like:
This film will dive into the subject of gender relations in the hip hop community. The flm will focus on the relationship between two nemeses; Mr. Bugz and Mrs DJ Spinna.
Instead say:
"Mr. Bugz B and Mrs DJ Spinna stand toe to toe in front of their microphones. Mr. Bugz rhymes and misogynistic rhyme stating "we don't want no ugly girls in here tonight" to which Mrs DJ Spinna retaliates with a rhyme mocking Mr. Bugs unusually large ears. The crowd goes wild. Mr Bugz continues, but with less steam. The insult has touched on a vulnerable part of his identity."
Again, it's important to stress that you need to avoid editorial writing when writing treatments and instead speak in an active and present voice. Similarly, you should avoid using words and phrases like
"Next we see" - Don't start sentences with "we see". Tell the audience what they see without introducing your sentence with "we see".
Try to avoid passive words such as: Should, will, might and maybe.
Passive words evoke less emotion and take the audience out of the story. Feel free to use dialogue snippets, descriptions of the environment and characters. Essentially use any non-technical element that helps you paint as colourful of a picture as possible.
This tells me that I should write the treatment as if I were writing a story and explaining a scene in great detail to someone. I should avoid telling them what they will see or what should be on screen, instead I should be informing them of what is happening right at that moment in time.
John Furse has written on his webiste detailed information in how to structure and write a film treatment, including an example of one. From what I have read, I have determined that I should include an introduction, with a brief overview of what is going to happen over the course of the film (or in the case of my treatment, the opening two minutes of the movie), followed by the full length treatment, written as prose in present tense, in a tone that describes exactly what can be seen in order to paint a vivid picture in the mind of the reader, almost with a sense of intensity and urgency. Characters names should also be in capital letters.
Using this information, as well as the treatment for the feature film 'Terminator' that I have included at the end of this post, we shall now start to write the first-draft of our treatment and then present it to our peers for review and feedback. Following this, we shall edit it and write our final treatment. I shall upload both to this blog, so please feel free to read them and comment as any help and advice would be very helpful and greatly appreciated.
Terminator Treatment
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