How to Write a Film Treatment

What is a treatment?

A treatment is a prose telling of a film, in the present tense, from opening image to final scene. It reads like a short story: what happens, in order, with the tone and the key turns — but without screenplay formatting and without more than an occasional line of dialogue.

Writers use treatments for two different reasons, and the reason decides how you write one:

• To pitch. A producer or executive wants to see the whole story before committing. Short, vivid, ending included.
• To develop. A private working document to find the story's shape before drafting. As long and messy as it needs to be.

What goes in

1. Title and logline at the top. If you have not written the logline yet, do that first.
2. The world and the protagonist — who they are when we meet them, and what is wrong in their life.
3. The inciting incident and the decision it forces.
4. The major turns — the act breaks, the midpoint, the low point.
5. The climax and the ending. All of it. Producers need to know the story lands.
6. Tone, carried in the writing rather than announced. A comedy treatment should be funny to read.

A structure that works

A pitch treatment of three to five pages often falls into four movements:

• Opening (half a page): the world, the protagonist, the inciting incident.
• First half (one to one and a half pages): the hero commits, the first obstacles, the midpoint shift.
• Second half (one to one and a half pages): escalation, the low point, the turn towards the climax.
• Ending (half a page): the climax, the resolution, the final image.

Keep it in the present tense, in plain prose, with paragraphs that each move the story forward. Use character names in capitals the first time they appear, as you would in a script.

Treatment, synopsis, scriptment

Mistakes that sink treatments

• Withholding the ending to keep the reader curious. They will assume you do not know it.
• Writing a list of scenes. A treatment should read as story, with cause and effect between events — "because", not "and then".
• Explaining the theme. Show what happens; the reader will find the meaning.
• Camera directions. Leave the shots to the director, here and in the script.

Protecting it before you send it

A treatment is often the first time a story leaves your hands. Registering or dating it before you send it is common practice. ScenePaper's Pitch Room keeps the logline, synopsis and treatment together and seals a version with an independent timestamp, so you have a dated record of exactly what you sent and when. When you are ready for pages, see Screenplay Format: The Complete Guide.