Write a 500-word treatment of your proposed idea for a short script OR a proposal for a short documentary.
A treatment is an account in present-tense prose of what the viewer will see and hear in your film.
It should include:
- what is happening
- to whom it is happening
- where it is happening (location)
- when it is happening (year, season, time of day)
The account should be sequential – tell us what happens in the order in which the viewer will see it. As in a script, don’t tell us things we can’t see or hear (such as backstory, or what a character is thinking) and don’t specify camera angles or other directorial techniques. Occasionally it may be necessary to give odd lines of dialogue, if these are necessary to the plot, but a treatment should not include casual dialogue.
A documentary proposal is an outline of your idea for a documentary and the steps that you would take in order to make it.
It should include:
- a description of the subject, and why it is interesting to an audience
- an idea of the techniques and modes you will be using
- a description of what you will be filming and potential scenes
- a sense of the possible story (inevitably, this may change)