Treatments

[Generic Skinhead]

OK after all this time this is the one piece of paperwork I'm unsure about. How does it differ from a shotlist? Hope you guys can help!

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Watch your back Mr Jordan!

[deanl]

Hey there.

Im prety sure a treatment is something you would do before you start to write your script. Its a couple of pages telling you whats going to happen in the script no dialog. Just scene to scene what happens in the movie.

I wouldnt start to work on Storyboards or shotlists till Ive finished the script. Then go through the script page by page working out a numbered shotlist. Then put the list in order. Oranising your list into days you have locations and actors available.

Treatments and Shotlists are very different and have very different uses.

Hope this helps.

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"Ive got bad feeling about this."

[miker]

treatments are generally around twenty pages long (no absolute rule there though) and are basically an expanded synopsis of sorts. they can include bits of script to illustrate dialogue, but also some camera directions etc. which is why they differ from a straight forward synopsis of just the story

personally I prefer the 25 words or less approach, plus reading the first twenty pages and last ten pages of the script.

hasn't ANYONE seen The Player yet??!!

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N305UDB M173UBM
(B55VOR)
(WGO963W)

[miker]

oh yeah -- and they are written before the script, usually in an attempt to sell the idea to studios ...

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N305UDB M173UBM
(B55VOR)
(WGO963W)

[Generic Skinhead]

EM THANKS...HOW ABOUT A LAYOUT?


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Watch your back Mr Jordan!

[Thousanth]

Picky, picky.

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My hit list, third draft.
1. Despin Entertainment 2. Kathy S. 3. Skin 4. Chance1234 5. Littlerich 6. miker 7. foolmaster 8. Mods 9. eddie 10. GrizzAdams

[miker]

hmmm ... two or three brads? UK or USA? A4 or Letter? Such dilemma ...

use courier 12pt (10cpi), and make it an interesting read if it's being used to sell an idea. don't include logos or coloured paper or sparkly bits.

please do watch The Player though.

(BTW Altman didn't break into film until he was 45)

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N305UDB M173UBM
(B55VOR)
(WGO963W)

[Generic Skinhead]

What's a brad? its A4. I thought you had columns for shot numbers duration and descriptions and stuff.

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Watch your back Mr Jordan!

[miker]

well maybe, that's the beauty of a treatment -- but it sounds more like something the DoP would do to me, shot lists, camera angles, scene numbers ...

I've only ever seen one 'real' treatment and that was a copy of the one for Cameron's Aliens ... basically it was around 40 pages of abridged script (but before the script was written obviously), the format being mostly narrative with a few bits of dialogue chucked in and an occasional mention of trucking, tracking, crane etc ..

it was American so it was Letter and three brads (those are the things that hold all the pages together BTW)

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N305UDB M173UBM
(B55VOR)
(WGO963W)

have a look here: http://www.communicator.com/mini-faq.html


[This message has been edited by miker (edited December 02, 2001).]

[BuBu]

'Scriptwriting for Film and Television' has a wonderful section on treatments.

Basically they tell the story in 'story' format. I personally wouldn't make it twenty pages long as the idea is that they say what happens in the script in short.

I would format it like a short story, with a heading and then just tell plot as it happens in your script. You could also include pieces of script but again it's to save the producers from reading the script so i wouldn't reccommend it. If you are writng a treatment for a short it may be no longer than a paragraph.

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