Film Treatment

C

Celine

New member
I know that film treatments are usually longer than a page but I need to write one double space page about the screenplay. It is part of a college application. How would I do this and how do I format it. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
That is not really a 'treatment' (one ds page is just a half page really, a large paragraph, brutally terse). So you are going to summarize your story in half a page, which when double spaced will be one double spaced page.
 
A treatment is the whole movie in as much detail as you can work out. Dialogue not needed. I have one that is 10 pages for an animated Pixar type project, another about 6 pages.
 
A treatment can be anywhere from 1 to 20(+) pages in length, all in active present tense as if you were telling the story to friends around a campfire. Include important dialogue or quotes if it helps sell the idea of the script. That's exactly what a treatment is--a selling tool.
 
vcassel said:
A treatment can be anywhere from 1 to 20(+) pages in length, all in active present tense as if you were telling the story to friends around a campfire. Include important dialogue or quotes if it helps sell the idea of the script. That's exactly what a treatment is--a selling tool.
Click to expand...

Yup. My last treatment was twelve pages long for a ninety minute movie. It also contained a few dialogue quotes as well.
 
What you are looking to create is more of a Summary / Synopsis (broad strokes of the story) than a Treatment (detailed description of every beat / piece of action in the story).

I would try to keep it around 3 paragraphs, with paragraph 1 describe Act 1, paragraphs 2 describing Act 2, and paragraph 3 describing Act 3. Your first and last paragraphs are probably the most important, as Acts 1 and 3 of a story usually containing the important story bits that can be most easily be described briefly.

I would recommend Times font, size 12, justified and 1" margins.
 
OP only has 1/2 page single spaced for her 'treatment', that will be one page double spaced; so no room for four paragraphs unless she uses really small fonts!

But what you recommend is a good idea otherwise, it is exactly what I do for my one page summary when developing a story, one paragraph for each of the four acts (I, IIa, IIb, III).

agcohn said:
...I would try to keep it around 3 paragraphs, with paragraph 1 describe Act 1, paragraphs 2 describing Act 2, and paragraph 3 describing Act 3. Your first and last paragraphs are probably the most important, as Acts 1 and 3 of a story usually containing the important story bits that can be most easily be described briefly.

I would recommend Times font, size 12, justified and 1" margins.
Click to expand...
 
The OP doesn't mention how long the film is. A page double spaced should suffice for a 3-5 minute short. It isn't likely to be much longer than this for a college application. 3 short paragraphs should do it (I compress the I, IIa, IIb, III structure to I, II, III for short works).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top