Hey all - just a couple of thoughts on treatments. How do you guys feel about writing them?
My experience is that sometimes I think they are a nuisance. Instead I just pull out a word document, fill it with bullet points of the beats in the story, and then jump into the screenplay since it's "the fun part-.
Well... I am starting to realize that the best writing I do is when I take serious time out to produce a totally readable, vivid synopsis/treatment of the story. My last one was 20 pages. Maybe it's more like a "scriptment-.
I find that the canvas of a treatment gives me room to start imagining characters, visuals, locations, set ups and payoffs, ideas for scenes. When I limit myself to sparse beat sheets I feel completely entrapped by the lifelessness of the document. It does very little for me.
Another thing I noticed is that a well written treatment is a valid thing to show people in the development process of a project. Of course there are things that don't come through in a treatment - tone, dialogue, pacing. But it is a much clearer picture of the writer's plan than an outline or a beat sheet is. And getting feedback on that treatment seems like a great way of knowing if the screenplay itself is worth pursuing.
I'm team treatment. All the way. That's all
Thoughts?
My experience is that sometimes I think they are a nuisance. Instead I just pull out a word document, fill it with bullet points of the beats in the story, and then jump into the screenplay since it's "the fun part-.
Well... I am starting to realize that the best writing I do is when I take serious time out to produce a totally readable, vivid synopsis/treatment of the story. My last one was 20 pages. Maybe it's more like a "scriptment-.
I find that the canvas of a treatment gives me room to start imagining characters, visuals, locations, set ups and payoffs, ideas for scenes. When I limit myself to sparse beat sheets I feel completely entrapped by the lifelessness of the document. It does very little for me.
Another thing I noticed is that a well written treatment is a valid thing to show people in the development process of a project. Of course there are things that don't come through in a treatment - tone, dialogue, pacing. But it is a much clearer picture of the writer's plan than an outline or a beat sheet is. And getting feedback on that treatment seems like a great way of knowing if the screenplay itself is worth pursuing.
I'm team treatment. All the way. That's all
Thoughts?
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