Film Treatment Research

Now having decided on the plot for our film, we have been asked to write a 'film treatment' for it. In order to do this successfully, it would seem adequate research into the subject wouldn't do us any harm. By typing 'Film Treatments' into a search engine (in our case Google) we were given the following description:

'A film treatment is a detailed description of the events that will take place in your film. It reads like a novel set in the present tense,  though it pays intense precision to detail so that what you read is exactly what it will look like on screen.
There are usually two treatments written for the film; an original draft idea, and then a final treatment. The latter is produced after first presenting the original treatment for evaluation from investors, etc. Then taking what criticisms are put forth, the final treatment corrects what was wrong with the original.'

Also, it would seem there are several conventions of treatment writing, they are:-

• Font- Courier. If any other font is used the treatment will not be read.
• Font Size- 12.
• Average about 40 pages long for a full film.
• Present tense.

So now that we understand what a film treatment is, we felt it necessary to take a look at some actual treatments from famous movies. We specifically looked at James Cameron and two of his most successful films; 'The Terminator' and 'AVATAR'. Unfortunately, I was unable to embed the treatment of 'The Terminator' into my blog, so I have instead posted a link, which will take you directly to the web page displaying the film treatment.

http://acreativemoment.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/terminator.pdf