FILMandMOVIEmaking.com

This is how I start my treatment thinking. I need to answer these first six questions first.

1. Who
2. What
3. Where
4. When
5. Why
6. How

Then I need a rough plan of what happens in the story.

Start
The middle
The ending

All stories have a three phase plan if they’re told properly, but who says you have to tell them properly? Look at any story you know. Does it have a start, a middle and an end?
Industry experts will explain their ten part plan, the 22 part plan and the 18 part plan. Many are now talking about the four part plan.

I’ll map out the possible number of scenes and start entering the first words as a guide sheet. In this ten minute film I’ll be guessing that I’ll have just a ten page script using the standard of one page equals a minute of time on the screen.

1. ACT 1 start Intro setting & introducing the hero?
Opening titles
2. What must happen here to grip attention?
3. ACT 2 middle part Describing the problem
4. Go into detail
5. What went wrong
6. Surprise
7. Serious problem
8. Something happens
9. ACT 3 final resolution
What I want to see on the screen now
10. End titles
Music choice

Once I have a few ideas here I’ll move on to ‘fleshing out’ those ten pages into a full treatment. This might only be one page long, but will be more detailed. Then my treatment will be ready; well the first draft anyway.