How to Write a Film Treatment

A treatment is your film told scene by scene in present-tense prose. A synopsis sums up what happens in a paragraph; a treatment shows the whole flow in order: who does what in which scene, how the scene ends, how it leads into the next. No dialogue. Length: 1–3 pages for a short film, 8–20 for a feature.

What is it for?

The treatment is the step between synopsis and screenplay, and it's where structural problems are cheapest to fix: reordering scenes in a treatment means moving a paragraph, in a screenplay it's three days' work. It's also often requested in funding applications and production packages.

The rules

Present tense, third person: "Cemal raises the shutter."
No dialogue. If a conversation is critical, it appears as action: "he can't tell his son he works at the supermarket".
No inner thoughts — write what the camera can see.
Each paragraph is a scene: where, who, what happens, how it ends.
The ending is written. A treatment doesn't keep you guessing; it shows the flow.

Sample treatment (the first two scenes)

Cemal the butcher opens his shop at seven in the morning. He wipes the glass of the empty counter, dusts his scales, sharpens his knife. He looks across through the window: on the far side of the pavement, the window of a giant supermarket, with a poster on it — "Opening in two days".

At noon a single customer comes in. An old woman asks for two hundred grams of mince; when the scales show twenty grams too many, Cemal takes the extra back. On her way out she says "they're opening on Friday". Cemal doesn't answer.

Checklist

Is it written in the present tense?
Action instead of dialogue?
Does each paragraph tell a single scene?
Have inner thoughts and explanations of feelings been cleaned out?
Is the ending written (not hidden)?
Is the scene order the film's real order?

Download as Word and PDF

Open the Word version and write straight over it; the PDF looks the same on every device and prints as it is.

Treatment template + exampleScene-by-scene prose: the rules, a sample treatment and a five-part blank template.Word (.docx)PDF

Synopsis template + exampleWhat a short synopsis is, a complete example and a blank template to fill in.Word (.docx)PDF

Frequently asked questions

How many pages is a treatment?

1–3 pages for a short film, usually 8–20 for a feature. Some funding applications set a limit; if there are guidelines, follow them.

Do you write dialogue in a treatment?

No. A treatment isn't a book of lines. If a conversation is critical to the story, it appears as an event: "he admits he's in debt". At most, one key line can be quoted.

Which comes first, synopsis or treatment?

The usual order is logline → synopsis → treatment → screenplay. Each step grows the one before; you fix structure most cheaply in the treatment.

Start writing your story

You can try it without an account; you'll need one to save and download what you write.