Treatment
Definition
A treatment is your film's scene-by-scene prose narration, written in the present tense ("Cemal raises the shutter", not "is raising"). A synopsis sums up "what happens" in one paragraph; a treatment shows the whole flow of the film in order: who does what in which scene, what the scene ends on, how it connects to the next. Dialogue isn't written — but if there's a critical line, it's mentioned in a single sentence. Length: 1-3 pages for a short film, 8-20 pages for a feature.
When is it used?
Between the synopsis and the screenplay. Structural problems are cheapest to fix here: changing the order of scenes is moving a paragraph in a treatment, and three days' work in a screenplay. It's also asked for in funding applications and producers' files.
Example
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 other side of the pavement, the display window of a giant supermarket, with a poster over it: "opening in two days".
At noon a single customer comes. An old woman asks for two hundred grams of mince; when the scales show twenty grams over, Cemal takes the extra back. The woman says "they say it opens on Friday"; Cemal doesn't answer.
In the late afternoon his son Emre comes. Cemal tells him there's no work; Emre starts wiping the glass anyway. Towards evening Cemal calls his son over to the scales and teaches him that the empty pan has to read zero: weigh wrong once and nobody comes back. Just then, the blue vest of the supermarket across the street hangs out of Emre's bag.
Cemal sees it but doesn't react. He only asks how much they're paying. Emre tries to say he'll work three months and come back; Cemal cuts him off, tells him he wiped the glass well, and takes off his apron.
At night, as the shutter comes down, Emre asks whether he should come tomorrow. Cemal only says "I open at seven in the morning." They part. Cemal goes back, finds the vest his son forgot in the dark shop, folds it and puts it in the drawer where his knives are kept. The scales are empty; in the dark they read zero.
Common mistakes
✖ Writing dialogue: A treatment isn't a book of lines. Talk only appears as an action, like "he can't tell his father he works at the supermarket." ✖ Past tense and inner thoughts: "Cemal was sad, he was thinking about his son." A treatment, like a film, is written in the present tense and in what can be seen. ✖ Summary instead of scene: "The tension between father and son grows." In which scene, who does what? A treatment shows the flow; it doesn't describe the feeling. ✖ Hiding the ending: A synopsis may leave curiosity; a treatment doesn't — everything is written, the ending included.
Related lesson
🎓 The full teaching of the treatment: Chapter 13 — Treatment (13.1-13.6). Its foundation: 2.5 Logline.
Related content
📖 Short Synopsis (the one-paragraph version) · Logline (the one-sentence version)
BLANK TREATMENT TEMPLATE
TITLE OF THE FILM
Treatment · [date] · [writer]
Logline: ..............................................
1. OPENING
[Who, where, inside what order? The film's world and
the hero's normal — present tense, visible.]
2. THE BREAK
[The event that upsets this order. What does the hero
lose, what do they start to want?]
3. THE CLIMB
[Scene by scene: what is each attempt, what comes up
against them, what cost do they pay? Every paragraph
is one scene.]
4. THE LOWEST POINT
[The moment they lose the last thing they had.]
5. THE FINALE
[The decision and its outcome. What does the hero do,
how does the world change? Write the ending — don't
hide it.]
Check: □ Present tense □ No dialogue □ Every paragraph
one scene □ No inner thoughts □ Ending written
Writing Documents — more from this shelf
How do you boil your idea down to one sentence?
The lessons for this topic are in Chapter 2 · The Core of the Story — Idea, subject, theme, premise and logline.