“Treatment” is one out of 3 projects(which actually is one project). The others are Storyboard and 2D Animatic. What is a “treatment”? It is probably one of the quickest and shortest way to pitch an idea for a film or scene. It can also be a great tool for planning how to film a scene and what effects to use.A treatment is essentially the present tense, short story version of a script or proposal. Or, put another way, it’s the condensed version of a film or TV production. It covers the basic story and themes and introduces the main characters and locations. Treatments cover the story from beginning to end, focusing on the most pivotal scenes. They also include dialogue that is in (or will be in) the script. In general, a treatment will run from 1 to 25 (or more) pages. Here is my example I am using for my current project:
” NO SCRUPLES”
A baby BOY is born in a hospital. Peculiar behaviour(«Mr Burns» hand gestures) is noticed, but thought cute by an exhausted mother and father.The FATHER is a businessman, always wearing a suit and tie, always keeping up with the latest business news even late at night watching TV in the livingroom.The MOTHER walks into the boy’s room, now about 6 years old, tries to hide what he’s doing on the floor. She wants to see what he’s doing. It appears he had drawn a picture of his mother smiling. Mother smiles, pets his hair and leaves the room. The boy is always by himself in class and lunches, always drawing. He doesn’t try to be popular, or draw too much attention to himself. His father’s business seems to be booming, always talking on the cellphone smiling. The parents gives the boy some money, then he empties the biggybank in his room. Later the boy comes out of a«store» with a lollipop in his mouth, clearly pleased with his purchase.
Then we see into the future, the once little boy is now graduating. His father is not present, his chair is empty, because he’s back at the office struggling with his business. He seems desperate and angered. He slams the phone down and proceeds to clean his desk with his fists. Has papers that says «file for bancruptcy» The boy, now dressed in a tight suit, bursting with self confidence, walks out of the same «store» we saw earlier, only this time he is carrying a briefcase. He then proceedes to enter a limozine waiting for him outside. As the limozine drives off, it reveals the name of the store, which is the company his father worked for. Then suddenly we see a backflash of the earlier events, but from different perspectives that show us what really happened and what has been taking place all this time.
We go back to the boy’s birth, we again see the hand gestures, which shows the baby boy’s evil intent from the beginning. While his father was staying up late, watching TV, the boy was watching and paying attention from the crib in his room, through a slightly opened door. The time his mother wanted to see his drawing,under the drawing were calculations and business estimates. The drawing of his mother was a cleverly placed decoy. All this time when he appearantly was sitting by himself drawing, he was actually calculating his own future profits. When the boy emptied his piggybank and went to the «store», we now see him enter it, which bears the same name as the business as the one his father worked for. There he buys stocks from a negligent older lady reading the paper. The lollipop was only complimentary candy in a basket.
Now we see the boy turned into the grown suited man, receiving a briefcase full of cash, after which he takes a lollipop from the basket, puts it into his mouth, winks at the new younger lady who blushes, then he leaves and closes the door behind him. THE END
And here’s the sketches I drew. I will redo these for the 2D Animatic, but this was helpful while writing the treatment.
Storyboard
