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EntertainmentIndustry.name
There are diagnostic treatments and there are marketing treatments.
A diagnostic treatment might be a working document that no one but the writer ever sees or that is used as a constantly evolving development tool to make sure that everyone involved in the development process (the producers, director, star, etc.) are all on the same page as they work together to nail the story down before sending the screenwriter off to flesh out the entire script.
The writer of an adaptation may use a treatment to break down a novel or a true-life story to try to see the forest from the trees — what to include, what to river stone skip over. How to find the through line and best organize the moving picture blueprint.
We discussed how coverage might be cranked out by tired, unpaid non-writers just trying to plow through a stack. Far better for a professional writer to take it upon him or herself to synopsize their own project by creating a “one-sheet” or a “leave-behind” to help market the script in his or her absence (and notoriously, in the absence of anyone actually reading the script itself). This way, if the writer isn’t given the luxury of pitching his own material (or is awful at it — or can’t make every pitch the whole way up the ladder), this “written pitch” is the next best thing. It may even serve to prompt the development exec pitch to his or her boss.
A “synopsis” is a term used in the entertainment industry to indicate a matter-of-fact summation of a story's plotline, somewhat like our Cliff Note coverage version. The synopsis' purpose is to describe, plot point by plot point, the treatment's purpose is to sell.
“Coverage” is the industry term used to describe the descriptive document written by story analysts or readers for executives. (See the section on coverage). Coverage objectively relates the story gives an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the script — very different than what the original writer would create to represent his or her work.
An outline can be thought of as a skeleton treatment. Some people refer to these as “beat” outlines with each beat being a scene or a sequence or master scene detailing movement in the script. Where a treatment may contain dialogue, the outline is simply a bulleted list of moments.
If you have a good writing sample and an excellent treatment, you may be able to sell — or get hired to write — your treatment concept off the strength of the treatment. As writers mature in their careers, treatments can be ways of protecting their ideas and saving themselves from writing entire screenplays speculatively.
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