Writing a good treatment is essential for being able to get people interested in your films. Be it for investing their money or maybe even just time. It's something that a person can look at to get a good sense of what your film is about. It should grip the reader and inform them of specific elements of your film.

Below I have included a treatment from a film I made four years ago. It’s a film that won the ‘War of Films’ competition right here on Film Annex shortly after I made it. So here it is. 

TITLE: Ready or Not by

DETAILS: Mark Kuczewski

TAGLINE: What would you do if you were one of the last people left alive? 

SYNOPSYS: We open with empty shots of London; no one is around, only an eerie silence. Amongst the silence is a single person creeping through the city streets. His name is Chris. He slowly wanders through the city, his eyes scanning the surroundings. We quickly cut between another character sprinting towards him.

Chris sees the man sprinting at him and runs. Caught in an intense chase, Chris looks for somewhere to hide. He heads into an office block and darts into an elevator.

He hits the buttons almost at random. The doors begin to close but he can hear the noise of the man getting closer. He sees the shadow of the man just before the doors close. The man reaches out but the doors close and for now Chris is safe. There is surprisingly calm music in the elevator, which creates a humorous moment.

As Chris exits the lift he is quite and cautious, quickly looking for somewhere to hide. He hears the elevator being called back down, so finds a small desk to crouch behind.

As the elevator opens, the man storms out looking around the office. Chris is breathing heavy and nervously moves back. As he does this, he accidentally hits the button on the computer. The noise alerts then man; he heads over to where Chris was hiding and peers over the desk but Chris has gone.

We cut to Chris bursting out of a door frantically running down the stairs closely followed by the man. Chris exits out of the building, tired and with not much energy left he makes a last minute attempt to ditch the man and escapes down a nearby alley.

Unknown to Chris, the alley is a dead end. With nowhere left to run, he turns around to accept his fate. As the man aggressively paces, Chris, arms stretched out, touches him and says “You're it”.

Chris turns back around now with a smile on his face, he closes his eyes and begins to count. Realising this, the man turns around and runs off.

CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

Chris: Chris is in his late twenties; he uses to work in an office before the whole world-ending thing happened. Now his main interest, being one of the last people left alive is at remain that way. No longer bound by the shackles of his boring job what will he do with his free time?

Cash (the man): Not much is known about him, he came to London after the end happened. He was alone for a while before finding Chris; he is strong and dedicated to survival but like most struggles to find things to keep him active.

See the original treatment below:

So this was the treatment for my film, the main things I would suggest to include are:

1. TITLE: The working title, it does not have to be final but every film needs a title even if its not the one you end up going with.
2. INFORMATION: This could be your name, email, phone, address, webpage and any social networking you wish.
3. TAGLINE: This is to grab the attention of the reader. It’s a short way to introduce your film to someone and to attract them to read the rest of it.
4. SYNOPSYS: It should have all the information and plot points to your story. The introduction, conflict and the resolution. You could break it down in to brief sentences that summarise your acts then have a more story like synopsis below.
5. CHARACTER BREAKDOWN: This should just be a couple of sentences to give an idea of each character in your film.
6. STYLE: I like to make my treatments visual as well as informative; it could help to get across the style of your film to the reader. As you can see I wrote about visual style. If your film is heavily reliant on style this is something you could add in.

Over all don’t add in to much information, it should be easy to read and tell the reader everything they need to know to understand your film.

So now you can watch the outcome below in Ready or Not, Hope you enjoy.