PLANNING: FILM TREATMENT

Brainstorm initial ideas:

INITIAL IDEAS

Our production team brainstormed ideas about the plot, the soundtrack, our favourite films / scenes from films, ideas for locations and characters. (Write freely: I can imagine using our dog / garden / school woods / my mother's office....)

We wrote an OUTLINE TREATMENT

.......your ideas.....

MINDMAP

Write a treatment for your film opening. A treatment will normally contain:

• A TITLE that is dynamic and engaging
• The TOPLINE - an 'elegant sentence' that sums up the action
• The BIG QUESTION - what is the cliffhanger? what is the enigma that will unfold?
• The SYNOPSIS - one or two paragraphs outlining the plot
• CHARACTERS - brief introduction: Adam, 35, a dreamy design engineer.... Lucy, 25, a disenchanted doctor... Mary, 18, an idealistic student...

NEXT 

• After writing the treatment, you create a STORYBOARD  (hand drawn on the sheets that I give you)
• and a SHOTLIST

PLANNING: TOPLINE & BIG QUESTION

 

Watch this presentation by Frank Ash then write your own Topline and Big Question for your film opening. You write up a blog post explaining all this. You include a visual from the Frank Ash presentation, explaining who he is and what you learned from the presentation. Your blog post title is PLANNING:  THE TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

For Frank Ash, Creative Consultant who has taught storytelling and creativity techniques to teams across the BBC and beyond, it is important to focus on the audience: what will interest the audience? How will the narrative develop? 

"So, if you’re aiming for your film to reach a large audience online, making sure it has universal appeal will be key"

TOP LINE DEFINITION: Think about your favourite book or film or any ‘good story’ you recently watched online, could you sum up its narrative into ‘one elegant sentence’ to provide its ‘topping’

BIG QUESTION DEFINITION: What was its big story question, and how important was it to your appreciation of the text?"

Having learned from Frank Ash's presentation on FutureLearn, I decided to sign up for FutureLearn's 

Film Distribution: Connecting Films with Audiences

The course promises to cover  how our favourite films make it to our local cinema or television screen, through the film distribution process. The start date is 18 October.