Give yourself the best chance of winning the Design or Animation project with these guidelines
The title and introduction
The first thing you’ll type in any treatment is the project name, so it’s highly recommended to make sure this part is correct. When summarizing, it’s always a good idea to take as detailed notes as possible about all aspects of the project, including the people involved, keywords, reference material, technicalities or limitations, audio preferences, and project job titles. These notes will help you put the basics into a treatment and show your fuller understanding of the brief, such as the correct title or the keywords the client struggled with to describe the project.
Once you have a clean front page with the client name, project name, and any subheadings, you’re ready to add your first and most important body copy, introduction, or focus.
The introduction, outline, premise or focus of a treatment is a vital and concise paragraph of 2 or 3 lines, which clearly tells the reader what they are about to read and the reason for reading it. Ideally, this paragraph will ‘pull in’ the reader immediately and make them want to read the rest of the document.
The writing style
The use of descriptive language is an important part of the art of all writing, not least with treatments, where you ideally need to squeeze all the information onto one or two sides of A4 paper to paint a clear picture in readers’ minds of exactly how they can expect the final movie or animation to be seen.
When describing your concept, try to use a flowing and elegant phrase while being descriptive and to the point. A wide use of vocabulary will keep the reader interested and their brain visualizing the result.
For example, the summary is for the title sequence of a television crime drama, and the director wants the style of the title sequence to reflect the period, atmosphere, and theme of the script. The director can use quite descriptive words in a short space like, dark or creepy, be sure to reuse these words in your treatment and add a few of your own to further embellish. For example; Dark ominous blackness, or a chilling, chilling ending.
Try not to repeat the same word too many times and think of alternative ways to describe the same or similar part of the project. For example; When you mention a transition effect in the animation or movie, try to find new ways to write about that effect.
Your brand
Make sure your business, company, or studio logo and branding are clearly marked on the front of the treatment, as well as in the body of the treatment to ensure everyone who reads it knows where it is from and who wrote it. It will also help ensure that your ideas remain your own and are not borrowed by anyone else. Another consideration is to flatten your document to ensure that the logo and graphics display correctly and that no one can edit your treatment or take paragraphs to reuse in another document. Saving your MS Word or other word processing document as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file is an ideal way to accomplish this.
The concept
This is the main body of the text where you can develop the idea in more detail. It’s important to make sure this paragraph is easy to read and to the point. Use this part of the treatment as a way to quickly describe the rest of the information you eloquently mentioned in your Introduction. Try to keep sentences short with enough space around them so they are easily absorbed. Allow the sentences to flow together easily to ensure the reader doesn’t get lost in the middle, it’s vital that your idea makes sense from start to finish, giving the reader a chance to build the piece in their own mind.
Images
Consider including images to help your concept.
You’ll probably produce a separate storyboard for your treatment, but using additional reference images, character, setting and background illustrations or mood board images in your treatment can really help the reader understand what you’re saying. The position of the images is also important, breaking paragraphs can cause readers to lose the flow, so try adding an image or a series of images below a paragraph.
Using a large image below the Introduction can act as a real draw to the rest of the document.
Reference material
Reference material is key to helping sell your idea, especially if you can reference your own previous work. It’s another chance to showcase your work and give the client full confidence in your ability to deliver what you’re writing about. References can be web links, embedded links, images, sounds, music tracks, illustrations, or videos. If possible, try to collect everything in one place, an ftp location, a website, a file sharing location, or as zipped attachments to make it easier for the client to explore your references and not have to go to many reference sites. different Internet. Again, keeping the treatment easy to read, follow, and absorb is paramount.
The technical breakdown
The technical section of a treatment must be very factual, very brief and very clear. Clarity, once again, will illustrate to the reader that you have thought through the process carefully and understand exactly what it will take to achieve the end result. You can always change your thinking with the kit later, but at least at this early stage you’ve come close to the idea with a way to technically create your masterpiece. This paragraph will also illustrate your ability to handle both aspects of any motion graphics project, creativity and technical knowledge, the core components of any motion graphics designer.
Think about describing what and how many computers you’ll need, how much disk storage and backup space you’ll need, what software packages you’ll use, and if there are any specific plugins or presets that are relevant. Also consider the amount of processing time and hardware that will be required, archiving considerations, final delivery formats, and other delivery aspects.
music and sound
As we all know, music and sound effects can really bring animation and video to life and are an important part of any viewing experience. Mention ideas you have for the music and sound design, include references to other videos in a similar style, and describe the tone and atmosphere the music will evoke with your visuals.
The budget and estimated costs
Costs and quotes are also a big factor in determining whether you’ll be successful in getting the project you want, but refrain from including any mention of money in the treatment. Instead, please provide a separate quote document that includes any reference to technical or creative details in the treatment.
The Conclusion / Summary
The final part of your treatment should act similar to the introduction.
It is a short paragraph that allows you to quickly remind the reader of the key points you discussed in the rest of the document. It is also an opportunity to use good language to leave the reader wanting to see what he has described, wanting to explore further, wanting to make it come alive.
component list
INTRODUCTION – short and sweet
CONCEPT – main descriptive body of the text
IMAGES – reference material
TECHNICAL – geeky but essential breakdown
AUDIO – style guide and reference
SUMMARY – the final summary