One of the first major stumbling blocks any aspiring film maker is likely to encounter is working out how to get noticed when they’ve just started out. It is often said that talent will find a way through and of course the better the product you’re offering, the easier it is to sell. The more you plan and prepare beforehand, the smoother the film making experience will be. It will also be a lot easier to pull in investment for your film if you are able to present a detailed overview of the project, the characters, story, setting. etc. Below are some words of advice for beginning work on your first film.
Write A Full Treatment
When inspiration strikes, be it in the form of character, story, or other ideas, it is tempting to dive right in and start creating straight away. However, making things up on the hoof is difficult, especially when dealing with a couple hundred pages of script. Without any pre-planning, the writer must remember the various plot strands and decide how to resolve them as they write, which takes the focus away from the writing itself.
A treatment is like a synopsis, but much more detailed. Whereas a synopsis describes the premise of a film in order to entice potential viewers, a treatment, on the other hand, lays out the film from start to finish so those who ultimately work on the film can see its structure and understand the progression of the story from start to finish, without having to read through the entire script.
