Appendices

Presenting your film Treatment in a “real world” format

Page one should include the following information:

1. Your film’s Title. This should be attention grabbing and appropriate for your genre
2. The Log line. A one sentence summary capturing the essence of your film.
3. Author details. Name, e-mail address, blog address etc.

Page two should include the following information:

4. Introduction to the Key Characters:

eg: Sharon McCoy is a bright and sometimes outspoken accountant. She has a sense of humor and a pleasant personality. Her world is shaken when she discovers a devastating secret about the husband she loves. Harboring thoughts of suicide, she turns to her friend, Doctor J.P. Knight.Sharon is in her late twenties. She is beautiful at five-feet-six-inches tall. Her short cropped hair is auburn and her eyes are green.

5. List of Key Locations required for the production of the film:

eg. Office Settings: One large office has many desks & workers with computers. A psychiatrist’s office has leather furniture, file cabinets and a desk. Another similar office, plusher with a sliding bookshelf behind the desk is depicted. All offices should have window.

Page three should include the following information:

6. A detailed Synopsis. A synopsis is a summary given in brief terms covering the major points of your film. Synopses are usually more in-depth than a mere "outline", and aim to give a fair idea of the topic. See example below:

Example Introduction:

Uprooted from her happy and secure existence, Sharon McCoy is thrust into a maze of fate, misconception and danger. What seems an ordinary introduction turns out to be a fateful event that foreshadows tremendous changes about to occur in this young woman's life. Doctor J.P. Knight seeks Sharon's expertise in accounting to help set the financial affairs of one of his patients in order. They develop a friendship. Several weeks later, she makes a heartbreaking discovery about her husband. Harbouring thoughts of suicide and facing the possibility that she is married to her brother, she turns to her new-found friend. Together, they work through the mesh of fate, doubles, misconceptions and danger to get to the truth.

Continued Over Page

Example Synopsis

FIRST SCENE

A panorama of the Rocky Mountains comes into view. The scene shifts to the Denver skyline and zeroes into the window of an office building. A large office area with many desks comes into view and focuses on an attractive twenty-eight-year-old woman working at a computer. Then, it shifts to an older woman escorting a tall, middle-aged man toward the desk with the young woman.

Correct formatting for your Treatment:

Entire Document:

Font: 12 pt Courier New

Margins: 1 inch all around (25 mm)

Page Numbers: Top right of each page 0.5 inches (12.5 mm)from the top edge, aligned with the right margin, each page number followed must by a period. Example: 1.

Title Page:

Title, in bold, centered horizontally and vertically. Log line centered below title. Story by writer name. Contact information in bottom left corner (e.g. Writer Name, E-mail, Blog Address).

Additional Pages:

Headings: All capitalized, aligned to the left margin, one line space before, one line space after. Headings are optional (some executives don't like headings at all), but they make reading easier.

You don't need a heading for each individual scene unless each scene is very different. Instead, use a heading for each group of related scenes. Example, a drag race may be just a fraction of a movie but have several scenes in it. Just call that group of scenes THE DRAG RACE or something a bit more creative but clear. If you have to go off to something different, put in a new heading for the switch, and if you have to come back to the drag race, put in another heading like BACK TO THE DRAG RACE.

Content: Prose style, aligned to the left margin, no indentation, ragged right margin, one line space between each paragraph (basic block format.

Length: 1 page should be sufficient for a 3-4 minute short. Shorter is often better, but it should still be complete.

Tense: Present tense only.

Production Title:	Page     of    . Director:
		Shot Type: Camera Position/Movement: Action/Dialogue/Detail: Notes:
		Shot Type: Camera Position/Movement: Action/Dialogue/Detail: Notes:
		Shot Type: Camera Position/Movement: Action/Dialogue/Detail: Notes:
		Shot Type: Camera Position/Movement: Action/Dialogue/Detail: Notes:

The art of storyboarding:

Within the film industry, storyboards have been called the “diary of the film.”

This term refers to the fact that the storyboard is a private record of the visualisation process, when creating a film. This visualisation process is very personal for most directors and storyboard artists, because it is not only very time consuming, it also reflects that person’s particular idea of the film.

Most directors with a sense of visual sophistication and style are heavily involved in the process of storyboarding, because it ensures that the final product is for the most part, their vision.

Alfred Hitchcock, who began his career in films as an art director, used elaborate storyboards to refine his vision and control the filmmaking process. He liked to say that his movies were finished before they were ever made, before the cinematographer or editor ever touched a piece of film. In fact, Hitchcock was so confident in the quality of information on his storyboards that he rarely looked through the camera’s viewfinder on the set of a film.

The two roles of storyboards:

Firstly, storyboards allow a filmmaker to pre-visualise their ideas and refine them in the same way a scriptwriter refines their ideas through a succession of drafts.

Secondly they serve as the clearest language to communicate ideas to the entire production team (Director, Cinematographer, Lighting Designer, Actors etc).

What is a storyboard?

Once a concept is developed and a synopsis or script is written for a film or animation, the next step is to make a storyboard. A storyboard visually tells the story of an animation panel by panel, kind of like a comic book.

What should be included in a storyboard?

Your storyboard should convey all of the following information:

1.     The type of shot (close-up, long shot etc).

2.     How and where the "camera" is located. Is it high, low, canted? Also include the details of any camera movement (pan, tilt etc).

3.     Which characters are in the frame, and how they are moving?

4.     What dialogue or narration is taking place?

You may also wish to include

5.     What other action is taking place?

6.     How much time has passed between the last frame of the storyboard and the current one?

Using appropriate storyboard language

The language used by a storyboard artist to describe or convey meanings is generally the same as those used by the director and cinematographer.

CLOSE-UP SHOT:   A close range of distance between the camera and the subject.
DISSOLVE: A transition between two shots, where one shot fades away and simultaneously another shot fades in.
FADE - A transition from a shot to black where the image gradually becomes darker is a Fade Out; or from black where the image gradually becomes brighter is a Fade In.
HIGH CAMERA ANGLE:  A camera angle which looks down on its subject making it look small, weak or unimportant.
JUMP CUT: A rapid, jerky transition from one frame to the next, either disrupting the flow of time or movement within a scene or making an abrupt transition from one scene to another.
LEVEL CAMERA ANGLE:  A camera angle which is even with the subject; it may be used as a neutral shot.
LONG SHOT:  A long range of distance between the camera and the subject, often providing a broader range of the setting.
LOW CAMERA ANGLE:  A camera angle which looks up at its subject; it makes the subject seem important and powerful.
PAN:  A steady, sweeping movement from one point in a scene to another.
POV (point of view shot): A shot which is understood to be seen from the point of view of a character within the scene.
REACTION SHOT- 1.: A shot of someone looking off screen. 2.: A reaction shot can also be a shot of someone in a conversation where they are not given a line of dialogue but are just listening to the other person speak.
TILT:  Using a camera on a tripod, the camera moves up or down to follow the action.
ZOOM:  Use of the camera lens to move closely towards the subject.

Illustrating Camera Movement/Techniques:

The most obvious limitation of the storyboard is its inability to display motion – not only the action taking place, but also the motion of the camera. The most obvious solution to this problem is to use captions and schematic drawings to describe what cannot be conveyed in a still picture.

Firstly we need to consider the border of the storyboard frame. It is there to indicate a viewpoint or frame as seen through the camera lens. Hence as a storyboard you can draw beyond the edges of this frame, both up/down and left/right or even a combination. This is generally used to signify pan shots or tracking shots of a particular subject.

Below are two images representing different camera motion and action:

One other camera technique which a storyboard artist may need to represent is a zoom or dolly shot.

This could be drawn like this:

One further technique which can be easily employed when making storyboards is the use of arrows. Even if a series of storyboards consisted of simple stick figures, arrows can help provide detail about camera or subject movement as well as the desired angle of a shot

How to make storyboards (Hints and Tips):

Most commonly, storyboards are drawn in pen or pencil. But because not everyone is Leonardo Da Vinci, some people will struggle to draw storyboards. This doesn’t mean that just because you can’t draw well, you can’t make storyboards.

If you don't like to draw you could make a photo or video storyboard. There are varieties of ways this can be achieved. You could make a miniature set out of household items that roughly depict your shooting environment and take photos of each shot. Alternatively, if you know exactly where you will be filming, you could take photos of that environment and then add arrows etc to depict camera movements etc

Alternatively, you could make a collage storyboard with pictures from magazines or newspapers.

Or you could use a computer to make your storyboards. You could use programs like Adobe Illustator or Photoshop or even a software package specifically designed to produce storyboards for film and media projects.

Keep in mind that your drawings don't have to be fancy! In fact, you want to spend just a few minutes drawing each frame. Use basic shapes, stick figures, and simple backgrounds.

If you draw your storyboard frames on index cards, you can rearrange them to move parts of the story around.