Important Definitions to Sell Your Screenplay or Idea
April 5th 2008 03:09
1. Query (letter) - letter to a producer or agent asking if they would like to read your script. No more than one page long. Grab them with your first words - make your story sound like something they HAVE TO READ.
2. Treatment - Prose version of your story - usually part of a "step deal" when you are paid to write a script. You'll write a treatment (the producer will tell you how many pages) and when they agree on the story, you "go to script" (they cut you a check to write the script based on that treatment - no coloring outside the lines!). Most treatments are between 5-15 pages. I've written detailed treatments that were as long as 35 pages. Treatments are also great to use when you're writing a script NOT on assignment - you can make sure the story works in a 10 page form before writing 120 pages (and finding out it doesn't work).
3. Synopsis - 1-2 page distilled version of your script. The shorter the better! Mine are all 1 page. This is a sales tool to get people to read your script - so think of it like the back of a paperback book. People hate me for this, but I never tell the end of the script in a synopsis. I like to create a cliffhanger at the end of the synopsis so that they'll have to read the script to find out what happens next.
4. Logline - Your script idea in 25 words or less. "A farm girl learns to appreciate her home and family when a tornado whisks her to an alien world run by witches." "An ordinary computer programmer must accept that he's the "chosen one" in order to free mankind from enslavement by a computer system." It's just the essence of the script - not the details. A good logline sums up the script PLUS makes you want to read the darned thing - "Military hero survives accident, comes home to find his wife with another man... his clone!" (Ah-nuld's new film THE SIXTH DAY).
Bill Martell -- http://www.scriptsecrets.com/
2. Treatment - Prose version of your story - usually part of a "step deal" when you are paid to write a script. You'll write a treatment (the producer will tell you how many pages) and when they agree on the story, you "go to script" (they cut you a check to write the script based on that treatment - no coloring outside the lines!). Most treatments are between 5-15 pages. I've written detailed treatments that were as long as 35 pages. Treatments are also great to use when you're writing a script NOT on assignment - you can make sure the story works in a 10 page form before writing 120 pages (and finding out it doesn't work).
3. Synopsis - 1-2 page distilled version of your script. The shorter the better! Mine are all 1 page. This is a sales tool to get people to read your script - so think of it like the back of a paperback book. People hate me for this, but I never tell the end of the script in a synopsis. I like to create a cliffhanger at the end of the synopsis so that they'll have to read the script to find out what happens next.
4. Logline - Your script idea in 25 words or less. "A farm girl learns to appreciate her home and family when a tornado whisks her to an alien world run by witches." "An ordinary computer programmer must accept that he's the "chosen one" in order to free mankind from enslavement by a computer system." It's just the essence of the script - not the details. A good logline sums up the script PLUS makes you want to read the darned thing - "Military hero survives accident, comes home to find his wife with another man... his clone!" (Ah-nuld's new film THE SIXTH DAY).
Bill Martell -- http://www.scriptsecrets.com/
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