director's treatments a lot of people struggle with this there is very little information about it online which is exactly why I decided to make this video if you're new to this channel my name is noranyas and I'm a commercial director who makes commercials for Brands like Samsung Toyota BMW Red Bull Coca-Cola and many more I have over five years of experience in directing commercials I myself struggled with writing treatments for years and at this point of my career I have probably written and pitched well over 100 treatments and some of them have won others have lost but most of all they have taught me a ton of lessons that I can share with you now to make your process a bit easier so watch this video till the end to figure out what treatments are and how I approach my process so what is a treatment a treatment is an integral part in the pitching process following the initial briefing call with the agency or a client to discuss all of the creative ideas and Direction you will have the opportunity to present your own ideas be it film commercial or a music video you do this through a document called a director's treatment this is your chance to show how the video will look and feel like before any major decisions are made the first time I was asked to make a treatment for a commercial back in 2018 I wrote and pitched it and the agency never came back to me that's what I thought to myself there was a bit of a homework to do I started looking for treatments online and I couldn't really find anything that had any value to me so I was begging The Producers I knew some other directors and just people that had more experience than me to share their treatments with me to for me to learn but nobody seemed open enough to share and even if they did they didn't have a plug-and-play structure that I could just rip off and use in my own treatments and that's when it hit me treatments really have no defined structure and every treatment is a reflection of the type of filmmaker you are every job needs a unique approach because it's going to be read by different people with different personalities some have more ego involved and some are busier than others and so you really have to tailor your pitch to a specific audience and arguably that's the most important part of the treatment writing what do you write about now for me the hardest part is usually to start writing it's the text that scares me the most and here's the list of few things that you could write about to kick things off you could start with the approach explain how you will approach the film what makes you the best fit for the job and what do you have under your belt that will make this project great next you could say a few words about the idea what is the concept of the video even if the idea is given to you by the agency what is it that you like about it maybe you want to expand on it maybe you want to improve it or maybe it's so awesome that you really don't want to change anything about it then one of the most important Parts is to write about visuals how will the video look this part is going to be very helpful not only to the agency side but also for the production to calculate expenses and for the cinematographer to understand what is expected of him let me give you an example say it's a juice commercial and it's a story about this family drinking this wonderful orange juice out on a picnic how is it shot anamorphic 16x9 or maybe vintage 4x3 how is it lit front lip or backlit does the camera zoom in or out or maybe dolly in or perhaps it's handheld is it morning midday evening or at night where is the picnic happening out on a cozy Beach or in a park or how about in front of a green screen do you notice how these things change the perception of the story that's why you have to be very clear when communicating this to the reader you could also write about the Wardrobe if that's important to the story coming back to our juice drinking family what is the family wearing is it casual or more formal what do these details tell us about the characters and their background imagine if the dad is wearing a sporty outfit is he a fitness Enthusiast and really loves the juice for its nutrients I mean it's probably not the case but the agency might love that idea and so that's why you have to write about that and you should back it up with really good quality images when writing about the visuals words can only take you so far use images and use high quality ones nothing screams more unprofessional than a watermarked image found on the first page of a Google search it's important to find images that match the mood as that's integral to selling yourself as a visual director if you're wondering where I search for high quality images then you should check out frame set it's an AI Power Platform that has many different search filters to help you find very specific images again the example if you're pitching for a juice commercial and their brand color is orange you should use that to your advantage fortunately with frame set you can even set the exact color parameters in the search to find matching images from other commercials music videos and films their Pro membership will give you unlimited search in 4k if you ever want to upgrade I have a 10 discount for my subscribers all you need to do is click the link in the description and use the code nornia's films at checkout this video is not sponsored by frameset but I do get a small commission if you do decide to upgrade at no extra cost per year ultimately my goal is to help you guys and to share this wonderful resource I use every time I'm building my treatments also you might want to write about post-production too and then again you want to be very attentive during that first briefing because you want to read the energy in the room and see if the treatment even deserves so many details about the post-production but if you're anything like me you won't miss the chance to brag about how the editing is going to be carried out how we're going to cut from one scene to another what is it going to do to a viewer on a subconscious level I also absolutely love including a few pages on how the color grading is going to be done because I'm always so specific when it comes to the color in my work in my films I feel like so much of the videos look and feel is dictated by the color grading decisions we make in pre-production and if it really adds to the understanding of the story you could write about the CGI and VFX but you want to be careful with this one because you can often lead to too much information and become a bit confusing which software should you use to build your treatments I think it really doesn't matter as long as you find it comfortable and become familiar within the software personally I have tried many different options like Google Slides Microsoft PowerPoint canva but I have found myself gravitating towards a keynote the most often and I decided to stick with it in the recent years fundamentally they all function similarly and I think as long as you can make it clean and understandable and any of them will suffice writing good treatments is a process that takes years to master and it definitely takes more than just watching a video if you want the most comprehensive guide on writing good winning treatments you should check out my 50 page ebook it covers all the little details and intricacies of writing winning treatments and delves deep into how it's done in the professional world of commercial directing the bundle includes the ebook itself a printable checklist and an example treatment to see how I approach writing my own treatments many people have already sent me DMS saying that it was super valuable and helpful to get them started for those of you who are already writing treatments my store offers multiple easy to use treatment templates that fit different genres whether you want to ride for a car commercial a fashion brand or anything else really these exclusive templates will save you so much time when it comes to designing layout and structure the link to my store is in the description now back to the video how long should your treatment be look this is not a high school writing assignment so I can't really tell you exactly how many words should you include but I think as long as it communicates the idea well then it does its job a good communication is a context-specific matter some treatments are best when they're really short say 8 to 15 pages and some other treatments work best when they are really in-depth and can easily go over 50 pages long just for your reference last year I pitched for Dubai tourism and it was my most comprehensive treatment to the state and it was just shy of 80 pages so there you have your spectrum I guess but I should say my sweet spot is between 20 and 25 Pages it's short enough to not get boring and still long enough to really dig deep into the important bits The Dark Secret there are companies out there that offer visual research design layout and even writing services for directors based on their idea sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you have to pitch one treatment after another back to back and if you win the job the paycheck is kind of high that it kind of justify lies you know paying some extra money to hire these companies especially when you're really short on time these Treatment Services can cost anywhere between 500 and 2 000 depending on what you want them to get done sometimes but not always a production company can hire these guys for you to help you out because they're also interested in you winning the job and in the past I had the luxury to work with these types of companies a few times and it's a really collaborative way to write a treatment however for some reason I still prefer to have a full control over how I write my treatments how they look the text the design the visual research and paying so much money while being uncertain that you even get the job it feels pretty painful to me but if you have the money to afford it just know that these services do exist and I won't name any names just Google it there's plenty of them but yeah I would say the most important step is to practice try and ask for feedback if you don't win and I know it's hard to get access to but try your best to see other directors treatment and analyze them that's how you become better at This I Promise You by the time you write 20 treatments you'll have a pretty good idea of how you like your flow and Style thank you for watching this video I hope you liked it please subscribe to this Channel and hit the like button to let the algorithm know that it was helpful please leave some questions and comments as I always read them and try to reply to them as much as I can and most importantly remember the process is the reward foreign [Music] [Music]