What actually is an outline? What is a treatment? Are they the same? Does anybody really know the difference? Is “?” the only punctuation key that works on my keyboard?
The reason why I’m asking is I’m currently putting a submission together for the UK Film Council’s First Feature Film Development Programme. As part of your submission they ask you in the Programme guidelines to supply “a detailed outline (3-5 pages) of the dramatic action in your idea from the beginning to the end”. I think when they use the term “outline” they mean treatment. In fact now I’m sure they mean treatment, because in the application form, there is a box to tick to check you have done a “3-5 page treatment”. It is worrying though that the UK Film Council seem to use the terms “outline” and “treatment” so interchangeably but I think the problem lies with the fact nobody agrees on what they are.
Not even in Hollywood.
Terry Rossio (the “Terry Rossio” half of Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio writing duo) of Pirates of The Carribean fame and responsible for the most fantastic scriptwriting website in the world, defines an outline as like a synopsis “but almost always a bit longer, with more detail, more emphasis on character, tone, and theme, and not solely plot-driven”. John August of Go fame and responsible for the second most fantastic scriptwriting website in the world defines an outline as “…rudimentary, with just sluglines to refer to sequences”. And to make things more confusing Terry Rossio would call this a beat outline.
What is a scriptwriter to do?
John August, sums the debate up as:
“Treatment” and “outline” mean different things to different people, and one writer’s treatment might be another’s outline… Ultimately, the length is less important than the function…
And “function” is the key point here.
If you are ever asked to write an outline or treatment, the first thing I think you should find out is why they want it. If you are asked to write an outline because they want to know the plot, the characters and the theme of your script but you submit a list of the scenes, don’t be too surprised if they never call back.
So when it comes to treatments and outlines, the question of “what” is never as important as the “why”.
