In my past blog posts, I discussed many theoretical aspects of the treatment writing process. With that knowledge, I started taking a more hands-on approach. I watched every YouTube video I could find on the topic and eventually came across the channel of Nur Niaz, a commercial director from Bangkok, Thailand, who has worked with major brands. His videos significantly helped me improve my treatment skills.
Focusing more on the following points made a huge difference:
- Visual References: Incorporate images that reflect the project’s tone and style.
- Concise Storytelling: Present the narrative clearly, focusing on key plot points.
- Character Descriptions: Provide detailed profiles of main characters to convey their motivations.
- Stylistic Approach: Explain the visual and auditory style, including color schemes and sound design.
- Personal Vision: Articulate your unique perspective and passion for the project.
But the biggest learning for me personally wasn’t really how to structure or design the treatment. It was about how to handle feedback.
Often, when I’m deep in my creative process, I see my vision clearly and know exactly where the video should go—but that clarity doesn’t always translate to others. When people don’t understand your concept, you might start to question your idea. But most of the time, it’s just not communicated clearly enough and needs some reworking.
That’s where feedback comes in. I learned that getting feedback from people who aren’t involved in the project is one of the best things you can do. They have no background on it—so if they understand the vision and the idea, the client will too. And that’s the most important thing.
I applied his tips to my latest treatment, which I wrote for my Carhartt WIP spec project. After receiving feedback from several people, I felt I had genuinely improved compared to my previous treatments. I also used ChatGPT to help me rephrase my sentences, and it effectively maintained the core of my ideas while refining the grammar and flow. This further enhanced my treatment.
Next, I’ll take the theoretical knowledge I gained from my research and begin scripting my idea—followed by storyboarding. During my research, I tried to find AI tools that could assist with screenwriting, but to my surprise, I couldn’t find anything that felt useful without interfering with my original idea. So I’ve decided to write down every scene manually, just as we learned in our past Dynamic Media classes, and see if everything works out both visually and narratively as I imagined.
Once the script is finished, I’ll look into AI tools like Stable Diffusion or Midjourney to see how much they can help me and whether they’re useful and time saving compared to sketching the storyboard myself, since I can’t sketch.
Interesting Links:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1QQwXzHskeJzslDn8dylqA
