DZ-71: Treatments & Loglines - Development Tools 1

Listen to understand why a treatment isn't something to dread, but the plot-development tool that saves you months of writing.

Stu and Chas are joined by fan-favourite, Stephen Cleary, to NOT look at what makes great screenplays work -- but what makes great "short documents" work. We draw on Stephen Cleary's wealth of experience in developing work with writers, as a producer, as a script editor and as a former head of development.

This recording turned especially epic and so we have divided it into three parts that can be listened to in any order.

Part 1 (this part) explores the short documents and tools you can use to develop your story’s PLOT before going to script, including the Premise, the Logline, various synopses, character documents, and - of course - the dreaded Treatment… But also looks at development tools that aren’t written like: script reads, mini-shoots and animatics.

Stay tuned for :

• Part 2 (DZ-71) which delves into documents that develop your story’s theme; and then
• Part 3 (DZ-73) where we look at how to write short documents differently when your objective isn’t story development but rather selling your idea/project.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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Thanks to our Patrons, especially Theis, Jack, Chris, Khrob, Sandra and Matteo.

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CHAPTERS

• 00:00:00 – Intro
• 00:13:32 – The writing gym
• 00:19:32 – Animatics & Script Readings
• 00:28:08 – Telling your story out loud
• 00:31:07 – Why Treatments suck
• 00:36:49 – The Premise
• 00:44:43 – Exploring WRITTEN short docs
• 01:04:29 – What about non-hero's journey?
• 01:14:36 – Using short docs to keep going
• 01:21:04 – Back to the Premise
• 01:24:37 – Moving from Premise to Logline
• 01:25:33 – Stay tuned for Part 2!

EPISODES IN THE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS SERIES

• DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?
• DZ-71: Treatments & Loglines - Development Tools 1
• DZ-72: Theme & The Story Synopsis - Development Tools 2
• DZ-81: Pitch Decks & Look Books - Development Tools 4
• DZ-73: Selling documents - Development Tools 3

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We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2020/dz-71/