The Truth About How Long A Video Treatment Should Be
When I started pitching my filmmaker’s vision via music video treatments and director treatments, I always wondered how long I had to make my documents to hit the sweet spot and ensure a potential client would hire me.
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing most of the time and created something I thought would do the job. After creating dozens of treatments, doing lots of research, and experimenting with many different formats, I wanted to share a general set of treatment length guidelines that have helped me create my pitch documents over the years.
Table of contents:
There is no industry standard for video treatments
Let’s start by saying that, as treatments come in many different forms and every filmmaker has another way of communicating their vision and ideas, there is no industry standard for how long a treatment should be.
The length of a video treatment depends on your visual style, preferences, and how much detail you wish to include in your document. I think video treatments should be a fast way for people to consume the most critical information about a project.
Therefore it should be short enough to be snappy and engaging but long enough to cover all the essential details, sell your vision or story, and contain a solid plan.
If you think you can do this on one visually striking page, then one single page it is. But if you think you need 50 slides to make your story ideas come to life, then 50 slides is your way to go.
My ideal video treatment length
My video treatments are usually between 20-30 pages, containing a lot of large imagery, (inspirational) quotes, small portions of text per slide, and a lot of empty space to create a stylish and minimalistic look.
Using 20-30 slides allows me to include more information, so I have to think about the details more thoroughly in advance. Because I have already thought about many things in advance, I can provide specific answers when the client and crew members ask me questions.
I’m well aware that choosing a 20+ paged treatment can scare potential clients in the same way as it shows that I thought about every aspect and provided a well-thought-through plan. It’s a personal preference that works perfectly for me but might not work for everybody else.
To give you a little bit of guidance when it comes to treatment lengths, a general rule of thumb is:
1-10 pages: A quick read
10-20 pages: A detailed treatment
20+ pages: Extremely detailed treatment
Less is always more
Most of the time, clients never ask one director to pitch their vision for the project. You will often be one of many others to pitch for a particular job opportunity. (If you want to know how many, ask how many other competitors you’re up against during the client call.)
The reality is that when ten directors submit a 30-page document, a client has to scroll through 300 pages to pick a director to work with. A serious time investment!
The harsh reality is that potential clients don’t read everything you put on paper. They skim through it! So the more efficient and eye-popping you can make that skimming experience for them, the more likely they will actually read the words you’ve put in between your beautiful imagery.
Knowing this, you can understand that less is always more regarding the text. Unless a potential client asks you to come up with specific answers, leaving a few things to the imagination is okay. Once you’ve landed the job, you can always fill in extra details if necessary.
Wrapping up
Deciding how long your director’s treatment should be, comes down to this: the simpler you can distill your vision and story ideas, the more likely people will read and resonate with it.
Want to hit the sweet spot regarding length for a specific job? Just ask your potential client precisely what they want in your treatment. How long do they need or prefer your treatment to be? What answers do they need from you, and what are their decision-making criteria based on treatments?
Follow those guidelines if they give explicit instructions to deliver a longer or shorter document. If they require a five-page document, excellent! If you need to create 50 detailed pages to get the job, so be it.
