PLEASE NOTE: You need to be a Production Member of the society to bid for and be involved in the Webseries. If you do not have a Production Membership, you can purchase one on the Students’ Union UCL website. Social Members can upgrade to one by purchasing the Production Membership and requesting a refund on the Social Membership from the Union. More info – uclfilmsociety.co.uk/join
We are aiming to shoot 4 episodes over the course of the year, and although the episodes do not have to follow a specific, chronological storyline, we would like them to be interconnected in some way at least, whether they are linked by story, theme, by their characters, etc. Since we want the Webseries to be a hugely collaborative process, giving as many people as possible the chance to take part, we would like to have a different writer / group of writers for each episode. Therefore, if your idea was to be chosen, you would be able to write the first episode yourself, and after that will oversee the writing process of the rest of the series, collaborating with a different writer on each episode.
Think you have a great idea? Send your one-page treatment (guidelines below), along with 2 pages of a script (these do not necessarily have to be the opening pages – any two pages will do), to us by 9pm on Sunday 21 October. A panel of committee members will then invite a few writers for a discussion of their idea on Tuesday 23 October, and after that we will pick the treatment which we think has the most potential. We will judge the treatments mainly on the idea and their originality, but also on their feasibility for a low-budget, student production. The chosen writer will also have to be available for the Webseries Crew Call on Thursday 25, 7-9pm. If you are unable to make any of these dates, please let us know ASAP, and we will see what we can do.
Treatments are to be emailed to [email protected] before the relevant deadline. Please also CC your applications to [email protected]
TREATMENT GUIDELINES
A treatment in the simplest terms is a written pitch, as such it comes before a script is written and is often a statement of the concept, plot and characters. Unlike many areas of screenwriting there are very few established rules or formats to treatments.
Here are a few things you might consider including…
- A working title
- A logline – this is basically the equivalent of a topic sentence; it is the condensation of the entire idea into one or two sentences, explaining the concept as succinctly as possible.
- An explanation of the concept – the overarching concept of the story.
- An introduction to the main characters – we don’t need the complete backgrounds to all the characters in the story, but a brief backstory of the main characters with key details and aspects to set the scene can be very helpful.
- A synopsis – briefly outline the plot. Try to write this in a few paragraphs, detailing every major plot turn with a new paragraph.
These are just a few pointers, but please do not feel bound by them.
REMEMBER: each episode will likely be under 10 minutes in length, and must be filmable in 2 days or less, on a small budget and with a small crew. Therefore, the best ideas are often the most simple!
The treatments most likely to succeed and capture our attention are those that are clear and easy to read whatever the format, with a strong focus on the visual elements of the story. We encourage you to Google example treatments if you are still having doubts, but please remember that they too are only guides. The majority of them are for feature-length film projects and therefore tend to be longer than necessary, hence why we have imposed a 1-page limit.