The scene paragraphs and voiceover

The heart of the treatment: one long paragraph per scene, with its voiceover beneath.

Write the film scene by scene (decided). This is the most important part of the treatment. One scene per page or spread. The durations add up exactly to the film's full length, the length of the film master.

{n} · {scene name} · {place} · {time of day} · {seconds} s
{One long paragraph, present tense, in screen order from the scene's first image to its last:
 the place and the moment; who is there, by casting name; what each wears, by wardrobe-look name;
 what they do, as visible actions and expressions; the emotional turn; the product's moment;
 every line of dialogue with its speaker, in «…» in the client's script.
 In comedy, the comic detail in costume, set, situation and action.}
Voiceover: {this scene's voiceover in «…», timed to the scene; or "Voiceover: none"}

• English for everything except the dialogue and voiceover, which stay in the client's language and dialect.

• Short sentences inside the long paragraph. It runs to whatever length the scene needs. When it overflows its page, the page becomes a spread; no limit ever cuts the place, the people, the wardrobe, the actions, the turn, the product moment or the dialogue.

• Every noun a later stage must build (a character, a look, a place, a prop, a product state, an on-screen line) uses exactly the name it has in its department sheet.

• Camera and lens stay in the camera section, unless the camera is part of the story (a reveal).

• Scene numbers are fixed from the first send: an added scene takes a letter (3a); a cut number is retired.

What the scene wants [proven], internal and never on the page. Under each scene, one line: Wants: {who wants what from whom}. In the way: {the obstacle}. Ends when: {the image where it is won or lost}. The plan's beats serve it, and the scene's last shot lands on its "ends when". In the product's scene, the want is the character's; the product resolves it. ("The plan" is your shot plan, made after the treatment is approved; see Planning, budgets and takes.)

In comedy, name each gag's mechanism internally: unexpected behaviour, unexpected place, wrong size, or escalation. It is a diagnosis word, never printed on a client page (see Performance → Comedy).

Two scenes, written for this guide:

2 · The armchair · Teta Samia's flat, living room · Friday noon · 11 s
Uncle Medhat, in his Friday white shirt, lowers himself into the armchair under the old wall unit and lays a folded newspaper on the armrest like a flag. The unit rattles and drips into a plastic bowl on the floor. Cousin Rana, in her gym clothes with her sunglasses pushed up into her hair, walks in from the balcony fanning herself with a takeaway menu. She looks at the armchair, at him, at the bowl. Medhat opens the newspaper without reading it. Rana sits on the arm of the chair, then a little more of the chair, until there is no room left. Teta Samia, in her floral house dress, stands in the kitchen doorway holding a tray of molokhia and watches them both without blinking. Medhat turns a page:
«مين قاعد مكاني؟»
Rana doesn't answer. On the sideboard behind them, the new Talj unit still sits in its box, label to the room.
Voiceover: none

3 · The call · Abu Yousef's flat, Jeddah · evening · 9 s
Abu Yousef sits alone at the dining table in his white thobe, reading glasses on the end of his nose, a strip of tablets in front of him that he has pushed out and pushed back twice. His phone buzzes against the wood. On the screen, his daughter Lama, in her work clothes with her lanyard still on, waves from a car park in Riyadh. He holds the strip up to the camera and shrugs. She smiles, taps twice on her own screen, and says something we don't hear. He nods slowly, folds his glasses into his pocket and puts the strip back in its box. Twenty minutes later the doorbell rings: a Wenly rider in a green cap holds out a small white bag at arm's length, already turning back to the lift.
Voiceover: «وأنا بعيد، أنا جنبك.»

The Saudi voiceover line stays draft, and off every client page, until a native Hijazi reviewer passes it (see The brief and research → Dialect rules).

Sources

• David Mamet on a scene's objective and its end (Musicbed); Judith Weston on playable direction (Film Courage); Robert Gaudette, A Face Only A Mother Could Love, on writing what a character wants into every shot (AIography interview).