Starting out in treatments can be tough.
Read this to ease your way in.
Every so often, someone finds their way to our corner of the internet and asks: how do I get into treatments? The question has been popping up more frequently lately, on TikTok comments, in DMs, and in the occasional email from someone who stumbled across what we do and thought, "Wait, this is a real job?"
It is. And it's one of the most creatively fulfilling roles in commercial filmmaking. But it's also one of the most invisible.
There's no university course for it, no LinkedIn job title that quite captures it, and no clear ladder to climb.
Most people who work in treatments fell into the job sideways, through production companies, through knowing a director, or through being that one person who happened to be good at both writing and finding the right image at the right time.
So if you're curious about breaking into the world of treatments, here's what I wish someone had told me when I started back in 2011.
What a Treatment Actually Is
For those completely new to the concept: a treatment is the document a director creates to pitch their creative vision for a commercial, music video, or branded content project. When an advertising agency sends a script or brief to multiple production companies, each director responds with a treatment, essentially a visual and written proposal that says, "This is how I'd bring your idea to life, and here's why I'm the right person to do it."
Treatments combine writing, visual research, and graphic design into a single, persuasive document.
Think of it as a cross between a mood board, an essay, and a pitch deck, except with much higher stakes and tighter deadlines.
The Three Pillars + Where You Might Fit
Treatment work broadly breaks down into three disciplines:
Visual research. This is the foundation. Finding the right images, the right film stills, the right references that translate a director's vision into something tangible. It sounds straightforward, but good visual research is less about skill than about vision, taste, and understanding a brief.
Having trained people to do this job in the past, I can tell you it's harder than it seems. The best way to develop it is by being visually curious: checking out indie magazines and what they're publishing, following the big editorial names, keeping up with graphic designers, directors and photographers online, going to exhibitions and galleries.
All things visual should interest you. If they don't, this isn't the job for you.
With time, your visual library will grow so rich and vast that you'll develop a sharper eye for curating it, and the most sharply curated libraries are the ones that have clients coming back.
I also find there's a big space for nuance in image research that many people miss. Researchers are often so busy looking for the trendy and beautiful images that they forget to lead with emotion, which is all commercials are about.
More than trying to find a good image, try to find one that connects emotionally.
And if on top of that it speaks to the director's style and the client's brief, that's jackpot.
Writing. Treatment writing is a specific craft. It isn't copywriting, screenwriting, or journalism, though it borrows from all three. You're articulating a director's creative vision so it feels authored and confident, while persuading an agency that this approach is right.
The best treatment writing is invisible: it reads as though the director sat down and typed it out themselves. The worst reads like a ChatGPT prompt with no personality.
Design and layout. The visual presentation of the document itself. Typography, pacing, image placement, overall composition. A well-designed treatment doesn't just look good; it controls how the reader moves through the argument. Understand visual hierarchy and editorial pacing.
Most people who work in treatments professionally end up doing some combination of all three, though almost everyone has a strength they lean into. Many directors find it simpler to deal with one person directly for all treatment-related queries rather than coordinating a team. That's what happened to me: I started as a writer, became a visualist, and ended up a designer, which is funny because design is by far the largest part of what I do today, not just for treatments, but for the Ghost brand more broadly.
"More than trying to find a good image, try to find one that connects emotionally. And if on top of that it speaks to the director's style and the client's brief, that's jackpot."
The Tools: Start Simple, Build Up
It's tricky being a beginner in treatment-making because you're expected to know how to operate industry-standard tools from the get-go. But it is possible: I started designing treatments before I was a designer. The demand was there, and I grew into it.
If you want to work in design, start simple: become fluent in Google Slides. It's free and it will give you a real sense of what it's like to work as a designer, building your sharpness for layout, colour palettes, and font combinations. Once you can comfortably design a pitch deck with GIFs, links, and images, move on to Keynote. Do the same there. Try an online tool like Readymag to stretch your thinking further.
The ultimate destination is the Adobe Suite, particularly InDesign. It's a must if you want to work with the big directors. But that takes time when you're starting out, and you're better off mastering the basics now, while you have the time, than later on in the middle of a job with a deadline bearing down on you.
How to Actually Break In
There is no standard path. But there are things you can do to create one.
Start building a reference library now. The single most valuable asset any treatment professional has is their personal image library. Start collecting. Save images from films, from editorial shoots, from photography exhibitions. Organize them obsessively. When I started, I spent months building a Dropbox library that I still use today. That library is your competitive advantage.
Make a sample treatment. Pick a real brief (you can find creative briefs online, or choose an existing commercial and pretend you're pitching for it) and create a full treatment from scratch. Write it, research it, design it. This is your portfolio. No one will hire you based on a CV alone; they need to see how you think visually and how you put a document together.
Reach out to production companies. Not agencies, not brands. Production companies are where treatments happen. Look at the companies that represent directors whose work you admire. Many companies have in-house producers or heads of production who coordinate treatment work. Some directors work with freelance treatment makers; others rely on their production company's resources. Either way, the production company is your entry point.
Offer to assist. When I started, I offered my services at lower fees, because the experience was the currency. Working alongside an established treatment professional, even on a single project, teaches you more than months of theorizing. You learn the rhythm of a brief, the back-and-forth with a director, and the reality of what agencies actually respond to.
Be on social media. The treatment community is small and increasingly visible online. Follow treatment designers and writers on Instagram. Engage with content about commercial filmmaking. The fact that you've found this niche already puts you in a small, informed minority.
"The most sharply curated libraries are the ones that win."
What Nobody Tells You
A few honest caveats before you dive in.
It's not as glamorous as it looks. The most common assumption about this job is that it's glamorous. It has its moments, and compared to many professions, it can feel that way.
But the day-to-day reality is handling high pressure under fast deadlines and not taking things personally.
When stakes are high, you'll work with people who aren't polite or pleasant in that moment because they're under pressure themselves. It's part of the job. It's not personal.
Weekends are working days. The people who succeed in this profession are usually the ones who don't see a meaningful distinction between weekends and weekdays.
Treatments are almost always made over the weekend.
If you're attached to Saturday and Sunday, like many people understandably are, this job is hard to stick with. But if you don't mind having your Saturday fall on a random Wednesday, your chances are better.
The work is invisible by nature. Your name won't appear on the final product. Directors take credit for the treatment, as they should; it's their vision. You are, by definition, a ghost.
If you need external validation or public recognition to feel fulfilled, this might not be the right fit.
Payment is good, but late. Here's something nobody warns you about: even though the rates in this industry are good, invoices are paid late. Contracts to prevent that aren't a thing in treatment work. You need to operate on the basis that you will get paid eventually, hopefully within 30 days, but not always.
Aim for one treatment a week. How busy you are depends on many factors: how much a director who likes your work is pitching, how many pitches the production company you work with is involved in, and more. As a benchmark, aim for at least one treatment a week. Some weeks will be empty. Some weeks you'll have three. The rhythm is unpredictable.
What Next? If this resonates with you, we'll be sharing more deep dives into the craft of treatment writing and design. Let us know if there's a topic you'd like us to explore next.
Get in touch:
- Website: www.treatmentsbyghost.com
- Email: info@treatmentsbyghost.com
- Instagram: @ghost_treatments