After working on treatments for over a decade, collaborating with top production companies worldwide, I've found that winning a treatment isn’t just about having the best visuals or the strongest writing—it’s about alignment, clarity, and execution.

A great treatment isn’t just a document; it’s a strategic pitch that convinces agencies and clients that this director is the right person for the job. Certain patterns consistently determine why some treatments land the job while others fall flat.

Sometimes, hiring a treatment crew is seen as a way to offload a director’s job onto a team of experts. But that’s not why a crew should be hired. A great crew doesn’t replace the director’s role—they enhance their vision, much like a film crew. It’s about giving the director more arms to execute their creative intent, not passing off responsibility and hoping the final product works out.

In an increasingly competitive industry, where every detail in a treatment can make or break a pitch, there are three key steps that consistently increase the likelihood of winning. Follow them, and you won’t just create better treatments—you’ll create winning ones.

1. Briefing: Don’t Skip It.

A great treatment starts with a great briefing. That means no assumptions, no vague interpretations—just clear, well-communicated expectations. The more aligned the team is at the start, the fewer roadblocks there will be down the line.

From experience, I know that directors who don’t take the time to personally brief their team—whether through a call, voice note, or even a structured email—are often a red flag. If a director isn’t engaged enough to clarify their own vision, it dramatically increases the chances of misalignment down the line. Similarly, a treatment maker who seems disinterested, passive, or unavailable during the briefing process is also a red flag. If they don’t take the time to ask the right questions, listen to agency calls (even if recorded), read notes from the producer, and clarify key points upfront, they’re likely going to miss crucial details that could make or break the treatment.

If you’re the director, no matter how jaded you might feel after working on countless similar projects, sharing a solid brief with your team shows that you care. It tells your crew that you’re not just dumping a vague outline on them and expecting something generic in return. 

Your energy and enthusiasm set the tone. If you come across as engaged, invested, and treating each treatment like it’s your last, it ignites fire in your crew. People work harder when they feel they’re contributing to something exciting—so if you show passion and involvement from the start, your team will push harder to create something exceptional.

That being said, it’s important to distinguish genuine interest from simply chasing the director for basic information. The treatment team is hired by the production company to deliver a treatment, and it’s not their job to chase their contractor for essential details. This is something I’ve seen happen time and again—executive producers, and sometimes even directors, expecting to be chased for the basics. But that’s not the right flow of the game. This is a professional gig, and everyone should fulfill their roles accordingly. If the director, or anyone else on the team, isn’t showing up properly at the briefing stage, the treatment will always suffer for it.

2. The Art of Selects: Curate with Purpose

Directors are famously known for being extremely particular about the details within a frame—adjusting lighting, tweaking performance, repeating takes over and over again to get the perfect shot. So why wouldn’t the same level of care apply when selecting imagery that represents the vision in a treatment? A well-curated selection of images can be the difference between a treatment that wins and one that gets overlooked.

Sometimes, directors mistake selection requests as unnecessary extra work or even laziness from the rest of the crew, but it’s quite the opposite. The effort put into refining the right selects is about ensuring that the treatment looks significantly stronger, better honors the concept, and increases its chances of winning. A weak set of references can dilute a great treatment; strong, intentional selects elevate everything—the writing, the design, the entire pitch.

The best treatments I’ve ever worked on have been with directors who are deliberate about making the right selects.This doesn’t mean choosing literal shot-by-shot representations of the script, but rather, curating images that capture the essence of what they envision for the film. 

A treatment should reflect the director’s creative language, tone, and sensibility, not just rehash what’s already written.

That’s why asking designers or researchers to handle selects on their own isn’t the best call. The only time this works well is if you’ve been working with the same team for long enough that they truly understand your style and visual instincts—only then can they intuitively pull selects that align with your vision. Otherwise, handing off this responsibility without direction is a risk—one that often leads to a treatment that feels generic, inconsistent, or misaligned with the director’s sensibilities.

A strong, carefully chosen set of references doesn’t just enhance a treatment—it cements a director’s creative authority in the eyes of agencies and clients. If you wouldn’t let just anyone pick your lighting or framing on set, why leave the visual tone of your treatment to chance?

3. Feedback: The 5-Minute Check-In That Saves Hours

One of the biggest time-wasting pitfalls in treatment-making happens when directors skip the feedback stage early on, only to come back with major changes at the last minute. When a director isn’t engaged throughout the process, the treatment develops in ways they may not have intended. Then, when they finally sit down to review it—often when the deadline is closing in—they suddenly want everything reworked. This compromises the quality of the treatment and doesn’t increase the chances of winning.

The best way to avoid derailing the process is simple: see the first round of images, the first pass of layout, or the early draft of text, and give quick, actionable feedback. 

It doesn’t need to be a full review—just a five-minute check-in to ensure things are moving in the right direction. This small effort makes a huge difference.

Directors who are engaged throughout the process ensure that the treatment is developing exactly as they envision—instead of attempting to force a full transformation at the final hour. A treatment that comes together smoothly and with intention will always be stronger, more cohesive, and more compelling than one that was stitched together in a panic.

Final Thoughts: A Winning Treatment is More Than Just a Pretty Deck

A clear briefing ensures no one is guessing.

Carefully curated selects elevate the treatment beyond clichés.

Fast feedback loops prevent costly mistakes.

The best treatments don’t just happen—they are built, step by step, by people who understand the importance of every phase.

Follow these three steps, and your chances of winning a treatment will increase exponentially.

What Next?

If this resonates with you, I’ll be sharing more deep dives into the craft of treatment design. Let me know if there’s a topic you’d like me to explore next.

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