What is a treatment?

Question

I'm writing a script and someone suggested I do a treatment. What is the function of a treatment and why is it a good idea?

Answer 1

Think of a treatment as a one page summery or synipsis of your story. Something you can hand to people so that when they read it they will get the gist of your script. From that reading they will be able to determine if they want to spend the time reading the entire script.

Answer 2

It's a one or two page synopsys of the story. It tells what happens but no dialogue. It's a tool for you to make sure you've got the whole story ready to be written and it's what you will submit to industry instead of the whole script.