Celluloid Cowboys Script Treatment

Hey guys. I usually don't ask forums for their opinion as I have an incredible phobia copyright infringement ever since someone tried to take one of my songs back on a music forum I belonged to, and I had to threaten legal action....

However, I really want opinions on this idea. It's just a script treatment, so nothing fancy, just 1 and a half pages. The basic plot is about 5 friends who grow up together and move to New York to make movies. They make a movie that wins awards at Cannes and they get a decent movie deal. However, the producer ditches on them, causing the company to pull the project, which sends them into depression. One of their friends is so depressed that he kills himself. Now they need to escape from the world of drugs and depression that they've thrown themselves into.

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So what do you guys think of it. I just want general opinions. Its just a script treatment, so I don't care about grammer.

 

As a note, this isn't a treatment, it's a synopsis. Treatments are around 15 pages and they describe the script-to-be scene by scene. They're basically the script without dialogue.

At this point, I don't think you've got a movie. It sounds like a story on the page but the way it's written now, it won't work on the screen. You open on a bunch of kids running around. How does that introduce us to their characters in any way? Is there something that it is imperative that we see in this childhood scene?

You write a line like "They make their first movie which debuts at the Cannes film festival to rave reviews" and...how is that going to show onscreen? That's two years of their lives right there, easily. You really plan to skip over that with voiceover narration? We need to get to know the characters and care about them at some point.

There's no real dramatic structure, it's just a lot of emotional whiplash. There are small holes, such as why would they go to New York to make a movie when they're not going to NYU (they would come to Hollywood), and rather massive holes: why would their producer back out of a $10 million deal? Instead of pulling the funding, the production company would more likely just hire a new producer.

Also, why would losing the funding drive someone to suicide? You really need to establish this guy having emotional problems, or he gets himself into some kind of debt or trouble. He, specifically, needs to be at the very bottom of a downward spiral already, and the movie deal has to be his last chance and when the bottom drops out, it's over for him. Perhaps it might even be best if the others have no idea why he did it, only discovering it slowly over the years. There's a structure for you, and it wouldn't require a lot of changes.

How about this: Robby is the guy who really loved the movies. He was the one with the real talent, and Marcus did it more because he admired his brother than because it was really his goal. His goal was to be someone his brother could be proud of. Coming from a broken home, they are all the family either one has.

They graduate high school, make the big movie, get the big deal at Cannes. Then the deal falls through and Robby, inexplicably, kills himself. Everything seemed to be going so well for all of them, it was just a minor setback in the grand scheme of things. Horrified and confused, everything falls apart. Marcus does a complete 180, feeling betrayed by a brother who he expected to be there for him and just suddenly wussed out for no reason. He gets rid of everything in his life that Robby inspired, which includes his sense of morality and self-dignity. He stops making movies since that was really Robby's thing in the first place. He becomes the guy he would have been if Robby hadn't been there to guide him.

Over the years new information comes to light. It turns out that things were not going well for Robby. He'd been quietly suffering depression and he was drowning in debt to make their movie (the Cannes hit). In fact, it's revealed that Robby was so deep in debt that he didn't even want to make movies anymore, he'd lost the love for it. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that he believed it was what Marcus wanted, and saw potential in Marcus' future in the business. To him, the movies were the only thing keeping their "family" of friends together. When the big film fell through, it was too much for him and in a moment of emotion and poor judgement, he took his life, believing he had failed them all, and most horribly that he had failed Marcus.

Marcus decides to get sober and goes to Daniel, pleading with him to help. Daniel finally does, even though the withdrawal is long and painful. Finally Marcus kicks the habit and you can finish the film essentially the same way you have it.

It's still not a tight structure, but one benefit a direction like this has is a more solid motivation for the characters to do what they do.

 

I always thought it was an outline that described the script scene by scene and that a treatment was just a short synopsis of the story.

Anyways. Thanks for you input, Mike. I like some of your ideas, and I realize that a lot of things I had in there I didn't explain how I would do it on screen. The reason for that is I just had the idea for the script on a spur of the moment, and was wondering if it was a decent plot, thus the reason I posted it here, which is something I very rarely do.

However I like some of your ideas, such as Marcus looking up to Robby and everything. Thanks for the input.