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The Dreamscape Treatment (warning language)

I started a treatment a few months ago for a tight, contained David Cronenberg lite thriller its sort of
inception mixed with collateral. Never finished it, alas it came out as a scriptment
more than a treatment.

I dont even know if I have enough for a feature. Since "Raise the Britannic" may
end up not as I hoped it would due to the fact I don't really have any compelling story yet, and the 30K or
whatever I might shoot for with crowdfunding may not be enough or possibly be wasted.


Warning there is a bit of harsh language


DREAMSCAPE
Treatment by Raymond Leggs.

ACT. 1
INT: COMPANY CAR-DAY
SARAH PENDELDON (23) waifish, glares out the window of the vehicle seemingly lost in space.
INT: OFFICE-DAY
SARAHS father, JT, speaks with JAMES FELTON, a sly mysterious type as sarah watches through the crack of the door. MATTHEW BENNETT (26)walks by and shuts the door.
MATT BENNETT.
That’s James felton, someone ends up
dead or fired when he’s around. Stay away from him,
youre dad should too.

INT: BANQUET HALL-DAY

Sarah watches the scores of rich socialites chat about nonsense, J.T
tries talking her into joining the crowd. Matt Bennett makes a cut throat sign at felton. He sits down with sarah, and begins discussing strange things going on at the company, money disappearing, money coming from strange places. Late night meetings with Suspicious people.

MINNIE BECKETT,(22) eyes Sarah from the farside of the hall. Sarah fails to notice.

Felton sits down at the table with Matt and Sarah, he begins making insuations about J.T’s loyalty and his place in running the company. And even implies what would happen if he dies.

INT: WOMENS RESTROOM-DAY

Sarah and Minnie wash their hands at the sink. Minnie powders her face. they discuss Matt Bennett, and Sarah’s Ex. GF. NATALIE WILSON.

INT. COMPANY CAR-DAY

Matt, Sarah,and Minnie Ride in the back seat. Matt snorts a vicks vaper inhaler. and puts it in his pocket. as they ride through traffic. The Sound Of rap Music resonates through the vehicle.

The Driver Pulls over and NATALIE WILSON (25) gets in and locke eyes with Sarah.
SARAH
Get that slut out of this car.

MATT AND MINNIE
Sarah!

SARAH
“she’s a no good, two timing whore,
kick her out..

MINNIE
I know you two had a bad breakup and all, but
could you please be civil.

SARAH
She fucked my dad on his desk. I saw them
with my own eyes..

NATALIE
It wasn’t what you think

SARAH
Shut the fuck up bitch!

EXT-BROWN HOTEL-DAY

The Foursome get out of the car.

INT. LOBBY-DAY

Matt checks them into the hotel room, as they mill about the lounge.

INT> ELEVATOR-DAY

They ride in the elevator all the way up to the top floor.

INT: HOTEL ROOM-DAY

Matt, Minnie, Sarah, and Natalie enter the room, Matt checks the bathroom and the air conditioning as Natalie sits in the Lounge chair Sarah and Minnie take one of the beds. Matt opens his briefcase and picks up a vial of strange looking pills all different kinds.
he hands out several to each one of them, they take them. He pulls out an Ipod dock and turns up the music and the tv he takes a palm full. they start dancing manically.

BEGIN HALUCINATION MOPNTAGE:
END HALUCINATION MONTAGE

ACT II.

FADE TO BLACK
UP FROM BLACK:
Sarah wakes up on the floor, Everyone else lies every which way they can. Sarah goes into the bathroom and vomits in the toilet, and collapses.

FADE TO BLACK:

INT. COMPANY CAR-DAY

Sarah wakes up the company car next to, Natalie who’s in her lingerie’

POV SARAH: Blurry with an occasional moment of clarity.

SARAH
What happened to matt, and
Minnie..

NATALIE
Surpised you’d actually
want to talk to me.

Sarah falls unconscious.

EXT: MOUNTAIN TOP-DAY

The sky is a curious golden orange, wind blows a light snowfall, onto Sarah’s clothing. James Felton has a gun trained on her. He fires.

FADE TO WHITE:

INT. HOTEL BATHROOM-DAY

Sarah surfaces from under the the bath water, screaming

FADE TO WHITE:

INT. COMPANY CAR-DAY

Natalie and Sarah fumble around and have a halucinagenic trist.

INT. HOTEL ROOM-DAY

Matt, Minnie, Sarah and Natalie jump up and down on the bed maniacly. Then they collapse.
INT. RESTRAUNT-DAY

Felton watches a hidden camera video of JT, Raping Natalie on his laptop, he closes it, picks up his smart phone, a text reads HAVE HIM DEAD BT TEN PM. REHAB, Matt Bennett sits down with him.

EXT: LOUISVILLE-KY-DAY

Upside down flyover shot of the city.

EXT. PARK-DAY

Bennett and Fessenden sit on a park bench. Bennett hands him an envelope full of money

BENNETT
This is to make sure you don’t harm
anyone but the right person. If Any
of us get hurt. then I’ll kill you
myself.

FESSENDEN
I never make mistakes.

BENNETT
Lets hope so.

INT. COMPANY CAR-DAY

Sarah wakes up half-naked with Natalie, she pulls back in recoil.

SARAH
Get out!

NATALIE
Sarah!

SARAH
Just get out!

The Driver escorts Natalie out..

FADE TO WHITE:

EXT. LANDSCAPE-DAY

Sarah and Minnie stand hand-in hand while the city passes overhead upside down.

INT. HOTEL BATHROOM

Minnie comforts sarah, kisses her on the forehead. The sound of heavy breathing emits from the other room Minnie paeek through the door, they see Natalie and matt screwing he looks at them with angry piercing eyes.

EXT. COMPANY CAR-DAY

Sarah pukes out the back window, as motorists whizz by.

INT. COMPANY CAR-DAY

Minnie eyes the space between sarah’s thighs her panties up her skirt. she puts her hand on sarahs thighs reches up to her panties sarah moans, hand goes inside.

MINNIE
Your so beautiful Sarah.

CU: Sarah’s face in ecstasy

EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP-DAY

Sarah and Minnie enjoy a tryst on the mountain top.

FADE TO BLACK

UP FROM BLACK

INT. COMPANY CAR-DAY

Felton gets in with a briefcase, besde the two disheveled girls.
He opens it, loaded gun waiting inside and a laptop.

FELTON
Before I play this I want you two to know
the consequences of what is to take place
Miss pendelton. As of a month ago a graphic
video of your father, molesting your ex
has made it into the hands of people like me.
people who do not approve of people who have
a lot of money doing things that are not in
standing with the morals of a given society.
No matter what you do, you cannot save your
father from his fate. He will die of a gunshot
to the heart at or near a predetermined location
as compensation the people who have decided that
I should carry out this action have paid each of
you a very large sum of money to look the other
way. Any attempt by you or anyoneone else to
interfere will result in the death of said party.

Felton plays the video. Both girls start to cry.

EXT. COMPAMY CAR-DAY

Felton gets out, briefcase in tow, he ches his watch as he does.

INT:-COMPANY CAR-DAY

Sarah and Minnie look into each other’s eyes.

SARAH
What have I gotten us into?

MINNIE
Just take this the whay it is
you always hated your father
and now you don’t have to ever see
him again.

INT. OFFICE-DAY

JT contemplates in his office, he has a picture or Natalie in his hand he crushes it and tosses it in the garbage.

EXT. LOUISVILLE KY-EST. NIGHT

INT: HOTEL ROOM-NIGHT

Matt and Natalie lie on the bed, Minnie and Sarah lie in the other bed togeather. Minnie softly sings a nursery rhyme to sarah

INT. HOTEL PUB-NIGHT

Felton and Matt enjoy a drink of black Guiness beer.
 
Very incoherent and difficult to follow. If you used a screenwriting program, you might want to load the PDF on GoogleDocs to share. The formatting and the general poor flow makes this difficult to read. And even then, there's no obvious story, just a disjoint collection of scenes. It didn't work for me as a whole but gritty urban isn't my interest.
 
The dialogue is not great. It's akin to my first script. I thought - wow, that's great and the dialogue is rocking. My partner read it - "People don't talk like that!". And she was right.

Eg:

SARAH
She fucked my dad on his desk. I saw them
with my own eyes..

NATALIE
It wasn’t what you think

SARAH
Shut the fuck up bitch!


BENNETT
This is to make sure you don’t harm
anyone but the right person. If Any
of us get hurt. then I’ll kill you
myself.

FELTON
Before I play this I want you two to know
the consequences of what is to take place
Miss pendelton. As of a month ago a graphic
video of your father, molesting your ex
has made it into the hands of people like me.
people who do not approve of people who have
a lot of money doing things that are not in
standing with the morals of a given society.
No matter what you do, you cannot save your
father from his fate. He will die of a gunshot
to the heart at or near a predetermined location
as compensation the people who have decided that
I should carry out this action have paid each of
you a very large sum of money to look the other
way. Any attempt by you or anyoneone else to
interfere will result in the death of said party.

You need to read:

Expositional Dialogue
http://reelauthors.com/script-analysis-coverage/expositional-dialogue.php

'On-the-nose' Dialogue
http://reelauthors.com/script-analysis-coverage/on-the-nose-dialogue.php

How to Write Great Dialogue
http://reelauthors.com/script-analysis-coverage/how-to-write-great-dialogue.php

There's an art to writing good dialogue - it takes practice. For me reading a ton of pro scripts (ones produced into good movies) helped a lot. The articles linked above will help hugely too.
 
I thought it was alright.

The dialogue is not great. It's akin to my first script. I thought - wow, that's great and the dialogue is rocking. My partner read it - "People don't talk like that!". And she was right.


Ironically, your third link contains the following quote "Screen dialogue is not real-life dialogue

Real-life dialogue is often uninteresting and rarely engaging for an outsider, it frequently also contains a lot of unnecessary padding, small talk and the like."
 
Ironically, your third link contains the following quote "Screen dialogue is not real-life dialogue

Real-life dialogue is often uninteresting and rarely engaging for an outsider, it frequently also contains a lot of unnecessary padding, small talk and the like."

That's true but so was my statement regarding my partner saying my script did not sound 'real'. Let me try to clarify/explain.

Screen dialogue tends to cut to the chase. Minimal padding etc. Imagine if every character introduced themselves in a movie, or engaged in small talk with every character? That's not how 95% of pro screenwriters work or movies play out - they cut to the chase, write tight dialogue but dialogue that hits hard or is interesting to listen to. It is often conflict laden etc.

But it has to sound real/authentic in terms of that character - their life experience, job etc.

Some of the OPs dialogue was very expositional and did not sound real, it sounded stilted - like someone trying to write for their audience, explain back story to them etc. That's how a lot of the dialogue in my first screenplay sounded - which my partner pulled me up on.

Five screenplays later my dialogue reads very different. Reading hundreds of pro scripts helped get me there. Plus great feedback from some people in the business.

I find it hugely helpful to get some friends (ideally actors) together and have a read-through of my scenes. Any issues with the dialogue usually comes up (if they're being objective and honest), and lots of good advice is given.

Hope the above helps.
 
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