5 Great TV Treatments and Show Bibles
Selling a series isn’t just about having a hot original pilot, it’s also about having a killer Treatment and/or Bible: That all-encompassing document that gets people excited and proves your show has long term potential.
Your treatment needs to not only give the nuts and bolts of your season arc, characters, genre, and tone, it needs to convince the “powers that be," to invest in bringing your story to life or to work with you on another project if this one doesn’t meet their needs.
So how do you create an effective treatment? You can start by learning from people who’ve done it well.
shorescripts.com has collated “just about every TV series bible and treatment available on the web”. Comedy, procedural, animated series… if you can name it they probably have the treatment for it.
Here are links to 5 great (and very different) Treatments and/or Show Bibles:
1. Stranger Things
The bible for ‘Stranger Things’ is highly visual. Originally pitched with the title ‘Montauk’ the, then little known, Duffer Brothers created a show bible that looked like an old paperback horror novel.
“When we were selling it, we made a fake Stephen King paperback cover for the show. We actually used the Firestarter paperback and put our title and an image of a fallen bike on top of it, so when we were trying to come up with titles, we would type them out onto this paperback cover and it would help us. And Stranger Things sort of sounds like Needful Things—it sounded like it could have been a Stephen King book from the ‘80s” - Matt Duffer
2. True Detective
The Treatment for ‘True Detective’ clearly lays out the show’s franchise potential. Making it easy for someone (like a network exec) to see why it could work long term.
“Part of the unique nature of True Detective is that it proposes a change in the way we think about series branding. Though Hart and Cohle’s stories definitely end with season one, treating these eight episodes like a single novel, the story structure is the franchise signature…. Due to the compression of time and terminal narrative, every season has enough reversals and revelations for an entire, multi-season run of any other show…”
They make their unique season-to-season plan seem like a golden opportunity rather than a possible stumbling block.
3. Freaks and Geeks
Freaks. Geeks. Jocks. Preppies. Farmers. Motorheads. Brains. Every school has them. Everybody has been one of them. So ... which group did you belong to?
In his proposal for ‘Freaks and Geeks’ Paul Feig immediately makes the reader reflect on their own high school experience, instantly giving them a personal connection to the series.
4. Adventure Time
The series presentation for the animated series ‘Adventure Time’ is an amazing example of how you can use visuals in your treatment to help tell your story. It clearly communicates the tone and esthetic of the show.
5. Fargo
On the very first page of this bible, Noah Hawley decided to include the double meaning of the word ‘Fargo’. This sets up tone in a clever way, gives us a piece of necessary information, and shows a personal touch.
Click HERE for more Treatments and Show Bibles.
What treatments inspire you? Let me know @CaroleKirsch!
About Shore Scripts:
Shore Scripts helps emerging screenwriters break into the industry. With our annual Feature and TV-Pilot contests, we discover new writers and get their scripts into the hands of our award-winning Judges and our unparalleled roster of 180+ Production Companies, Managers, and Agents. To further support our goal, we created our Short Film Fund. Working with the 70+ members on our Directors’ Roster, Shore Scripts now regularly produces at least one short film, proof-of-concept feature or pilot each year. Check our website for more information: https://www.shorescripts.com
