TREATMENT WRITING

I spent years at Flare BBDO, AMV BBDO’s in-house production company, before moving into their creative department as a copywriter. I’ve read my fair share of director’s treatments. And awarded jobs off the back of them.

That time spent firmly behind enemy lines gives me a clear advantage: I know what agencies want, what makes creatives say yes, and how to survive high-pressure pitch turnarounds without bruising any egos.

Alongside this, I’m a scriptwriter. I’ve written award-winning short films, plays that toured the UK and Edinburgh Fringe, and I currently have a TV series in development.

My collaborators reflect a broad range of tone and style, from the iconic, no-holds-barred enthusiasm of Merman’s Vaughan Arnell to the razor-sharp comedy of Riff Raff’s Finn Keenan to the stunning surreality of Division Global’s Max Siedentopf. I pride myself on working collaboratively and being a chameleon when it comes to tone of voice.

*treatment samples available on request.

CLIENTS INCLUDE:

Barry Jenkins, Lynn Ramsey, MJ Delaney, Halina Reijn, Michael Gracey, Vaughan Arnell, Raine Allen-Miller, Finn Keenan, Alicia McDonald, Radical Friend, Max Siedentopf 

Merman Branded, Somesuch, Division Global, Partizan, Magma, Pulse, Iconoclast, RiffRaff, Smuggler, Moxie, 42Branded, MJZ.

AI SLOP

Can A.I. do my job? (I type, late at night, into Chat GBT.) 

Short answer: yes.

More in depth answer: yes, but not well.

Sure, with the dawn of Large Language Models (LLMs) I was concerned that my job as a treatment writer would become redundant. And they are an incredible tool. Emphasis on tool. For research, brainstorming, creative idea bouncing. Not a full blown replacement for a human being. The more copy I read generated by an LLM the more cracks begin to show. 

Firstly, there are the easy tells. The em-dashes. The ‘it’s not just this, it’s also thats.’ The flowery, verbose, at times grandiose, overly descriptive long chunks of text that don’t actually say anything… (Just like the former sentence)

Then, Chat GBT / Claude / Gemini / Grok / Nick Nack Paddy Wack / WHATEVER cannot take a creative deck and agency briefing call and offer original insights and ideas and then write this into a coherent director’s treatment in that director’s specific tone of voice. And then write these ideas up into fresh, exciting, workable (read: within budget) scripts. 

And finally, the more people using LLMs, the more we’re all starting to sound the same. It’s the death of tone of voice. Some of my directors have beautifully succinct, straight to the point styles. Some are jokey. Some are playful. Some are so conversational they might as well have written their treatment down the pub. But the more we rely on LLMs, the more generic and samey everything sounds. Basically, it’s all becoming A.I. SLOP. Which makes me sad. 

Please don’t make me sad. Hire me instead and preserve your director’s distinct vision and vibe.