Example 1
TREATMENT for "ICARUS'S FLIGHT"
1. Day. Icarus and Daedalus imprisoned in a room at the top of a tall tower. Icarus stands at one of the parapets, gazing out at sea and sky; Daedalus sits at a crude table, working on a plan of escape.
He looks up, sees Icarus dreaming, and orders him to sweep the room. Icarus takes his time about obeying.
2. Night. Daedalus asleep on a cot, Icarus gazing out, as before.
Daedalus stirs, sees the boy at the parapet, and orders him back to bed. When he closes his eyes, Icarus makes a face at him.
3. Day. Daedalus at the table, Icarus at the parapet. From his point of view, we watch seagulls ride the wind. Quietly, he spreads arms vyide and dips and turns in place, imitating them.
4. Day. Icarus collects discarded feathers from the sills of the parapets and adds them to a pile by his cot. Icarus at work, trying ways to paste feathers onto his arm.
5. Night. Daedalus at the table, working by candlelight. Behind him, Icarus swoops about on feathered arms. He knocks against a stool and Daedalus looks up. "Stop that!" Then he really sees what is going on, jumps up, and crosses the room to touch the feathers on his son's arm. Icarus pulls away. We watch from his point of view as Daedalus goes back to the table and scrapes up a bit of melted candle wax, rolling it between his fingers.
6. Montage of Icarus and Daedalus crafting the wings: gathering wax and feathers, stripping a cot of its straps to make an armature, and so on. As they work together, side by side, Daedalus impatiently corrects everything the boy does.
7. Night. Sound of a key in the lock. Quickly, they hide their work underneath one of the cots, and Icarus sits down on it, dangling his legs to hide what's underneath. The door opens and the jailer comes in with supper tray and fresh candle. He leaves these and goes. Icarus runs to light the candle.
8. Day. Icarus and Daedalus gaze down at the completed pairs of wings, which are huge and very beautiful. Now Daedalus warns the boy to stay close behind him when they set out and-above all!-to be sure not to fly up toward the sun. Its rays would surely melt the wax that holds their wings together. They help one another tie on the wings. A winged Icarus stands out on the sill of one of the parapets. He gazes after his father, already in flight toward the distant shore. He takes a deep breath and launches himself into the air.
9. In the distance, we see the two figures flying, Daedalus in the lead. Intoxicated by his new freedom, Icarus begins to swoop and glide, flying up toward the sun. Daedalus turns, sees what is happening, and calls out to Icarus to come back. But at the sound of his father's voice, the boy soars even farther. As Daedalus's cries grow faint in the distance, he begins to find it hard to move his wings and looks back over his shoulder in terror to see that they are losing their shape. Icarus cries out to his father to save him as he begins to fall.
10. A wide shot of sea and sky as Daedalus, wings beating furiously, races to catch the boy. A shot of Icarus, plummeting down. The camera follows as he plunges into the sea and the water closes over his head. He descends slowly underwater, twisting and turning.
10a. A wide shot, with Daedalus circling above the place where his son vanished, calling Icarus's name over and over.
This last shot may not work in the film, because it leaves us contemplating Daedalus's suffering rather than that of our protagonist, Icarus. But it is worth thinking about, possibly even shooting, with the final decision left for the editing room.
Example 2
1.We are in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, the home of Iron Mike Tyson. A community filled with laughter, pain, and hope. MONTAGE OF NEIGHBORHOOD-- young men on the basketball court, girls playing hop-scotch, old men sitting on milk cartons, etc. A thirteen-year-old boy named Derrick is leaving his house carrying a football. He pauses a moment to secure his leg brace, and then hurries off. He bumps into a neighbor; they greet, but Derrick is in too much of a hurry to stay long.
2. Derrick runs over to a group of kids. They are selecting teammates for a game of touch football. Everyone is picked except Derrick-being left out and unable to play, Derrick sits on his porch watching the game from the sidelines.
3. Unexpectedly, one of the kids twists his ankle, and Derrick gets his golden opportunity to play although now the kids won't throw the ball to him. After two unsuccessful plays,
Derrick's team decides to throw him the LONG BOMB. As the quarterback releases the football, it goes high in the sky.Derrick runs the length of the block while the football is going higher and higher. As Derrick crosses the street, a car almost runs him over.
4. The driver comes to a halt just long enough to look up and see the football flying overhead. Next we see Derrick catching a subway train to Manhattan. When he comes out of the subway exit, he looks up and sees the football soaring way up high. We then see Derrick knock a woman down at a bus stop.
5. We cut back to Derrick in the neighborhood. The football is coming down, and Derrick dives for it. The football just glides off the tips of his fingers, and rolls to the curb.
Derrick's face shows grim disappointment. As the kids all gather around him, the air becomes very tense. After two long seconds the kids laugh, encouraging Derrick to do the same.
FADE TO BLACK