You don't need a treatment.

Even if you do have a treatment your idea isn't protected. For example: if you
decide you are going to do a documentary on house cats and write a treatment
that doesn't mean no one can ever make a documentary on house cats.

But if your director wants a treatment, I would suggest you sit down with the
director and work one out. Can't hurt, can it? And it will make the director happy.
Sometimes a good creative and business relationship is worth the few hours it
takes to write out a treatment.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Thank you. I'll write one up anyways, like you said. I asked him if he could do it because he knows all my ideas and he has many years of experience. But if he'd rather have me do it; I will.

I googled ''how to write a documentary treatment'' and all the sites were lame. They showed theirs as an example and I wouldn't have bought any of them, lol. Is their a good definitive site on writing one? I write things too much like a human, like I'm talking to a friend; and it seems like buisness people like it to be robotic and sterile. So I don't know the prefered nominclature dude, haha 😛

You don't need a site or anything official.

Or do you?

Sit down with the director and talk about it. If he wants a full, professional,
standard treatment for investors, I can help. If it turns out he just wants an
informal gathering of ideas to make sure you are both on the same page,
and others inolved will be able to get up to speed, your way will be just fine.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Unless you have a tight documentary script, I always thought the purpose of a documentary treatment was to create a blueprint of the film, something in writing that gives a clear idea of what the story is and how it's going to be told. It doesn't have to be long - in fact, the more concise you are the better.

It might be that you don't know what's going to happen over the course of the shoot but at least from the treatment, someone reading it will have an idea of the kind of narrative building blocks and structure the documentary will take.

That way everyone involved in the film, from crew, producers, director, financiers, interviewees and even at this stage you might be lucky to have interest from distributors, they all know what is being shot and they all know when they turn up for the shoot, what is going on.

So it might be a faff and it might be a task that you could do without, but maybe it'll save you time later on when someone for the umpteenth time asks "what are you shooting?"

Alto Films Film-making Workshops - Brighton -Visit: http://www.altofilms.com/workshops.html

Thanks for the tips.