ABSTRACT
This chapter offers insight into developing and pitching a proposal and also writing the all-important document known as the "treatment". Reviewers seldom have the time to read dozens of pages of a formal documentary proposal. Therefore, a concise proposal document is the suggested norm, although some documentarians actually write several proposals for the same project, each of a different length to fit different recipients. A standard proposal of three to five pages or fewer can test people's creative writing skills. Though there is no formal outline for this type of proposal, the items listed in the Sample Documentary Proposal Outline are standard elements. They are: documentary title and name of production team, documentary statement, background on the documentary's topic and the need for the production, approach and style, audience, budget, schedule, key production team members, with brief "bios", miscellaneous and contact information.
