The script development

THE
ARISTOCRATIC
CHRISTMAS
TREE

By

Chris Rogers

Version 1



THE STEP OUTLINE
1. Scene one starts with the opening of a door. Out from behind of that door comes a family carrying a Christmas tree. The members of the family will place the tree down and dress the tree in beautiful decoration. When they have finished, they will leave and go to bed. FADE OUT.
2. FADE IN - The tree will be standing there in front of the window, dressed top to bottom in Christmas decorations. The top of the tree will slowly bend forward and down and look at itself. Its head will rise up and look into a mirror. The tree will shake and the decorations will fly off in all directions. When finished shaking, the tree will face a cloak stand that situated on the other side of the room.
3. The tree will pull out a long candy cane from a stocking on the mantel piece below the mirror. With the aid of the candy cane as a walking stick, the tree will stroll over to the cloak stand.
4. At the cloak stand the tree will place his cane on the chair and start to dress itself in the clothing items on the cloak stand. After the tree is dressed, he will turn and walk back to his original position. On the way he will tip his hat to a plant, which ends up blushing.
5. When he reaches the original spot he’ll turn and look down, seeing a newspaper. FADE OUT
6. FADE IN – The door opens and the little girl of the family runs in and stops sharply, her parents then joins her. They are all looking at the same spot. What they are looking at is the tree sat in the armchair, reading the paper.


THE PREMISE
It is Christmas time and there is one Christmas Tree that finds it important to dress in a proper manner.




THE LOGLINE
At Christmas, one Christmas tree is decorated tinsel, ball balls and all the typical décor by its owning family. That tree wants to dress in a different style, and that is style is Aristocratic. To cure this problem he will move to wear the clothes of its owners.

THE TREATMENT
1 The open scene starts by the opening of a door; from that door the top of a Christmas tree starts to be carried through. From an angle outside the door, we see a father, mother and a small girl bring in the Christmas tree into the living room. The tree is placed in the corner of the large living room. On the left hand side of the tree will be a wide window with snow and frost covering the window panes. Under the window is an armchair. To the right of the Christmas tree is a fire place with a white mantel piece and above that is a mirror.
The small girl has a large box of decorations with her and she places it down in front of the tree and opens the box fully. The family start to dress the tree in all sorts of decorations with all sorts of colour; red, green, yellow, blue, silver, gold, etc. ( As the family dress the tree, all the audience sees is the hands of the members put the decorations on the tree and sometimes a shot or two of the feet, to show their positions.) In this same style, little girl will pick up the box and leave the room, followed her mother and father, the father shuts the door behind him. (The position of the view will be from the floor, so the audience only sees the feet of the family leave as well as the door closing. A slow FADE OUT.
(This whole scene should take around 15-20 seconds)
2. FADE IN – What we see is our first full image of the tree, dressed in awesome colour and lights. FADE OUT
FADE IN – We are now closer to the tree; we see the top half of the body. FADE OUT
FADE IN – What we now see is the head of the tree, and the view is zoomed in slowly; only a couple of inches closer. As the zooming stops the tree shakes itself awake. The view is then moved back. The bristles start to form together to create the arms and legs. The tree lifts its left arm and looks at the bauble on the top of it. His head lowers down; (and through its view we see it looking at the decorations on him; looking from left to right). Our view changes back to the full body view, the head is positioned the same as it was before we left the tree-eyed viewed. His head rises up and looks to the left, (from a view behind him we see he’s spotted the mirror). He jumps off the stand that he’s on and then lands on the legs that were created by the bristles. When landed, our view jumps to the legs landing and then he walks closer to the mirror. Once again from a view from behind him we see the tree look at himself in the mirror. He unpicks a bauble from his face and throws it to his right. The bauble flies across the room and hits a cloak stand, knocking it slightly into a wobble. The tree looks around to his right and notices the cloak stand. He starts shaking himself from left to right, up and down; all the baubles and tinsel and candy canes are flying across the room. (Our view follows a view of the decoration fly across the room and land on the floor).
We then see the tree pull a large candy cane out of a small Christmas stocking that’s hung up on the white mantel piece. Using this large candy cane the tree will stroll over to the cloak stand and dress giddily in the cloak and hat. He’ll then look to his right and tip his hat to a plant (that acts as a female and blushes) and looks himself in the mirror. Pleased with the new look he’ll move towards his original spot, but a broadsheet newspaper on the arm of the chair catches his eye. (Our view then changes to close in front of the tree with a slightly looked up position, the tree moves closer, blocking out our view.)
3. FADE IN – The door opens and from a view of behind that door we see the family enter, the view moves up slowly over their heads. In this time the mother will place her hands on her face. When the view is over their heads, we see that the family is looking at the tree sat in the arm chair with the newspaper in his hands but covering his body. His legs are crossed. The mother screams and the paper crumples down and we see the face of the tree with the top hat on the top of his head. He tips his hat in greetings to the family.


ALTERNATIVE ENDING
In this alternative ending, the tree won’t notice a broadsheet newspaper on the chair, and instead stands in the spot he was in at the beginning. The next morning the family open the door to see the tree dressed in a cloak and hat.

THE SYNOPSIS
In the corner of a warm Victorian living room, a newly decorated Christmas tree is standing not as proud as one would think. The Christmas tree suddenly comes to dress how he sees fit. With one look in the mirror, there is a clear disgust, but with a knock that grabs his attention there is cloak stand with the right clothes fit for the tree. A cloak and a top hat is all he desired but the owners of the tree and clothes don’t react all that well.