There Will be a Talking Tree

So uhm, Rachel and I have decided to completely change the premise of our film opening.
We have totally scratched any previous ideas we had rolling and are now taking a brand
new direction.

We thought it would be interesting if in our film opening we personified something in nature.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Animism is defined as “attribution of conscious
life to objects in and phenomena of nature or to inanimate objects,” It is a religious belief that
really intrigued us. Anthropomorphizing is another approach  that is similar to this idea but
less spiritual and it is when humans give human characteristics to non-humans, like forming
a bond with your Roomba. We felt that by giving a tree a voice we could create a wise and
sapient being that is immovable and acts as a guide to our protagonist.

Our opening will begin with an establishing shot of a field with the tree in the background.
The title will come at the beginning and then a spritely young girl will be seen running
through the field and through the title. Then we want to show her climbing the tree and the
tree speaking to her telling her to be gentle on the old tree’s branches. From there we will
show the two characters meeting each other for the first time. And then depending on how
long all of that is we may also depict the girl leaving the tree to return home. I would really
like to incorporate narration into our film and I thought that the narrator and the tree should
be the same person, kind of like the 2014 version of “Into the Woods” where the baker is
also the narrator. Having a narrator would also add to the whimsical tone we want to set.

We want our film to rely on shots that are visually and aesthetically appealing through
colors and landscape. Which we hope to establish through costume and set location.

I’m glad Rachel and I were finally able to establish what we want our film opening to
be. Overall we want whatever we create to be unique and different and I think a sapient
tree will be a way to achieve that goal. In summary, the rest of this process should be …
interesting.