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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 ch air 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 ar mchair, 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 fam ily 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 tre e; 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 look s 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 baub les 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 ma ntel 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 upslowly 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.