Story and Art Direction Initial Pitch

Art Direction Concept 1

Sound Design Concept 1

Film Summary

The short begins with a close up of cherry tree branches. Limbs are twisted and contorted to create a complex graphic pattern similar to synapses of the human brain. The camera cranes down through the thicket of dead branches to lush budding flowers, and reveals the title card carved into the tree’s trunk.

The environment is expansive and empty with a single tree in its center, extending above the frame with a short ladder leaned against its trunk. A teenage boy walks towards the tree.

The boy climbs the ladder and slowly ascends the tree. Branches transition from ripe with life to dying as he climbs higher and higher. When he crests the canopy, the boy is looking out into endless space. In the distance the young boy sees a hazy red planet. He reaches towards the planet in awe. Suddenly, the branch he is supporting himself on breaks and he begins to fall back to the ground. He turns slowly while falling and now, with his back towards the ground, is looking back towards the red planet. He is aging as he speaks the line "it has often proved true that the dream of yesterday is the hope of today, and the reality of tomorrow."

The words physically animate from his mouth and decay into black soil that collects on his chest where a seedling begins to sprout. The frame slowly tightens around his face as he calmly closes his eyes. He dies.

A hatch closes, framing his face in a porthole window. The camera trucks out to reveal a rocket ship being propelled into space. The loud rumble of a rocket is increasing and increasing in volume as the reverb layers and builds. Hard cut to black as only the echo of the rocket reverberates into hollow space.

The final frame is an old man sitting on a red planet under a cherry tree reading the book The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells as credits roll to the side of the frame