| The Tree | |
| Director: | Todd Field |
| Starring: | Travis Martin Jameson Baltes Jason D'Rion Matthew Modine |
| Music: | Mab Ashforth |
| Runtime: | 12 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
The Tree is a 1993 short film that Todd Field created while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It is a non-verbal dramatic piece following the life of a boy born at the turn of the century. The single setting, an apple tree set high on a rural ridge, is where we glimpse the boy mature, fall in love, go to war, return with his own son, and finally pay his last respects as a very old man who has seen much change. The set was designed using the tree as a scale foreground visual anchor and employing forced perspective for other items appearing in frame, including distant mountains, a train, and a town in transition. The scene changes from season to season and year to year all achieved practically using trompe-l'œil.
The film is loosely based upon and inspired by the story The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.