The Tree (1993) AFI - Todd Field

This is a short film Todd Field wrote and directed during our first year as fellows at the American Film Institute. He based it loosely on Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. It's funny to look at now, because Field's control and deliberate visual style back in 93 was essentially the same as it is today. The one difference being that we had mere 400 dollar budgets and were also limited to four shoot and edit days (pre-Avid). Even so, these first year cycle projects were interesting to crew on. The forced perspective diorama Trompe-l'œil set is by the production designer Patrick Sherman who made magic for peanuts. Watch out for Matthew Modine who appears near the end.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1730731/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tre...)