TA - Treevenge

Textual analysis of

Treevenge depicts Christmas from the perspective of sentient Christmas trees. After being hacked down and shipped to homes, they are subject to "humiliation" by humans, who decorated them and make them stand in their living rooms. The Christmas trees have had enough, and go on to massacre and kill an entire town as part of their uprising.

Mise en scene

• The beginning of the film is a brilliant juxtaposition to the film itself, bright cheerful music, old and crackly like a record player. A nice side scrolling shot showing off your setting, a beautiful Christmas tree forrest
• We come to a very angry looking man screaming to his fellow 'pieces of meat'. He's smoking a cigar and wearing the traditional lumberjack attire
• we see bleak coloured shots chainsaws and axes implying that what they're doing is cruel and barbaric
• @3:55 a man is actually wrestling a tree, spinning round and what not
  
• We see a family looking to buy a Christmas tree this establishes the time of year
• People (and a cat) brutally murdered as the trees get their revenge at last
• Lots of blood and gore, it's great

Camera

• Close ups on chainsaws and axes
• The rolling camera angles and the general franticness of the camera movement give us a sense of evil, spite and hatred being displayed to these trees
• mid shots used when the family are out buying a Christmas tree
• Close ups on the girls' faces as they see the trees gang up around them
• big close up on the woman's mouth as the branch is slowly inserted and on the eye as the eye pops out and the branch is forced out, through the hole

Sound

• Squeaking noise coming from a sapling, first sign of the trees' sentience
• After the trees have been chopped the crazy lumberjack does some loud, unnecessary battle cry showing that this to him is like a war that he has evidently won
• At one point when one of the trees is 'talking', a dolphin sound has been added in, no need (god damn i love this short so much)
• Lots of swearing throughout the tree chopping scenes showing the lumberjack guys' anger and hatred toward the trees for some reason
• Trees screech as they burn
• Diegetic noise of the conveyor belt
• Sad music added when showing the chopped trees to make us feel sorry for trees
• Happy, Christmas music added when the family are decorating the tree, naive to the cruelty that they are part of
• Lots of screaming during the massacre scene
• Diegetic baby's head getting squished noise
• Gentle music during ending credits to contrast the events in the film

Editing

• Short takes used throughout to show 
• Subtitles added as the trees make their little squeaky noise showing that they are not only alive but sentient and are able to communicate to one another
• A bit of static has been edited in when the girl gets grabbed by the tree showing that this shot was taken from the man's camcorder
• Cut away used when we see the branch forced into the woman's mouth it cuts away to her eyes for her reaction and to the mans face to show his reaction
• Zoom in, into a mans mouth which blurs and fades into another scene

This is the best short film in the entire world