Hereunder is some art I made for personal movie projects. They did not materialize, but in my mind they’re still alive. Especially Opal would be a movie that is worth being made.
SONGBRIDGE
Story by Greg Simay ad Paul Demeyer
What if a story you made up turns out to be true.
MICHAEL is in trouble. His Freshman English teacher has assigned him to read the little-known legend of MILOS and ELFA and to recite it in class. Michael however failed to read the text. In desperation he makes up the story, stumbling half way through the narrative he is saved by the bell.
Michael takes a walk along the beach after school and discovers an amulet that resembles the one he made up in his “folk tale”. Michael puts it on, and the amulet transports him to the world of Milos and Elfa. The story continues to unfold from where he left off in class.
Michael has become the heroic Milos and has to protect his sister, Elfa, from a great evil. Before he can accomplish that task, Michael is returned to his own time and discovers that that same evil is now threatening his best friend, TANYA.
NICK AND THE GLIMMUNG
Adapted by Christopher Carlson and Paul Demeyer
from the novel by Philip K. Dick
In a simple act of kindness, young Nick finds a stray cat and brings him home. There’s just one problem.
Since The Trouble of 2021 (original written in the 1980’s), it’s been illegal to own any sort of animal — food is scarce on a dangerously overcrowded planet Earth. So when the Anti-Pet man discovers that young Nick and his family are secretly harboring this cat called Horace, they must choose: either surrender the cat to the authorities for proper confiscation, or emigrate with Horace to a solitary planet at the edge of our known universe. To the indoctrinated and fearful people of Big Brother Earth, the family shockingly opts for the latter in order to save their pet.
But the family no sooner arrives on Plowman’s Planet, a drought-stricken, wild west frontier, when giant birds frighten poor Horace. Who wouldn’t run off? Then what should the family do when their mute guide decides to eat their map before they can even set off to find their homestead?
But that’s the least of it. Soon Nick and his parents find themselves drawn into an age-old conflict waged by the planet’s quirky creatures: Wubs, Werjes, Spiddles, Printers, Nunks, Father-Things and Trobes.
After his parents are taken over by Father-Things, Nick must undertake a perilous journey to rescue his cat from the Trobes. With some enthusiastic Spiddles and a helpful Nunk, this great quest will bring Nick face-to-face with the mysterious and terrible Glimmung, author of the Book of Fate.
Will Nick solve the secret of the Glimmung? Can he bring an end to the War? Will he ever see his real parents again? And the biggest question of all: can Nick ultimately save his cat from the forces of Destruction?
Come to Plowman’s Planet and see it all for yourself!
OPAL
Written by Greg Simay and Paul Demeyer based on the novel “The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow” by Opal Whiteley
In 1906 rural Oregon, a six-year-old girl looked at the same forest that her family and neighbors did… but saw what no one else saw or thought. That girl was Opal Whiteley.
Over the course of a year and its seasons, she recorded her adventures (…and misadventures) in her diary, laboriously written in color crayon on scraps of butcher paper, wrapping paper and backs of envelopes, which she hid inside a hollow log, deep in the woods. When she was “making her explores”, she encountered the cycles of life and death within her logging community and the natural world surrounding it. Encounters made all the more poignant by the deep rapport she experienced with lives lived within bark, furs and feathers.
Opal’s oneness with nature is expressed in her thoughts and feelings, along with her sharp observations of the natural world and her community. For Opal, nature was not a thing to be tamed, or even a biosphere to be better understood: it was a living reality to be loved.
If magic is words that can transform you, then Opal’s diary is magical. And that’s because her words in this digital age still touch us deeply. She found her voice, and her diary found its way into print. It will be a privilege to share this extraordinary way of seeing the world in an animated feature, Opal.
