Projects Outside the Box

In addtion to Rubik's Movie, I've got some other fun, meaningful, and musical ideas in the works. They are all in some form of progress/completion.

Honk and Beep

This is a treatment for a traditional 2D animated movie about Flett, an orphan girl who wants more than anything to play a musical instrument. But when she is late to school on the day the instruments are handed out, she has to take what is left - Honk, a big, awkward, noisy bagpipe. But Honk is not just any bagpipe. He's alive, and he has a friend, a mischievous practice chanter named Beep.

Besides having a bagpipe with a mind of its own, Flett also has another problem. She has no bagpipe teacher; so she is pretty much on her own and surrounded by people who scorn her and her strange pipe, all except Glenn, a friendly boy who is fascinated by the pipe, and Ginnie, a little girl who wants to be just like Flett. As Flett learns to love Honk, she is taken on one adventure after another and begins to discover that it is her destiny to play the Highland bagpipe.

This is the first in a series of stories about how Flett grows up learning to play her bagpipe at an enchanted school just for youngsters who have been called to pipe. As she and her firends master their artform they graudally understand their greater purpose.

I have developed a series of bagpipe greeting cards with these characters, and I would also like to integrate the characters from these stories into a children's bagpipe teaching method series.

The Hiding Place

This true account by Corrie Ten Boom is one of the most amazing stories of perseverence and faith ever told. She and her family saved hundreds of Jews from the Nazis in Holland during World War II. Corrie and her sister and father were put in German prisons and concentration camps when their operation was discovered and Corrie was the only one of the three who survived to tell the incredible story. I am in the process or re-adapting her book for film. I would very much love to see an extremely accurate version of this beloved classic on the big screen. I believe it would have the emotonal potential and appeal of films such as Schindler's List and The Passion of the Christ.

Molly and J. S. Bagpipe

This is my first children's story about bagpipes, written when I was still learning to play. A girl named Molly wants to play the Scottish bagpipes like her older brothers, but since she is a girl in the 1950s, tradition will not allow it. Instead Molly spends her afternoons practicing Bach on the piano. She loves the piano, but the pipes are her dream. The bagpipes are her way of feeling connected with her father who died piping in the military for his homeland of Scotland in World War II. Molly misses him desperately.

But girls playing bagpipes simply goes against what is accepted. One afternoon Molly meets a mysterious old man who seems to know her already. He learns of her desire to pipe and decides to teach her, though she has to keep her lessons a secret from her mother and borthers. But eventually the word gets out and Molly sees her dream slipping away. What will make her mother see that piping is what she wants more than anything?

Shoshanna's Lullaby

The title of this children's book is based on the name of one of my favorite bagpipe tunes. This is the story of Shoshanna, a little angel who is granted the gift of the first Highland bagpipe. She works very hard to learn to play it, but she feels very much alone, for, as far as she knows, there are no other pipers in all of Heaven. But Shoshanna is not discouraged and becomes the best piper she can possibly be. And on the night of the first Christmas, the Angel Gabriel comes and tells her she is needed on earth. So begins her greatest adventure. She, among other angels and the great heavenly host, goes down to join the shepherds for the joyous event. And Shoshanna discovers that she is not alone as she realizes that her task is to lead many heavenly pipers in a Christmas lullaby.

Rubik's Christmas Movie

A year after Rubik comes to live with the Rodriguez family, he and his friends learn the true meaning of Christmas when a sweet little cube named Ruby finds her way into the family and into Rubik's heart.

The sequel to Rubik's Movie is in it's infancy, but I've got lots of adventure planned!