As well as the full 2 hour CGI feature, there is also a 45 minute live musical under development. It’s based on the original Fairy Tale version of “Stina & the Wolf”  (below). It’s planned to use the full orchestral score, with live solo instruments and feature dance, costume and projected CGI backdrops.

A taste of what’s to come:

~ Stina & the Wolf ~ 

(a musical fairy tale)

1 – The Village

Stina is an ordinary girl, and she’s an orphan, of course. She lives in a small village high in the mountains with her unforgiving aunt and a nice, but goat-bodied uncle. The village is a hard place: brutal tradition, endless ceremony and always a cup to wash or homework to do. Today she is doing her chores, like every other day. As she toils away she looks towards the distant snowy mountains. She watches an eagle as it soars above a distant peak, then vanishes into a cloud; she follows it into a daydream of a better life, as a woman.

“Stop daydreaming!”.  

2 – The Snow

The next morning she wakes to a glorious sun. Her aunt is asleep. Her uncle is in his basket. She creeps past them unseen into the wild meadows. She has escaped, for now. It suddenly begins to snow. She has never seen snow before. It’s new and exhilarating. She likes the feel of it as it settles on her skin. She runs into the blizzard and is soon lost, although she doesn’t know it yet.

3 – The Caravan

Finding her way back to the village, she follows a strange caravan of brightly coloured wagons led by a charming devil. He is flanked by wild dancers wearing the beasts of the forest.

4 – The Baiting

The caravan sets up in the village square and erects a high-walled arena offering a test to boys on the threshold of manhood. It soon draws a crowd of excited teenagers. Only boys enter. Once inside they begin enthusiastically killing wolves but are tricked into the awaiting cages. The caravan leaves with the boys inside.

5 – Transformation

Stina follows it down into the forests below.

Losing the trail, she stops to rest by an icy lake.  Lost, tired and alone, she regrets ever leaving the comfort and safety of the village. Washing cups isn’t so bad, not really.  Suddenly the moon appears. She fails to notice it turning blood red. She catches her reflection in the ice. Her eyes are a poisonous yellow. On the far side of the lake a creature howls. She is surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves. The blood light engulfs her and she becomes a wolf. She is hungry and joyful. She dives into the forest to feed with the pack. She follows as they tear through the trees, finally diving into the ground, sated, to rest under a giant oak.

5 – The Underworld

When she awakes she is deep underground and only a girl. She makes her way down into the earth and enters the underworld, arriving at a giant ocean. A lone wolf stands guard on a rock and calls to her, saying no girls may enter. She persuades him she’s a boy and he lets her pass (easy). He summons up the horde from beneath the waves. All the real and fantastical creatures of the forest emerge and process down into the depths. They carry her down to the lair of the charming devil and she arrives through a giant wall of water.

The lair is dark and empty. Suddenly the devil emerges. He is sarcastic and rebukes her for her boyishness. But Stina isn’t afraid. Boys are boys. She replies softly and they dance. He resists at first, but she soon teaches him to dance like her, and they move in harmony. Softened by the dance, he doesn’t notice as she releases the boys and they flee into the wall of water, leaving the charming devil pirouetting off into the darkness. The horde carries them all back to the surface, travelling through every terrifying level of the underworld. Finally they burst into the brilliant mountain sunlight, right next to the village.

6 – Home

The village is full of snow and the villagers are gone. In their place are wolves. They are eating viscera and staining the white snow red. With her new found skills, Stina casts a spell and returns the villagers to human form and the boys reunite with their families (they also put their clothes back on!). She calls out to them, but her voice is now that of a wolf, and they throw stones. She watches from the trees as the villagers go about their lives; her aunt does her chores, her uncle eats the grass. She knows she can never go back. She is a wolf and she is a human. She turns from the village and runs into the mountains to live with the other beasts of the forest forever, the real ones and the fantastical ones.

~THE END ~