Welcome Chameleon fans to the very post in our journey from inception to the stage. As I listened to the harmonious voice of Frank Sinatra, I begin to chronicle Chameleon the way I want you to see it. It has been four long years since I began crafted this project that begin with the daunting tasks of re-visioning classic tales of from authors like The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson to bring to life my versions of their tale that unlike Disney’s G-Rated masterpieces brought to life, mine were going to be more visceral. In hindsight, they were gutsy and brutally honest with a complexity I felt both film and originator lacked but in the end, with the exception of the transitional points of an elderly couple coping with a very different kind of monster, the kind sometimes cannot be defeated, disease and old age, these were adaptations of very popular tales made even more popular by Walt Disney Company. Even the modern story was not truly mine. A friend of mine remarked how close it read to Nicholas Sparks The Notebook and that repelled me even farther. Up to the moment, I had never seen the film nor read the book and when I did, I thought it was schmaltzy and melodramatic. I decided to scrap the transitional point and began to write a more original transitional modern tale about an American tourist travelling across Europe and meeting a young Spaniard bakery chef owner in the heart of Barcelona. The tale was dubbed A Glass Heart.
This is the original tale’s premise:
A young American tourist involved in a shaking relationship travels to Spain in pursuit of retooling his life before he returns to the states to work on his book publishing company that even though it is successful, he has yet written the book of his dreams. Soon, Stephen Hawley is bombarded with the mythological rumors of the baker named Natalia De Armas and the matador that leads Stephen researching this dream girl as uncovers the truth behind the fantastical events that lead the young man to write a novel recounting his newfound dream love with a woman he has never met.
Somewhere in Spain, a young bakery store owner falls hard for her matador client. The handsome matador overtly flirts with the strong-willed, opinionated, pastry chef leaving the beautiful woman smitten by him. She dreams of this man every night and believes the matador is the dream boy. But the love affair abruptly ends when the pastry chef declares her love for him. The matador rejects her. The pastry chef owner curses the very existence of the vivacious matador and in a twist fate the gifted matador is spear-headed by the horns of the bull. Traumatized and guilt-ridden, the pastry chef locks herself inside her ivory tower for seven years, locking herself from the world with only her sweets as her only viable asset to the outside world.
Years past and the tale of the matador and the baker have grown into more of a whimsical fable. In the last seven years, it has become rare to see the pastry chef come out of her tower. The days she does decide to leave her home/work, it’s to soak up the pain in church on the pious holidays and death anniversaries.
One day a young charming American touristbegins his travels down the beautiful cobble stone sidewalks of Spain. From Madrid to Barcelona, the charmer hears variations of the dead matador and the baker. He even sees a book written on the Spanish fairy-tale. One day he decides he must meet this pastry chef so he steps inside the owner’s home/work asking to buy a treat. He asks the clerk for an oatmeal raisin cookie. He then asks to see the owner herself. The tourist stirs a commotion in the store in which he is kicked out. The young baker notices this from her ivory tower bared windows. The charmer sees her silhouette through the curtains and smiles.
On the eve of the seven year anniversary of the young matador’s untimely death, crowds of parishioners gather inside the old Spanish cathedral. To his disgust, the parishioners gathered around to snicker about the pastry chef who always sits in the front row with a black veil over her face. The charmer bows his head with reverence and ponders about her pain. The chefs rocks silently in a blur. In a quick moment of reality, she catches herself looking at the charmer who sits in the aisle acknowledging with delicacy the somber state of the cathedral.
Soon the baker begins to see the tourist daily as he comes inside her store everyday to buy an oatmeal raisin cookie and cup of café con leche. The two strangers become acquainted with each other soon after and the tourist brings her out of her shell. He realizes the stories of the heartless misanthropic were just fables. Both the baker and the tourist start falling in love but with great love comes the precautions as the tourist sees her restrain. He sees the real reason why she has been dubbed “the woman with the glass heart.” The baker is very fragile and any little pain in her heart can cause her heart to shatter in pieces.
Another problem arises when it is time for the tourist to go back home. His sudden but imminent departure causes the baker to retrieve back to her cocoon. She blames herself for being weak and allowing herself to fall back in love. As she begins to retrieve back into seclusion, the tourist returns inside a hot air balloon with an impromptu serenade and a declaration of his undying love to her in hopes she would accept. The lovers fly off the hot air balloon in the finale, breaking down the rigid ivory tower.
As Chameleon seemed to die down, it was uncertain if I was ever going to write Chameleon again. I want to exert myself to the fullest potential. What I had was reinvent Disney tales nonetheless and nothing more. The Glass Heart was later written for my former boyfriend as a Valentine’s Day gift. I extended the small story into a 66 page novella that I self-published with Booksmart.
In the span of four years, Chameleon went through many of its incarnations. It famously went through its Disney phase as I was inspired by that company years ago to become a filmmaker myself. Still, even though I was advised cruelly to let this script go, it got me thinking to expand Chameleon to a full fledged original tale, thus embarking on a new plan. This new plan stagnated the project for three years. I had small splashes here and there but nothing to write home about as I never went through with it. The closes to the definite modern twists was tale set during World War II about a young princess, who is sent to marry off the King of Spain, falls in love with a funeral home practitioner. As I noticed, the plot slightly felt like a rehash of tale that was going to be used as one of the past lives. I never wrote the tale past the outline. I was going far but I never completed the detailed outline.
Chameleon’s last plot:
A young princess, sold off to marry the King of Spain, meets an American traveling funeral home practitioner at a subterranean party. The two fall as they remember their dreams of other lives. A young blind clairvoyant whom Nicholas meets in one of his breaks, preaches a sermon on reincarnation which evokes the treacherous pasts of the two former lovers and reoccurring soul mates. Set in the backdrop of end of the Spanish Civil War and the beginning of World War II, the two lovers are torn between their very different journeys. As the lovers regress to their old lives, they realize they have been cursed to suffer before their first lives even began. Nicholas and Savanna must fight the battles of the past and present to correct the curse of St. Clementine, a enslaved murderous women in Brazil during the 16th century. Now Savanna must decide whether to return to salvage her country or marry a cruel man she does not love and Nicholas must decide how he can help the fledgling country from falling in the hands of Nazism or to return home and idly watch the consequences unfold.
The Curse of St. Clementine: Victor Levine is a handsome rich suitor, part of a prominent family. Victor is always surrounded by young women but nothing about them surprises him anymore. He meets a poor labor worker name Miranda. His love for Miranda grows to obsession. Soon his love for Miranda becomes a scandal in the community. Victor’s obsession crazes him to the point of a suicidal pact. Set in the times of the Salem Witch Trails, the lovers past history curses them to perpetually live again without happiness.Confessions of the Angry God: Lord Cornell hides the secrets of his corrupt life inside St. Lucas Cathedral His brother mysteriously vanishes after the murder of Sahara, Queen of Gypsies and wife of Cornell. Cornell forces his imprisoned son into the priesthood. Sebastian has never left the church and his only companion is Father Leonardo. Years later, his son’s heart is consumed with love when he falls in love with Alexandra, the new Queen of the Gypsies. The worlds of Cornell and the gypsies collide once again.Under the Canvas Skies: Under the Canvas Skies is set in a Victorian burlesque dark misty deranged circus tent. The lights burn bright in center stage of. The theme of the circus symbolizes the terrorizing chaos of the creator. The story is an Impressionistic detailing of the sufferings of our mankind led in the hands of a Ringmaster and the Illusionist as they humiliate us to the point of our slow, painful, fatal demise. The degrade the lovers by caging a Contortionist and her husband, the heir of the circus, into the Ventriloquist Dummy.The Crescent’s Crusade: When Countess Celine Dawson witnesses her brother’s death by the hands of pirates in her dreams, the past of her boyfriend comes back to haunt him. In a race to break her impending arranged marriage, Julian and Celine embark on a journey to rediscover the ties of the USS Manifesto that binds them both.Chameleon: Three Americans from different walks of life take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to find the answers of their existence. They quickly become embroiled with the Sudanese government when one of the American’s fiance, a Freedom Fighter, is captured by the foreign terrorists.
Chameleon 