By Pam Woolway
The Garden Island Newspaper

Last month, Wailua resident and film maker Nadya Wynd spent four days with an all-volunteer cast and crew filming the trailer for what she hopes becomes a block-buster family feature film, “Secret of the Crystal Skulls,” the premise of which is fictional adventure against the backdrop of Hawaiian culture and natural beauty.

“This is not a Kaua‘i documentary,” said the six-year Kaua‘i resident. “It’s a film that I hope portrays an authentic and respectful spirit along with my imagination to create a feature film with commercial and family elements.”

The “Secret of the Crystal Skulls” is a story built around the magic of a life-size crystal skull care-taken by menehunes for Hawaiian kahunas who consult the skull as an oracle. The movie is set in 12th century and present day Kaua‘i in the throes of a hurricane where the life of an ambitious archeologist on the hunt for the crystal skull intersects with two teenagers and the menehunes seeking to protect it. The “Secret of the Crystal Skulls” is a story that weaves mythology, teenage rights of passage and magic into an adventure story.

Dozens of Kaua‘i residents were involved — from KPAC participants in the high schools on spring break, to Hawaiian cultural practitioner, Puna Dawson, Pu‘u Wai Canoe Club, as well as theatre veterans, Poppy Shell and Fredan Alonso.

A far cry from Shell’s 16 years of work on the Kaua‘i stage, for the filming of this trailer she volunteered as wardrobe manager dressing and fitting costumes. “An incredible moment for me was while we were shooting the village scene,” she said. “You got a glimpse of the joyfulness of what Kaua‘i village life might have been like.”

Over the four full days weather was brisk while filming in Haena, Kapa‘a, Wailua and Anahola. “What was really fun though was re-creating the hurricane,” Shell said. “It took 10 of us to throw leaves and mud and shake trees. The kids had a blast.”

The story line came to Wynd in 1992 the first time she lived on Kaua‘i. “After Hurricane Iniki I read about hikers stuck on the Napali,” she said. “In 1993 I wrote a film treatment inspired by that.”

Two films and over a decade later Wynd had an experience that made her return to her original Iniki inspired plot line. On a trip to Glastonbury, England she had a chance meeting with the keeper of a genuine crystal skull. “I thought, this would be a great sub-plot with a crystal skull as part of the story,” she said.

She expanded the first concept to include the skull set in the 12th century with menehunes. Wanting to include attributes only found on Kaua‘i she developed a spiritual side to the story and set it against the backdrop of the Napali.

“There’s been movies made here but not about Kaua‘i,” she said. “Either movies are set here like Indiana Jones or Tropic Thunder as other places or Kaua‘i is shown as a tourist destination. I want to show the culture, the people and the landscape where Kaua‘i becomes a character. In “Secret of the Crystal Skulls” she’s a major star.”

The opportunity to bring a big budget film to be shot on Kaua‘i means money for the local economy and jobs for Kaua‘i residents. Wynd is seeking investors and a producer, but hopes to retain some leverage since her intent is to preserve Kaua‘i’s authenticity. Wynd received invaluable insight form the many parents on the set. “Hawaiian mothers were often my cultural consultants,” she said. “They’d correct me when a prop was misused or a scene staged incorrectly.”

Aulia Ventura, mother of two menehunes in the film, said there was a palpable feeling of unity and aloha on the set. Daughters Kehela, 7 and Makala, 5, never sighed a word of complaint on their long days of shooting. “The menehunes are very serious,” Ventura said. “They had to work on keeping a serious face.”

Seasoned actor, Kaua‘i High School senior, Toby Riggle was in awe of the whole film making experience. “This is what I want to do with the rest of my life,” said the Lihu‘e resident. “Now I watch movies differently — wondering what’s going on behind a scene.”

To learn more about the movie visit, secretofthecrystalskullsmovie.com

• Pam Woolway, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681, ext. 257 or pwoolway@kauaipubco.com

Na Pali Coastline of Kauai

Photo credit: Wings Over Kauai

The Na Pali Coast takes center stage this month in an article in National Geographic Magazine. The writer, Joel K. Bourne, Jr., chronicles his hike on the 11 mile trail to the Kalalau Valley. Along the way he describes some of the history of the area as well as the mystical ambiance of the environment. As so many writers before him, he evokes heavenly adjectives to describe the setting: magical, spiritual, Shambala, Shangri-La, paradise…

The Na Pali is not only the primary location for the movie, Secret of the Crystal Skulls, but in many ways plays one of the starring roles. The archaeological ruins at Nu’alolo Kai provide the backdrop for some of the most dramatic scenes of the movie. This spectacular site, which is now only accessible by boat, is significantly featured in the article.

On his climb out of the Kalalau Valley, Bourne meets a “young outlaw” who is headed to a cave in the back of the valley for a two month stay. He tells Bourne that he will be “…meditating and getting centered with the universe. You go back up that valley and there are rock platforms, taro fields, sacred altars all the way up. It was a metropolis in there! It’s the land of the menehune, the ancient ones. It’s primal!”

I couldn’t have described it better myself.

Photo credit: Diane Cook and Len Jenshel

Singer/songwriter Shawna Carol composed a beautiful song for Secret of the Crystal Skulls called Magic of Na Pali. The character of Jill, also a singer/songwriter and poet, composes it as she is hiking the Na Pali Coast trail.  Listen to her song on the main website for the movie: 

 Kalalau Beach

Photo credit: Diane Cook and Len Jenshel

See an amazing archival photo of Nu’alolo Kai taken in the 1920′s.

Read the National Geographic Magazine article.

Please visit our main website for Secret of the Crystal Skulls

In my previous post I talked about a new species of three-foot tall humans discovered in a cave on Flores Island in Indonesia. Scientific tests conducted on several skeletons ruled out that these individuals were children, pygmies, dwarfs or were suffering from microcephaly.

Indeed, scientists have found them to be a unique species related to Homo Erectus, hominids who lived 2 million years ago and died out some 25,000 years ago. One of the most fascinating discoveries about this new species named Homo Floresiensis and nicknamed ‘Hobbits’, involved conclusions derived from CAT scans of the inside of their skulls.                                 

                                                Homo Floresiensis Brain

                                               Photo Source: Daily Times

Hobbit brains were unlike those of Homo Erectus or even modern humans. Their brains had ‘fat’ temporal lobes, even proportionally larger than those of humans. Temporal lobes are where vision, speech, perceptual organization, emotional processing and memory functions take place.

These tiny people were undoubtedly very intelligent, not unlike the Menehune in Secret of the Crystal Skulls.

Read more about this discovery

Please visit our main website for the movie Secret of the Crystal Skulls

Stories and legends of little people can be found in many countries around the world. The Menehune are the Hawaiian version, which many people in the islands claim exist even in our present day. A new scientific discovery by archaeologists, proves that at the very least, little people existed up to 13,000 years ago.

The 1m-Tall ‘Hobbit’ That Rewrites the

History of Mankind

12:00AM Thursday October 28, 2004
By Steve Connor 

A model of the ‘hobbit’ skull is held by an employee at the Science Museum in London. Picture / Reuters

11.45am – By STEVE CONNOR and DAVID KEYS

Scientists are celebrating the most important breakthrough in anthropology for a century: the discovery of a new species of apeman. Described as human “hobbits”, the apemen grew no taller than about 1m and had brains the size of grapefruits.They lived alongside prehistoric man for thousands of years before they finally died out in the dense jungles of Indonesia, in a lost world inhabited by dwarf elephants and giant rats.

Archaeologists excavated the skeletal remains of the little humans from a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, which has a rich history of exotic animals such as giant lizards and miniature beasts. Four dating techniques proved the species of “little people” was still living in the region as recently as 13,000 years ago.

They may even have survived into more modern times – when they could have been the inspiration for local folktales of shy pygmy apemen who lived in the forest. Specialists said the new species, officially named Homo floresiensis or Flores Man, calls into question the very nature of what it means to be human, because of its extraordinary dwarfed features and tiny brain.

A partial skeleton of a female, nicknamed “Hobbit” by the research team, has left the specialists in no doubt that Flores Woman represents a new and most unusual member of the human family.The skeleton is 18,000 years old and, although small, is perfectly proportioned.

At first, researchers thought she was a child but closed skull sutures and wear on the teeth suggest that she was about 30 when she died. Further remains of up to seven individuals, some dating to only 13,000 years ago, suggest that there was once a thriving population on the volcanic island of Flores.

It is unequivocal evidence that another species of human was living at the same time as our recent ancestors.

 Read more of the original article 

Please visit our main website for the movie Secret of the Crystal Skulls

Secret of the Crystal Skulls, the archetypal crystal skull movie, seeks champion : (Producer, Financier, Literary Agent or Manager, A-list Director or Actor or Anybody with the right connections) to help launch it into production.

After seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, those who want to experience more, understand more, go deeper into the phenomenon and mystery of the crystal skulls, will want to see this movie. 

Written before the Indiana Jones script, it also explores the little known world of Hawaiian spirituality, culture and magic. At its heart is an exciting, unique, family adventure film set against the backdrop of the beautiful Na Pali Coast of Kauai.

Logline: Teenage hikers and their injured guide discover a secret  world and two magical crystal skulls when they are helped by the Menehune (Hawaii’s legendary little people) during a raging hurricane.

Please visit our main website for the movie: Secret of the Crystal Skulls

A life-sized crystal skull with mysterious powers is being cared for by the MENEHUNE, magical little people living on the island of Kauai. A diverse group of individuals is inexplicably drawn to the cave where the skull sits on an altar, magnificently reflecting light in all directions from a skylight above.

MAT, a jaded fifteen-year-old from the San Fernando Valley, is sent on an outward-bound hiking trip of the stunningly beautiful Na Pali Coast of Kauai, while his mother honeymoons with husband #3 at the Hyatt. Two contrasting futures beckon for him, will he accept his father’s offer of prep school in Virginia or stay in LA with his mother and her new husband.

At the British Museum, archeologist SIMON CHENEY has two weeks to produce new findings on a crystal skull project or it will be terminated. Lured by clues from an ancient Hawaiian chant, Simon heads for Kauai in search of a crystal skull once consulted as an oracle by a lineage of Hawaiian Kahunas. He longs for professional redemption and the self-esteem needed to reunite with his long-neglected daughter.

KILO, Mat’s Kahuna guide, introduces him to Huna, (Hawaiian spirituality) and shows him an ancient fishpond purportedly constructed by the Menehune. Mat is intrigued, but the mood is broken by the arrival of his fellow hikers, preppies flashing their brand-name equipment, GPS locators, and attitude.

They head out as Mat befriends JILL, an ecology-minded seventeen year-old who appreciates the beauty of Hawaii and its mythology. Mat vies for her attention with two future corporate defilers, who team up to humiliate him at every turn. One of the pranks backfires when Mat turns it into a sacred gesture.

As Simon heads up into the mountains of Kauai with a Samoan guide and his superstitious brother, a tropical storm becomes a hurricane, takes an abrupt turn, and heads directly for Kauai. The hurricane turns the teenagers’ hike into a life-threatening event until a rescue helicopter comes to their aide. Only able to carry five, Mat and Jill volunteer to wait with Kilo for the helicopter’s return. When Kilo is seriously injured, Mat and Jill must seek help from the Menehune.

Mat and Jill are astonished when the Menehune introduce them to the power and significance of the crystal skull. Simon discovers the cave, steals the skull and hurries to deliver it to the museum. Mat, Jill and Kilo rush into the night to recover the skull. In the ensuing chase, Mat must face his fear, Jill her insecurity and Simon, his mortality.

In a remarkable turn of events, everyone learns they have a role to play in safeguarding the crystal skull and disseminating its important message.

 Please visit our main website for the movie: Secret of the Crystal Skulls: