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Manual Cinema

Chicago IL

Sarah Fornace

The Magic CityTHE MAGIC CITY is a new work by Manual Cinema premiering at Chicago Children's Theatre in February2017. Loosely based on the novel by Edith Nesbit, the story is about Philomena, a young girl, and her oldersister and guardian Helen. When Helen gets married, Philomena suddenly finds herself with a new stepbrotherLucas and a new home. Shutting herself up in the attic, Philomena builds a miniature city made of junk, oldbooks, and cast off household items. That night, she and Lucas are mysteriously whisked away into the city ofobjects where they meet crazy characters and embark on a quest. The production uses live music and songs,overhead projectors, paper shadow puppets, live actors in silhouette, and miniature toy theater.

$46,900

$7,000

The Magic City: live action demo filmed September, 2016 Hansel and Gretel performance footagefilmed December, 2015

The Magic City: Drew Dir (puppeteer/deviser/writer), Julia Miller (puppeteer/deviser), Sarah Fornace(puppeteer/deviser) Hansel and Gretel: Julia Miller (Hansel/puppeteer), Sarah Fornace(Gretel/puppeteer), Dan Kerr-Hobart (Witch/Father/Puppeteer), Sam Deustch(Mother/Sandman/Puppeteer), Lizi Breit (Dew Fairy/Puppeteer/Puppet Designer), Drew Dir(Director/Puppet Designer/Art Director), Kyle Vegter (puppeteer), Ben Kauffman (puppeteer)

The first video is from a devising rehearsal for The Magic City, Manual Cinema's first foray into usingfound objects as shadow characters. The excerpt from Hansel and Gretel shows the style of cinematicpuppetry that we will use in The Magic City.

484.686.7271

732 W 19th Street #3R60647

sfornace@manualcinema.commanualcinema.com

VIDEO SAMPLE

CONTACT

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Fractured Atlas501 (c)(3):

2015 Project - Mementos Mori

PAST GRANTS AWARDED

PRODUCTION

732 W 19th St APT 3RChicago, IL 60616386-212-7673manualcinema@gmail.commanualcinema.com

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

A contemporary retelling of Edith Nesbit's 1910 novel, Manual Cinema's The Magic City tells the story of nine-year-old Philomena, whose great love is building miniature cities out of books, toys, and other found objects from around her house. One day, her older sister (and only legal guardian) Helen announces that she is engaged to marry, and the two go to live at the mansion of Helen’s fiancé, Bran-don. Left alone in her vast new home, feeling betrayed by Helen, and forced to make friends with her annoying new step-brother Lucas, Philomena secludes herself in the attic where she builds the biggest miniature city she's ever made. Later that night, Philomena wakes up to discover that her city has come alive. As she and Lucas step through the city gates, their adventure begins.

Manual Cinema conceives of Magic City as a piece of live puppet cinema. The story is told us-ing overhead projectors, paper shadow puppets, and actors in silhouette, as well as toy theaters, found objects, and illustrations. All of these elements are pastiched together by way of a live video feed that projects the final mise en scene to large screen above, even as the audience simultaneously watches the live actors animating these puppets and objects in plain view below the screen. The style of Magic City’s puppets takes its inspiration from the novel itself; puppets and sets are created from household items, and in many cases, puppeteers are animating ordinary found objects like hammers, spray bot-tles, wine openers, and high-heeled shoes.

Manual Cinema uses two different methods of puppetry to distinguish the “real world” and the world of the Magic City. The script’s opening prologue is performed as toy theater, with the actor/pup-peteers telling Philomena’s backstory much the same way Philomena would tell it, using miniatures, cartoon drawings, household objects, or simply acting out the scenes themselves to illustrate the narra-tive. Each of these elements is puppeteered or manipulated in front of a document video camera, which live-feeds the camera’s eye-view to the screen above the actors. A narrator tells the story, accompanied by live music. The prologue culminates when Philomena builds her giant model city -- and an actual miniature city is assembled on stage.

Once Philomena and Lucas get transported into the Magic City, the mode of puppetry shifts to overhead projector shadow puppetry, with the characters alternately represented by actors in silhouette or by their shadow puppet likenesses. The medium of shadow puppetry allows us to take the hodge-podge of Philomena’s miniature creation and turn it into a fully immersive, cinematic world in which the actors playing Lucas and Philomena can interact with objects and puppets animated in shadow on the overhead projectors.

Throughout the story, the characters Philomena and Lucas travel through a landscape of household objects, books, antiques, old toys, and detritus, meeting and helping different characters along the way, all the while trying to get back home. Unifying each new event is Philomena’s emotional journey, as we watch her overcome her anger and her unwillingness to accept change. At the climax of the story, she discovers a secret island where she will be offered everything she wishes for: a life with her sister Helen untouched by outsiders. She soon discovers, however, that the island is ruled by a monster of her own making -- a jealous dragon that appears in the form of a giant, angry version of Philomena herself. The dragon Philomena will be embodied by a large-scale shadow puppet that the real Philomena must defeat as the final challenge in her quest of self-discovery.

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COMPANY BIO

MANUAL CINEMA is a performance collective, design studio, and film/ video production com-pany founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter. Manual Cinema combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive visual stories for stage and screen. Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema and imbues it with liveness, ingenu-ity, and theatricality.

To date Manual Cinema has created three feature length live cinematic shadow puppet shows (Lula Del Ray, ADA/ AVA, Mementos Mori); a live cinematic contemporary dance show created for fami-ly audiences in collaboration with Hubbard Street Dance and the choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams (Mariko’s Magical Mix); two original site-specific installations (La Celestina, My Soul’s Shadow); an original adaptation of Hansel & Gretel created for the Belgian Royal Opera; music videos for Sony Masterworks, Gabriel Kahane, three time GRAMMY Award-winning eighth blackbird, and NY-Times Best Selling author Reif Larson; a live non-fiction piece for Pop-Up Magazine (SF); cinematic trailers; a short, self-produced film (CHICAGOLAND); a museum exhibit created in collaboration with the Chicago History Museum (The Secret Lives of Objects ) a collection of cinematic shorts in collabo-ration with poet Zachary Schomburg and string quartet Chicago Q Ensemble (FJORDS ); and live cin-ematic puppet adaptations of StoryCorps stories (Show & Tell).Manual Cinema’s work has been presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) The Tehran In-ternational Puppet Festival (Iran), La Monnaie-De Munt (Brussels) The Kennedy Center (DC), The Kimmel Center (Philadelphia), the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Noorderzon Festival (Netherlands), The O, Miami Poetry Festival, Davies Symphony Hall (SF), The Ace Hotel Theater (LA), Handmade Worlds Puppet Festival (Minneapolis), The Screenwriters’ Colony in Nantucket, The Detroit Institute of Art, The Future of Storytelling Conference (NYC), the NYC Fringe Festival, The Poetry Foundation (Chicago), the Chicago International Music and Movies Festival, the Puppeteers of Ameri-ca: Puppet Festival (R)evolution, and elsewhere around the world.

Manual Cinema was ensemble-in-residence at the University of Chicago in the Theater and Per-formance Studies program in the fall of 2012, where they taught as adjunct faculty. In 2013 Manual Cinema held residencies and taught workshops at the School of the Art Institute (Chicago), The Future of Storytelling Conference (NYC), RCAH at Michigan State University, and Puppeteers of America: Puppet Festival (R)evolution (Swarthmore, PA), Southern Illinois University, and the Chicago Parks Dis-trict. In Spring 2016 Manual Cinema held workshops at Yale University as visiting lecturers in the the-ater department.

Currently, Manual Cinema is developing an original, immersive adaptation of Peter Pan with Randy Weiner (Sleep No More, The Donkey Show, Queen of the Night) that will premiere in an open ended run in Beijing in Fall 2016. The company has begun work on a similar adaptation of Little Prince that will premiere in an open ended run in Shanghai in late 2017. In early 2017 they will premiere their latest feature length, cinematic shadow puppetry show based on Edith Nesbit’s novel Magic City. This summer they will begin production on a second, self-produced short film based on Virginia Woolf’s The Haunted House to premiere in late 2017. They’ll also create a live performed companion piece to the film that will premiere in October 2017 as part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series.

Manual Cinema’s ADA/AVA received its European premiere with daily performances at the Un-derbelly’s Topside August 3-29, 2016. Manual Cinema is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Fractured Atlas will receive grants for the charitable purposes of Manual Cinema, provide oversight to ensure that grant funds are used in accordance with grant agreements, and provide reports as required by the grantor. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Manual Cinema must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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ARTIST BIOS

LIZI BREIT (Magic City Puppet Designer and Associate Art Director; Manual Cinema Company Mem-ber) is a puppeteer, designer, printmaker and comic artist living in Chicago. Since graduating from SAIC in 2010 she has designed and/or performed puppets with various theatre companies in the city, includ-ing Blair Thomas & Co, The House Theatre and Dog & Pony Theatre Co.

MAREN CELEST (Magic City Musician and Vocalist; Manual Cinema Company Member) is a multime-dia artist, burrito lover and vagabond collaborator. Originally from middle-of- nowhere, Michigan, she has attended school in London and lived in Oakland, CA and Chicago, IL, released two full-length al-bums and a 7″ EP in the Photographers, has had photographs published internationally (Levi’s, CZE Magazine, Hope & Anchor’s Paris Exhibit, Firehouse Collective Exhibit, etc), nurtures an on-going solo project and is working towards combining her passions in motion picture.

DREW DIR (Magic City Puppet Designer, Art Director, Writer, and Deviser; Manual Cinema Co-Artistic Director) is a puppet designer and a director of theater and video. Most recently, he directed Manual Cinema’s ADA/AVA and a shadow puppet staging of HANSEL UND GRETEL for the La Monnaie / De Munt Opera in Brussels. Before Manual Cinema, Drew served as the Resident Dramaturg of Court Theatre in Chicago and lecturer in theater at the University of Chicago. He holds an MA in Text and Performance Studies from King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

SARAH FORNACE (Magic City Puppeteer, Actor, and Deviser; Manual Cinema Co-Artistic Director) is a director, puppeteer, choreographer, and narrative designer. She has choreographed for Lifeline The-atre, Court Theatre, Adventure Stage, The New Colony, A Red Orchid Theatre, Dog and Pony, and elsewhere. She has performed with Redmoon, Lookingglass Theatre Company, and The Neo-Futurists. Sarah has been a member of Blair Thomas and Company (puppetry) and a founding member of Boum Twa (ladder acrobatics). She teaches movement at Columbia College Chicago. Outside of Manual Cinema, Sarah recently directed a live animation of Shakespeare's Hamlet for HamletScen at Krom-borg Castle.

BEN KAUFFMAN (Magic City Composer, Sound Designer, and Musician; Manual Cinema Co-Artistic Director) is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates installations, interactive media, video, and participato-ry environments. His most recent work has been exhibited at CUNY’s Baruch College and Freshkills Park on Staten Island, and he has given talks and workshops at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York University, Baruch College, and Parsons The New School of Design. He is also the co-creator of the interactive web-based zine, SMOG. He holds a Master’s degree from New York University’s Interac-tive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

JULIA MILLER (Magic City Puppeteer, Actor, and Deviser; Manual Cinema Co-Artistic Director) special-izes in the tactile and movement arts. She is a director, puppeteer, and graphic designer. Manual Cine-ma provides her with an outlet for many artistic impulses, including but not limited to breathing life into the inanimate, making delicate small things, and telling stories without words. She holds a BFA in The-atre Arts from Boston University and has studied mask, clown and devised theatre under Teatro Punto, Familie Flöz, and Double Edge Theatre.

KYLE VEGTER (Magic City Composer and Sound Designer; Manual Cinema Co-Artistic Director) is a composer, sound designer, theater artist, and Managing Artistic Director of Manual Cinema. As a com-poser he’s been commissioned by such groups as TIGUE, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music-NOW series, Chicago Composer’s Orchestra, and Homeroom Chicago. His production credits span genres and include recent releases by Thin Hymns, Spektral Quartet, Tim Munro (of eighth blackbird), and Color Card. His past Composer/Sound Designer credits with Manual Cinema include Lula Del Ray, Ada/ Ava, FJORDS, and various other performance and video projects. He has been an artist in resi-dence at High Concept Laboratories, and co-founded Chicago’s only contemporary classical music cassette label Parlour Tapes.

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INCOME NOTESChicago Children's Theater Performance Fees $40,000

Henson Grant $7,000 TBD, announced in December 2016

INCOME TOTAL $47,000

EXPENSES NOTESPERSONNEL

MC Fee $15,000

covers all time spent by company members on the project (puppet design,music/ sound, choreographer fee, producer fee, rehearsals andperformance)

Sound Engineer Fee $4,000 $1,000/ week of performances

Musician 1 $3,800 $1,000 rehearsal fee, $700/ week of performances

Musician 2 $3,800 $1,000 rehearsal fee, $700/ week of performances

Puppeteer 1 $3,800 $1,000 rehearsal fee, $700/ week of performances

Puppeteer 2 $3,800 $1,000 rehearsal fee, $700/ week of performances

PERSONNEL SUBTOTAL $34,200

SUPPLIESMusic Supplies $1,000

Da-Lite Screen $1,100

A/V Equipment $1,800 video switcher, GoPro, cabling, tbd

Shadow Puppetry Supplies $500 railboard, misc. supplies

Props $400 foamcore props and purchased

Miniatures $800 for miniature magic city

Projectors $600 includes bulbs, lenses, etc.

SUPPLIES subtotal $6,200

FACILITIES

Studio Rent/ Overhead $4,0004 months of studio time, pro-rated for time spent on this project, rehearsalswill take place at MC Studios

FACILITIES SUBTOTAL $4,000

COSTUMESDesign Fee $1,500

Materials $1,000

COSTUMES SUBTOTAL $2,500

PROJECT EXPENSES subtotal $46,900EXPENSES TOTAL $46,900

NET $100

Manual Cinema- MAGIC CITY Creation Budget

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ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES 1464 N. Milwaukee Ave.2nd FloorChicago, IL 60622773.227.0180 P773.227.3446 F

BOX OFFICE872.222.9555

ONLINEchicagochildrenstheatre.org

To whom it may concern, CCT is proud to confirm that we will be presenting Manual Cinema’s production of Magic City in our 2017 season. Best, Will Bishop Production Manager Chicago Children’s Theatre

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