Collaborative Cinema Screenplay Contest Winner

From the desk of our new Education Director, Susan Kerns, comes this breaking news...

We are pleased as punch to announce Shorewood High School senior Celia Carroll’s script "The Magical Camera" was chosen as the winner of this year’s Collaborative Cinema program! What does this mean, exactly? Well, it means professional Milwaukee filmmakers, along with a team of college and high school film interns, will produce the short this July! The finished product will screen as a part of The Milwaukee Show, the Milwaukee Film Festival’s showcase of Milwaukee-made short films.

Focusing on a lone traveling showman whose camera steals souls, the incredibly mature writing style of "The Magical Camera" made Celia’s script a natural for the screen. Here’s a sample. The narrator, Louisa Juniper, explains of her classmate:

Even though Violet ain't so school smart, with her letters and such, everyone looks up to that girl a real lot, 'cause shes a lot like the mama hen of the school yard. But then that got me thinking on her own mama, 'cause if Violet hasta be a mama to all us kids, whose gonna be her mama when she scrapes her knee?

Impressive, no? That said, the choice was arrived at only after a three-hour discussion wherein the strengths of all 13 final script drafts were debated. During this grueling process, we chose the two other scripts whose writers will receive cash awards: "Down," by Rufus King sophomore Jack Cheschin, a delightfully dark comedy about a man stalked by a duck, and "Sempre Giusto," a sort of verite musical documentary about students learning to master a piece of music, written by Greendale High School junior Samantha Kosarzycki. Kudos to both of them!

Location scouting for "The Magical Camera" has already begun, as have script re-writes (a necessity in this biz). Director Christian J. Otjen ("Reeseville," "Lady in the Box") signed on to direct, former Miramax exec Jeff Kurz also will mentor her through the writing process, and Milwaukee Film’s Collaborative Cinema Director Mark Metcalf will be one of the producers, along with me, Susan Kerns. I’ll sign off for now and will keep you posted as we progress from script to screen! Also, if anyone has a carnival wagon circa the late 1800s that you would like taken off your hands, look no further . . you’ve just found it a loving home.

More on Milwaukee Film's education programs can be found here. Photos from the decision-making process to choose the final script can be found on our Facebook page.