[Voices of Cabrini raw: Pratt family]

Footage for the documentary "Voices of Cabrini." Shot between 1995-1999, it documented the Cabrini Green redevelopment project proposed and carried out by the city of Chicago. This tape documents the Pratt family at home. The children do a load of dishes in the kitchen, then read a story and play with the magnets in the kitchen. Mark Pratt folds clothes. The children play with their younger sister Myanna. One of the children does some homework.

00:00Copy video clip URL Static.

00:09Copy video clip URL Cut to Pratt’s children singing and dancing in their home. They talk to Director Ronit Bezalel about their talent show and their morning routine. Pratt’s eldest daughter, Martae, cleans the kitchen.

6:55Copy video clip URL The children play a game with magnets on the refrigerator door.

8:12Copy video clip URL Bezalel asks them what they do during their vacation. Eldest daughter: “I read!” The other children sleep and play games.

9:14Copy video clip URL Martae reads aloud from a book, “Friends 4-Ever” by Deirdre Corey.

13:14Copy video clip URL She says that she does not want to leave Cabrini-Green, because she likes her school so much. The children are aware that their school and home will be demolished.

13:53Copy video clip URL Cameraman asks her for an early memory of school. Martae: “I remember we had–” tape cuts to static. Cut back to another child talking about her honor roll report card and how four of her closest friends at school had to move.

14:48Copy video clip URL Camera pans to a young son playing with a toy. He has trouble finishing his sentences.

16:18Copy video clip URL Cut to Mark Pratt folding and ironing laundry. He talks about his morning routine and ironing.

20:51Copy video clip URL Several in-camera cuts. Finally cut to Myanna, Pratt’s infant daughter, on the bed. Her siblings coo over her.

24:18Copy video clip URL The children play with a raised map of Earth and then turn their attention back to Myanna.

27:13Copy video clip URL They play “Down on the Farm,” a hand-shaking game.

28:51Copy video clip URL Cameraman leaves the bedroom to find Martae and Mark Jr. in the kitchen cleaning and at the table doing homework, respectively.

30:28Copy video clip URL Cut to the children looking out the window onto the courtyard. Cameraman tries to get the children to describe Cabrini-Green to him, somewhat unsuccessfully. The children go so far as to agree that Cabrini is a neighborhood, and that a neighborhood comprises buildings and roads. Martae’s favorite part of Cabrini is the park.

34:15Copy video clip URL Mark Jr.: “I can’t really explain how it’s a neighborhood, but I know it’s an okay place to live in, but I can’t say it’s perfect, because every New Year Eve…every holiday eve…they just start shooting, I don’t know if they’re real bullets or fake…I thought I was dreaming for a while, and then I got scared, so I moved to the other end [of the bed]…so I’ll be happy to move, but then again, I won’t, because it’s hard to leave a place where you grew up…”

38:39Copy video clip URL Mark Jr.: “The Chicago Sun-Times said that Cabrini is ‘Hell on Earth.’ C’mon now. C’mon now…we don’t have to be scared, because if I know someone, and they’re about to try to beat up somebody else, I gotta talk to them and tell them that they’re my friend, then everything will be cool with them.”

41:56Copy video clip URL He continues: “If you live in Cabrini, people just say it’s just like another place, but people who don’t live in Cabrini, they think they know everything about Cabrini…”

42:59Copy video clip URL Cameraman: “How is Cabrini the same to other places?” Mark Jr.: “…I bet they have the same knowledge, or might even more, they just…people have knowledge, they just don’t want to use it…”

44:52Copy video clip URL Mark Jr.: “I be ashamed to say where I come from, because they say so many bad things about it.”

46:40Copy video clip URL Tape cuts to color bars and static.

46:45Copy video clip URL Cut back to a close up of ornaments on the Pratt family’s Christmas tree.

46:50Copy video clip URL Cut a dark hallway, brick walls. Mark Pratt leads the cameraman into the elevator. They exit into a hallway. They try another take.

47:56Copy video clip URL Cut to a driveway and empty lot. Pratt walks from the sidewalk up the driveway in the 939 N. Hudson building. They try several more takes of the same shot.

49:43Copy video clip URL Cut to inside the building. Through a wire grate we see Pratt walk into the building. They try several takes.

50:31Copy video clip URL Cut to the same shot from

46:50Copy video clip URL. Pratt enters the elevator.

51:00Copy video clip URL Cut to a hallway between apartment doors and a grated terrace balcony. Pratt walks down hallway and enters an apartment.

51:32Copy video clip URL Cut to inside the elevator. Pratt exits and re-enters the elevator when they get to the eighth and tenth floors.

53:39Copy video clip URL Video from inside the Pratt’s apartment, where a door opens to reveal the grated balcony and skyline. Video breaks to static.

53:50Copy video clip URL Heavy artifacts on the video. Audio of Tracy Pratt mid-conversation.

54:16Copy video clip URL Cut to gray, over-cast view of the skyline and the Cabrini lots. Tracy talks about Emmanuel, her son, timing trains. She also describes her route to school when she was little.

57:28Copy video clip URL Zoomed-in shot through window grate of men standing in the lot below the Pratt apartment. Cameraman tries several more times to get the right view recorded. Tracy talks about her children’s success in school.

1:02:41Copy video clip URL Static.

1:02:46Copy video clip URL End of tape.

 

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