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The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes (webseries)(2017)
8 episodes at https://thestrangeeyesofdrmyes.com/
The 8 webisodes in the original first season follow Dr. Sheri Myes, who after a near-death experience uses brain science to revolutionize human consciousness. She must face the consequences when she makes herself a research subject and transforms into a creature with super senses. The genre-busting web series incorporates elements of live-action, musical, animation, science fiction, and afro-futurism.
The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes(feature film)(2015)
After a near-death experience, Dr. Myes, researcher in the science of perception, attempts to graft animal senses to the brain in order to revolutionize human consciousness. She must face the consequences when she uses her own body and mind as a research tool and transforms herself into a creature with super-senses.
Selected Exhibitions: premiered at The International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2015, New Horizons, Poland; Imagine Science Film Festival New York (won Outstanding Feature); Dutch International Science Film Festival (nominated for Audience Award), Maine International Film Festival, Cinequest (San Jose), and others.
Behind the Eyes are the Ears (digital video, color, 2009, 26 minutes, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews, soundtrack Nancy Andrews and Zach Soares)
This mix of animation, found footage, and live action footage follows the research of Dr. Sheri Myes and her revolutionary attempts to expand our perceptions and consciousness. The filmmaker began the project by writing a song cycle, and then imagery was developed through a series of drawings. The film is influenced by classic "mad scientist" horror films like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "The Man with the X-ray Eyes".
Selected Exhibitions: Berkely Film Archives, Maine International Film Festival, 2011, Transmodern Festival, Baltimore 2011, Anthology Film Archives September 2010, Chicago Filmmakers, 2011, REDCAT Los Angeles 2011, Balagan Films, Boston 2012
Collected by The Museum of Modern Art
On a Phantom Limb (digital video, color, 2009, 35 minutes, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews, music by John Cooper)
This film examines the journey of a human-made hybrid, a surgical creation—part woman, part bird—passing through death, purgatory, and returning to life. The boundaries of reality, fantasy, documentary and fiction are blurred in this reprise of classic themes, dilemmas, and consequences of reanimation.
“The monster did not choose this for her self, to be an amalgam for alchemy.”
Selected Exhibitions: San Francisco International Film Festival, 2009; Balagan Films, Boston, 2009; Maine International Film Festival, 2009, Transmodern Festival, Baltimore 2010, Ann Arbor Film Festival 2010, Museum of Modern Art, 2011, Chicago Filmakers, 2011)
Collected by The Museum of Modern Art
The Haunted Camera (16mm film, B&W, 30 minutes, 2006, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews, music by John Cooper)
This is the final installment in the Ima Plume trilogy. The film’s character, Ima Plume (pronounce EE-MA PLOOM), is a chalk-talk specialist or public illustrator who draws before small audiences. Her chalk talks are represented in the hand drawn animation segments. An homage to film noir, it explores Ima Plume’s investigation of her own death. Ima, Public Illustrator, grapples with trying to express things that might not be seen or drawn including: spirits, electronic voice phenomena and studies of animal locomotion. The film combines chalk and drawn animation, puppetry and live action. It is both fiction and documentary. Inspiration for the content and style is taken from pioneers of film, vaudeville, photography and spiritualism.
Selected Exhibitions: Taiwan International Animation Festival, 2007; Museum of Modern Art, 2006 (New York Premier); San Francisco International Film Festival, 2006; Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, 2006; Balagan Films, Boston, 2006; 52nd Flaherty Film Seminar, 2006, Maine International Film Festival, 2006
Collected by The Museum of Modern Art
The Dreamless Sleep (16mm film, B&W, 30 minutes, 2004, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews, music by John Cooper)
This is a sequel to Monkeys and Lumps. The Dreamless Sleep, the second in an intended trilogy, is a hybrid of drawn animation, live-action and puppetry. The Dreamless Sleep includes brief biographies of historic figures, like Else Bosselman, who drew underwater creatures as described by William Beebe from the windows of the bathysphere; and Christine the Astonishing, a medieval woman mystic. The film is based on a series of interviews with Ima Plume.
Selected Exhibitions: Transmodern Festival, Baltimore, 2007; Nova, Cinema Bioscoop, Brussels, Belgium, 2007; Cinema Project, Portland, OR, 2006; Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, CA, 2005; Museum of Modern Art, New York 2004; Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago 2004; Maine International Film Festival, 2004
Collected by The Museum of Modern Art
Monkeys and Lumps (16mm film, B&W, 38 minutes, 2003, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews, music by John Cooper)
This film is a hybrid of drawn animation, live action and puppetry. The central theme is the unknown or the “other” and our efforts as individual humans to understand our place and relationship with the unknowable. There are several subjects woven into the film. These are: facial expressions of human and non-human primates; space training and missions of chimpanzees; human study of monkeys (symbolized by the image of Jane Goodall); interactions between humans and animals (taken from news reports); lumps-- organisms that wash up on beaches that fit no known life forms (also called globsters); and, extra-terrestrials.
Selected Exhibitions: 52nd Flaherty Film Seminar, 2006; Pacific Film Archives, 2005; Museum of Modern Art, NYC, 2003 & 2006; Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago 2004; Women in the Director’s Chair Festival, Chicago, 2003; MADCAT 7th Annual International Women’s Film Festival and Touring program; Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2004
Collected by The Museum of Modern Art
The Reach of An Arm (16mm film, B&W, puppet animation with live sound, 30 minutes, 2000, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews)
Peculiarity and Frank Goodin, portrayed by puppets, seek their fortune as many did during the westward movement of the 1800’s. Peculiarity has seen the promise of a better life, "The trouble with you, Frank, is that you shot half your brain off. This is your chance to get rich." And, so they set out in their homemade wagon. This film is presented with live soundtrack of music, song and sound effects, employing soundtrack technologies of the early 1900’s.
Selected Exhibitions: Museum of Modern Art, NY, 2003; MADCAT International Women’s Film Festival, 2002 (live performance); Maine International Film Festival, 2002; University of Iowa, 2001(live performance); Outer Ear Festival, Chicago, 2000 (live performance)
The Lost Colony, an Early American Mysterie (16mm film, color, with live sound, 30 minutes, 1999, written, directed, cinematography, editing, and puppets by Nancy Andrews)
The Lost Colony tells the tale of an ill-fated fictional early American settlement. The 16mm film will be projected along with a live sound score including chorus, narration and sound effects. Puppets portray settlers and natives in a piece that weaves historic pilgrim diary entries, with the unfolding fictionalized story of the colonists' arrival and ensuing years. In form, the piece references early cinema and vaudeville, with the soundtrack performed on stage by the choral ensemble and narrators. Voice, Narration and Sound Effects: Nancy Andrews, Dru Colbert, Steve Reber and Chris Sullivan
Selected Exhibitions:
Cinema Borealis, Chicago, 1999
Hedwig Page, Seaside Librarian (16mm film, B&W, puppet animation with live sound, 35 minutes, 1998, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews)
Hedwig Page was born with an uncanny knowledge of cataloguing. She could recite Dewey Decimal categories before she could read and she could read before all else. She obviously pities, but does not excuse, your ignorance of the Holdings of the Library. Hedwig is the personification of applied skill, a Delphi of learning. And, Hedwig Page has some problems. This is the story of renowned librarian, collector and inventor, Hedwig Page. The piece chronicles the life of a retired librarian, past and present.
Selected Exhibitions: MADCAT , 5th Annual Women’s International Film Festival and Tour, 2001; Maine International Film Festival, 2001; Puppetroplis Film Festival, Chicago, 2001; Ann Arbor Film Festival and Tour, 2001; Black Maria Film and Video Festival and Tour, 2000; Jerusalem Film Festival, Israel, 2000; Museum of Modern Art, NY, 2000; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley Art Museum, 2000
Collected by The Museum of Modern Art
Woods Marm (16mm film, B&W, puppet animation with live sound, 30 minutes, 1996, written, directed, cinematography, editing, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews)
Woods Marm is part school pageant, part vaudeville film presentation, part puppet production and part folk opera. The Woods Marm is Hermione Pine, a hobby entomologist and botanist, "It would take a lively grasshopper to escape Miss Pine." The story unfolds in the Great Northern Forest under Giant Pines as the diminutive Woods Marm leaves the city, makes her Home in the trunk of a tree and discovers some things about Life.
Selected Exhibitions: Images Festival, Toronto, Ontario; Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2000; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1999 ; Chicago Puppet Festival, 1999 ; Pacific Film Archive, 1999; International Puppet Film Festival, 1998; Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland 1997 (live performance); N.A.M.E. Gallery Chicago, IL 1996 (live performance)
An Epic Falling Between the Cracks (16mm film, B&W, puppet animation with live sound, 20 minutes, 1996, written, directed, cinematography, editing, music, puppets and animation by Nancy Andrews)
Performance Documentation
https://vimeo.com/204393326
An Epic Falling Between the Cracks presents the Voyages of Frances Coco and her dog sidekick, Lemuel as related by a documentary filmmaker through film, animation, monologue and song. Frances, an 18 inch puppet, leaves the comfort of her shoe box bed and sets off on a series of adventures, including remote locations in outer space and underwater. It’s a space age, existential, Nanook of the North.
Selected Exhibitions: Museum of Modern Art, NY , 2000; Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, 1996; Cleveland Performance Art Festival 1996; Theater Project, Baltimore,1994; 14K Cabaret, Baltimore, 1995; Franklin Furnace (at the Knitting Factory) NY, 1995; Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, SK, Canada 1996 (film on video only); MIX Gay and Lesbian Experimental Film and Video Festival, NYC 1996 (film on video only)