Nancy Andrews

Consuming Spirits

Chris Sullivan

Nancy Andrews, Chris Sullivan

Nearly 15 years in the making, Chris Sullivan's Consuming Spirits is a meticulously constructed tour de force of experimental animation. Shooting frame by frame in 16mm, Sullivan seamlessly blends together a range of techniques—cutout animation, pencil drawing, collage, and stop-motion animation—into a distinct, signature visual style. In the process, he constructs a hypnotic, layered narrative, a suspenseful gothic tale that tracks the intertwined lives of three kindred spirits working at a local newspaper in a Midwestern rust belt town. The accumulation of these images builds to a great atmospheric effect, achieved through an adroit combination of inventive set design, ever-shifting visual perspectives, fluid camera movements, a vivid color palette, and a haunting music track. Sullivan succeeds in creating, with great artistry, a hermetic, self-contained world emanating from his own unique and vivid imagination. (Jon Gartenberg, Tribeca Film Festival)

The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes

Nancy Andrews

Michole Briana White, Jennifer Prediger

Dr. Sheri Myes survives the bombing of her home by protesters, but is changed forever by this traumatic experience. Isolated by her obsessions, she functions in a reality of her own creation. She is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, grafting animal senses to her brain to regain the profundity of her near-death experience. Just when Dr. Myes is poised to succeed, she loses everything and must climb back up from the bottom using unconventional means. This hybrid of animation, songs, and live-action narrative follows the research of Dr. Sheri Myes and her attempts to expand human consciousness.

The Dreamless Sleep

Nancy Andrews

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.

Monkeys and Lumps

Nancy Andrews

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.

The Haunted Camera

Nancy Andrews

This is the final installment in the Ima Plume trilogy. The film’s character, Ima Plume (pronounced 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.