THE VIDEOS:
Miss Bee's Busy Day
(a stressed-out office worker copes with her boss)
RUOK4Y2K?
(ready for the Millennium?)
Ain't Gonna Take It
(four office workers kiss the rat-race goodbye and
start a new life as The Seductones, a hard-rockin' band)
Laboratory Lover
Calling All UFOs
Zombie Love
(a scientist searches for the perfect man the hard way in this
music video that satirizes the dark sides of love and science)
(a construction worker gets his wishand wishes
he hadn'tin this wry sci-fi music video)
(revenge from beyond the grave halts a lothario's career
in this mock-horror music video)
Nominee, Rosebud Film & Video Awards; Miss Beešs Big Night; February 2002; screening at Spectrum Theatre, Rosslyn, VA, March 2002.
Best Arts & Entertainment; Miss Beešs Big Night, Montgomery Community Television, Inc. (MCT); November 2001.
Independent Exposure -- screening RUOK4Y2K? by Microcinema, Inc.'s short film and video series, at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, throughout the Antarctic summer. This series is the first ever to be presented in Antarctica; 2001.
Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture, City of Baltimore; screening for ARTSCAPE 2000; RUOK4Y2K and Miss Beešs Busy Day; July 22-23, 2000.
Honorarium, Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture, City of Baltimore, RUOK4Y2K? and Miss Beešs Busy Day; Summer 2000.
National Public Radio--Morning Edition; sound clip on "Microcinema" segment featuring RUOK4Y2K? as example of comedy in video shorts; May 3, 2000.
Honorarium, Independent Exposure; 5th Season Premiere show; RUOK4Y2K? and Miss Beešs Busy Day; January 2000.
Honorarium, Unquote Television--Drexel University; Miss Beešs Busy Day; January 2000.
Best Public Service Announcement/Program Promotion; RUOK4Y2K?; Montgomery Community Television, Inc. (MCT); 1999.
Best Entertainment, Hometown USA Video Festival; Miss Beešs Busy Day; National Federation of Local Cable Programmers (NFLCP); 1999.
Best Field Program; Miss Beešs Busy Day; Montgomery Community Television, Inc. (MCT); 1998.
Best Lighting, Best Arts and Entertainment; Ainšt Gonna Take It, MCT; 1994.
Certificate of Achievement, Billboard Song Contest; Laboratory Lover; 1993.
Finalist-Entertainment, Hometown USA Video Festival; Laboratory Lover; National Federation of Local Cable Programmers; 1992.
Honorable Mention; Laboratory Lover; MCT; 1991.
Grant, Arts Council of Montgomery County awarded 1990 to 1991.
Best in Festival, Best Entertainment, and Best Use of Music or Sound; Calling All UFOšs; MCT; 1989.
Honorable Mention-Entertainment; Zombie Love; Off-the-Wall Video Festival; 1987.
Honorable Mention; Zombie Love; MCT; 1986.
Miss Bee's Big Night, produced by volunteer producer Andrea Brown, has been nominated for a Rosebud Award. The Rosebud awards competition was founded in 1990 to promote independenyt film and video productions in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
The short video features an office worker who looks forward to a night on the town. All the characters are mechanical toys.
Reacting to the nomination, Andrea says, 'I am very pleased that after so many years as an MCT producer, our collective efforts have been recognized and appreciated. We hope this nomination and two-day screening will give us another chance to enjoy a live audience's reaction to our work.'
The 20 nominated works will be screened at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theater in Arligton, Virginia on March 23 and 24 beteen 12p.m. -- 8 p.m.
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Hands-On News, Montgomery Community Television, December 2001-January 2002:
Congratulations to Andrea Brown whose video RUOK4Y2K? will be screened in Antarctica as part of the Independent Exposure series sponsored by Microcinema, Inc. The Microcinema Network programs unique media in alternative venues around the world
and will showcase the short films and videos of 42 international directors.
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Unquote Television, DUTV, Drexel University, 1/14/00:
an outstanding piece
exceptional
MISS BEE'S BUSY DAY is part of an exclusive group of challenging and relevant films and videos.
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The Gazette, Montgomery County Maryland, 11/3/99:
Toys Are All Wound-Up In Award Winning Video
During her 14 years as an MCT volunteer, Andrea Brown produced four music videos, each featuring her own songs and original brand of humor. But for her newest video, Brown decided on a change of pace. Rather than using live actors, she dusted off her antique wind-up toy collection and created her own pictorial backdrop. The result was MISS BEE'S BUSY DAY, a short video that was declared the winner in the entertainment category of the 1999 Hometown Video Festival, the largest competition for public access programs in the United States.
The program follows a day in the life of Miss Busy Bee, a typist who is furiously trying to complete a report requested by her boss at the INCOMPCO firm. Miss Bee's friends and co-workers include frogs, ladybugs, birds and butterflies -- all wind-up toys Andrea has collected over the years.
Brown, a graphic artist
painted the scenery for the program on a 15-foot roll of mural paper. Using tempera paints, which are water-based and dry quickly, she created a woodland setting, a pond, Miss Bee's office, and other scenes in the order that they would appear in the edited video.
Several friends were recruited to be the toy-winders. Although Brown believed it would be easier to work with objects rather than live actors, she found that the toys often had a life of their own, moving in unusual patterns or in the wrong direction. 'The toys,' she explains, 'would bang into the wall or fall off the edge of the mural.'
Miss Bee's voice was supplied by Brown, and the guitar and keyboard music was composed by her husband Bob Swenson, and a friend, Bill Holter. Holter's sound studio was used to record the soundtracks.
Brown is not quite ready to put her beloved toys back on the shelf. She's planning to create a sequel to MISS BEE'S BUSY DAY, and has already completed a 30-second public service announcement about the Y2K bug using several insets and robots from her collection.
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The Washington Post, October 13, 1989 (by Eve Ziebart):
WAITING FOR THE UFOs: Between the establishment World Series and the punky counterculture appeal of that shiny little mercury bubble of mercury spiking unwary citizens in the head in 'Phantasm' on Channel 20, you're almost certain to be hanging around the TV until after midnight when the music video CALLING ALL UFO's makes its commercial debut (following 'Phantasm').
Written by and starring Washington music scene longtimers Bob Swenson, Bill Holter and Andrea Dagmar Brown, CALLING ALL UFO's is the spoofy saga of a beefy construction worker (Swenson) who dreams of erotic salvation by disco-glitter outer-space swingers. (Remember 'Queen of Outer Space' with Zsa Zsa Gabor in form-fitting, if not airtight, silver? Remember the Bud Light commercial?)
As in all fantasies, his wish comes true--and unlike the Bud Light, it comes with an unexpectedly wry aftertaste. It also includes cameos by oldies deejay Dick Lillard (as a purple people-eater) and Bob E. Rock as a cigar-chompin' hardhat. CALLING ALL UFO's actually premiered in March at the time of the Discovery shuttle launching on Montgomery Community Television, where Brown works. It will also air on Halloween on Channel 50, along with Swenson/Brown's earlier opus, ZOMBIE LOVE, which was introduced on the now-defunct 'Creature Feature' by the eternally defunct Count Gore DeVol.
ZOMBIE LOVE is a rougher production, but it has its charms, especially for this time of year (its Oct. 31 showing will follow 'Night of the Living Dead,' naturally), and it includes for local music archivists footage of Brown performing with her old band, the Seductones. Brown says she and Swenson are working toward a 'video album,' and will follow up the UFOs and zombies with a Mad Doctor vid, props for which she inadvertently acquired over the summer following a close encounter of the unpreferred kind with an Alfa Romeo.
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The Washington City Paper, October 31, 1986 (by Brian McGuire):
This Saturday night, Channel 20's Gore Dival will pause in his Halloween showing of Brides of Dracula to premier a locally produced video titled ZOMBIE LOVE. The three-minute musical/novelty/horror production is a labor of love by former Seductone Andrea Brown and was one year in the making. The song, returning to the world of the living from the repertoire of the deceased Seductones, was written by Brown and lead guitarist Bill Newscaster. (The Seductones were famous for counting among their ranks the world's only black female rockabilly drummer in the person of Michele Baskins.) The story concerns a society debutante who kills herself after being dumped by her boyfriend, but reappears as one of the undead seeking revenge. Brown says that because she has 'friends in the business,' the result is a $10,000 video done on a $400 budget. 'We got it out, it was fun, we'll see where it goes,' Brown concludes, adding that she is about to start on a second masterpiece.
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