By: Lotti Pharriss Knowles
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 7/10/2025 – Vera VanGuard, the filmmaker behind the recently-released feature film Apocalypse Love, has had a fascinating career journey – and her hands have been responsible for opening many doors to opportunity.
Raised in Manhattan, she started off “tickling the ivories” as a third-generation classical pianist, but fairly early on she realized that she didn’t want to be a professional musician. “I was always a visual kid, and the piano was kind of torture for me,” VanGuard says. Drawing had emerged as a stronger passion, and she applied and was accepted to the art department at LaGuardia High School (also known as the “Fame school”). Focusing on art allowed her to continue playing music for fun, including her “ultimate rebellion” of leaning into heavy metal guitar.
Then 12 years ago, it occurred to her that someone might want musicians’ hands for modeling, and she sent a photo of hers to an agency. They responded enthusiastically, telling her she had the best little boy hands they’d ever seen. “Little boy hands??” VanGuard recalls, laughing. “But it turned out I have this body part that looked like a child-sized hand on camera, so I wound up becoming a child-size hand model, puppeteering toys in toy commercials.” Her hands have graced advertisements for Barbie, Bratz, Monster High, Jurassic Park and Dora the Explorer (among others).
Along the way VanGuard learned that the technique she employs, wherein her hands are clearly in frame manipulating toys’ movement, is called “play-motion animation.” Along with the ambidexterity she acquired as a piano player, her hobby of professional bodybuilding has also served her well in this career, giving her the strength to hold heavier toys at uncomfortable angles for multiple takes.
If these weren’t impressive enough credentials, VanGuard has also been making independent films in Los Angeles for more than a decade. Her first two features, Safehouse (which she co-wrote and produced) and Breaking Barbi (which she co-wrote, produced and starred in) were populated with human actors. But her directorial debut, Apocalypse Love, finally married her love of puppeteering with her passion for filmmaking – and resulted in the first play-motion feature film.
The characters in Apocalypse Love are portrayed by plushy dolls, hand-made by an artist in Slovenia whom VanGuard found on Etsy. This “casting decision” was also a practical one during the pandemic lockdown. “I was like, I gotta use this time wisely somehow – and how do I make a movie without people in it? It turned into nine dolls and a whole bunch of zombie hands on popsicle sticks!”
VanGuard was almost a “one-man band,” serving as writer, director, producer, editor, puppeteer and voice actor for one of the roles. But she did bring on a few key professionals in their fields who helped her elevate the films’ production value, such as cinematographer Scotty Baker, sound designer Brandon Miller, and fellow puppeteer Lisa McNeely (whom VanGuard knew as another child-sized hand model). Actor friends voiced the other roles, and local indie musicians, whom she met while hanging out on the patio of the Rainbow Room, provided the EDM and rock soundtrack. “I’m grateful for everyone (who worked on the film)… As indie filmmakers, you beg and steal and do whatever you gotta do!”
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Luckily, VanGuard had distribution in place with Dark Side Releasing before she started shooting. “They only do weird, absolutely bizarre stuff – that’s their thing. I said to them, ‘I’m doing a zombie-alien-puppet movie, will you take it?’ DUH!” she laughs.
Apocalypse Love has also been enjoying a robust festival run, from Dances With Films here in Los Angeles to Stockholm City Film Festival in Sweden, where it won Best Animated Film.
So what’s next for VanGuard? “I’d love to make Apocalypse Love into a TV series! It’s such a fast, budget-friendly animation style.” Are you listening, Hollywood?
Apocalypse Love is now available to stream for free at mometu.com and fearpix.com, or to rent or buy on Amazon.com.
