"Tah-Dah" - now available on the web!

"Tah-Dah" [2009] from Stacey Chomiak on Vimeo.

Since the film fests have started to die down [although this month "Tah-Dah" was screened in five different locations alone, yahoo!], I thought it was time to put it online. I hope everyone enjoys!

artschoolreviews.ca

I was asked by a great guy, Michael Ngo, working over at artschoolreviews.ca, if I wouldn't mind writing a review of my experiences at Sheridan College.

The idea of them having this great site designed to help anyone who is looking into various colleges and wanting honest feedback from people who have gone before them, is a great one! So of course I was happy to write one from my humble experience.

Click on the image above if ya wanna check it out, and thanks Mike!

Aloha, Animation workshops!

Here are a couple [rather rough] quick snippets of videos that Tams took whilst Andrew [Marshel] and I taught the animation workshops out in Kaua'i, Hawaii last week.





What an amazing time; the wide-eyed kidlets with their pencils brings everything back to perspective! :)

"Tah-Dah" DVD & disc designs

At the end of finishing my final year at Sheridan's Animation degree, I was so worried about getting my film "Tah-Dah" finished in time for the big Industry Day screening, that I was slightly forced to design up my poster and DVD case/disc rather quickly!

However, I am sure glad I did do those designs, as soon after that I have had to send out my film to all the film fests, and well, writing on a disc with a Sharpie just doesn't have that same professional appeal :)

Here are the designs:

Festivals continue to abound :)

Since getting home from the Feel Good Film Fest at the Egyptian, I have been able to recoop a bit and catch up on some freelance work - sketches to be posted soonly!

In the meantime, a couple updates re: "Tah-Dah" in more film fests!

The AniMazing Spotlight [see image above] has put up a montage of clips of the animated films to be included in their festival at the Egyptian in November - of which I am included, as well as a few friends of mine from Sheridan - yay Sheridan!

Check out the montage of clips here.

Most recently, "Tah-Dah" has also been accepted into two more festivals, bringing the grand total thus far up to 14! Wowza, I am still amazed.

Sept 24 - Oct 1st in Montreal, QC:

I haven't been included in too many in my Canadian homeland just yet, so this one in Quebec was a nice surprise! I was super honored to make the cut [no pun intended], as they chose their Top 100 films from well over 1000 entries. I've never been to Montreal, so I'm really hoping to make it out for this one.

Sept 17 - 19 in Galesburg, Illinois:

I'm not entirely sure what the Black Earth Film Fest all entails, but I am happy to make their short list of films in any case!

The cello stands alone.

Here's another painted layout from my film - this one is basically my master layout where the farmer is playing his cello. I can't wait to finally get to colouring my animation!

The deadlines are fast approaching....just keep colouring....just keep colouring......!

Animation Yearbook design

So this has been the year I have been waiting for [in more ways than one!], but also in terms of our annual Animation Yearbook. We can design one page of artwork each year to be included in the Yearbook, black and white; however when you get to 4th year, we get 2 pages - one colour AND one black and white. Wowza!

I spent last night and this morning finishing up a design to represent my film and be sufficiently well designed--at least to my liking!

Above are the pages individually; the black and white page will be on the left and the colour page on the right. I only tried to remember one thing this year when I designed them - LESS is more!

The pages together as hopefully they will appear in the Yearbook:

And now....back to clean-up!

Colour Concoctions

Right now I am trying to clean up all my animation [as quickly as humanly possible, which is not easy with clean up!]....so I thought I'd post my newest colour script for my film.

I really want an earthy palette, but one that's also a bit wacky to work with the UPA-ish stylings.
I hope this works, but the real test will be when I start to paint my animation and backgrounds!

Must.....keep...........drawrrrrrrinnnnnnggg......

Ruff animation stills from "TAH-DAH"

I thought since I am starting clean-up today [FINALLY!!], that I would post some stills of my ruff animation. I am actually happy with how it's turning out, which is a rareity when it comes to me liking my own animation!! So I am staying positive and moving forward!















I am sooooooo anxious to get to the painting stage, I just want to see it all finished now, but clean-up is a necessary evil, I suppose...... :)

Onward and upward!

The Stars of "TAH-DAH"

I'm pausing inbetween scenes to quickly post some character designs...I realize I haven't posted too much artwork from my film as of yet - 'cause everything is in the works!

But I have to say, I am actually really excited with the direction my film is going. Even though it's crazy insane amounts of work, I'm really lovin' seeing my characters come to life and my story take form.

It won't be complete [knock on wood!!] until end of April, but for now, here's my designs for the two main characters: Farmer Henry and Bentley Bug.

I hope everyone else will enjoy it as well!

A "TAH-DAH" test

I am madly ruff animating as we type.....HOWever, I thought I shouldst post a test scene I did before Christmas to see if I could ACTUALLY animate the way I was thinking in my head. In order to get the result I wanted, I mean. It's not perrrrfect, but it helped me work out a LOT of pipeline bugs, and is definitely helping me not lose sleep during the ruff animation stage....wondering how I am gonna clean up and colour all those frames.....

As you can see, I didn't finish colouring all the frames, but it was good enough for moi.

So enjoy the sneak peek!
Stay tuned for the real flick, April 2009 :)

Craft paper concepts pour moi Story

So I pitched my current film concept today for my mentor Barry, and a few fellow 4th years, and I got some great crits/idears - thanks Guys! This will definitely continue to morph and change, but I'd like to get to the leica reel stage earlier than later so I can work with the timing of the music and such.

ANYhooooo, getting ahead of me-self.

For the pitch today, I decided to do something totally different and dragged out my scissors and craft paper. It was fun - I was back in grade 2! Ah, the good ol' days. And a nice change from the constant drawring.....plus it forced me to think of basic shapes, silhouettes, contrasting elements, etc.

Read below each panel to get an idear of where my story is now. Stay tuned for the changes to come!

Open with EXT shot of farm; broken music notes emanating from a large willow tree.

Cross dissolve to INT shot of farmer playing his cello. Badly. All broken/sour notes are coming out from the cello, but farmer loves to play anyway.

Follow broken notes to bug up in the corner of the room - he is disgruntled, as he is just trying to enjoy his meal and cannot eat in peace with all the sour notes.

Bug decides to take matters into his own hands, flies down to the farmer's cello and begins to pick the strings to show him how to play properly.

Man notices bug on cello and tries to chase him off - but in the process of chasing the bug he is able to play a beautiful cello solo.

Man realizes that he needs bugs help / good luck to bring out his buried talent of cello genius.

Bug realizes he not only stopped the sour notes, but became the farmer's musical mentor. He can now eat in peace! He does a 4-legged "Tah-dah!"

------- iris out -------


That's it for now - comments and crits always welcomed and appreciated! I will continue to post updates as the story evolves in the coming days/weeks.

[Side note: Working title for this short is "Tah-dah!"]

Ox on YouTube

I know I have been SO lax in the posting as of the last few weeks, but it has been NUTSO with finishing at FP, visiting the Peg for a couple weeks, driving back to Oakville, moving AND starting 4th year this week.....PHEW!!

I am beginning work on my film and am getting super pumped, stay tuned for concept jazz to begin to pop up. In the meantime, here is our 3rd year film, The Celestial Ox, now posted on YouTube. Yay!



It is also on Teletoon's site, since we made it as a finalist for the scholarship - yay x 2!

http://www.teletoon.com/scholarship

Onward and upward!

UPDATE: "The Celestial Ox" won Teletoon Viewer's Choice award at the Ottawa Intl Animation Fest! Go team!

'The Celestial Ox' got selected for two festivals!

Some exciting news came my way in the last couple weeks, and I thought I'd do a special Ox-update post! The group film I animated on for my 3rd year group film this past year at Sheridan [see group film blog here], entitled The Celestial Ox has made it in two film festivals. Yay Mo-Cap Penguins! [Our studio name. 'Tis self-explanatory if ya think about it.]

It will be screened firstly in Los Angeles at the LA Shorts Film Fest on August 20.08 [SO exciting - wish I could be there!!], and secondly it will screen at the Ottawa International Animation Fest on September 20.08 - we made it as a finalist in the Teletoon Animation Scholarship category.

Me both excited and uber proud of my fellow penguins!

Allen made us proud!

A photo with a few of us Mo-Cap Penguins from our screening last Friday evening - from left to right: Mark, Allen Stewart-Coates [our amazing narrator!], Brock, Rachel and moi. We gave Allen a signed copy of our film poster as a small thanks for his amazing contribution!


Here's the poster that Garrett Hanna did for our group [thanks Garrett!] and some stills from our finished film on our group blog here.

And Brock put together a fun YouTube trailer of some clips of all the finished group films. See that here.

FABULOSO job everyone!! Sheridan Year 3, 07-08, a success for all :)

My finished scenes from "The Celestial Ox"

So we finally screened our FINAL film this morning, so it was a big YAY and PHEW all at the same time! I am so, so, so, so, SO proud of my fellow Mo-Cap Penguins - we actually did it! It's finished, and in my humble opinion, thanks to the hard work of everyone, fab.

I shall try to post the finished film on here once we get the go-ahead. It's a little sketchy right now with guidelines and copyrights... we are trying to submit it to a few festivals, so there's some things we have to wait on before we post to the web.

Anyway, stay tuned, and in the meantime, here are my finished scenes! Yay, finished! Sorry they are sort of out of context, but think of it as a trailer. Sort of. :) And once again, major props to our narrator, Allen Stewart-Coates... perhaps better known as the voice of Rataxes in Babar. He totally makes our film amazing!

Scene 12 [the black is scene 13, I didn't do that one]

Scene 14, 15 & 16

Scene 17

A Sneak Ox Peek

A rendered still of one of my scenes from our group film "The Celestial Ox"... everyone is doing an awesome job and its looking great!

Stay tuned for the final film in a few days!

Celestial Ox - ruff animation

So we are in the last stretch of this year, which means - final leg of production on our Group Film "The Celestial Ox"! I am in the midst of cleaning up my ruff animation, which will then be coloured frame by frame and composited with the backgrounds to be put into the final film.

Here are my scenes a la ruff animation.
Stay tuned for the final film, to be completed by the middle of April!

Scene 12-13:

Scene 14-15:

Scene 16:

Scene 17:

Demo Reel v2 Jan 08

Here's my biggest project over the holidays - rebuilding and updating my current demo reel. I shortened it overall, and cut in some new 3D work, Flash animation & character designs.

It's a constant work in progress, but here is the latest!
[Sorry for the small-ish size - that's blogs for ya!]

A Finito Action Analysis!

Okay, well, not FINISHED-finished... but it is completed in terms of what was required for the assignment... and lemme tell ya, THAT'S a miracle in itself!

The third scene, where the "Ann" character is side-stepping the old lady, is the completely finished one; cleaned-up, painted, complete with ground shadow and two-tone shadow on "Ann".

And amazingly enough, after working 13 weeks on this puppy, I'd still like to finish the rest of it! I am happy with the way it turned out [thanks to everyone who helped! - see the credits].. PHEW that was alotta work! [Pardon the low-res for web, it will be much clearer on my reel!]

And now it's time to jingle all the way to a holly jolly Christmas!