"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!

A Feel Good Film Fest Interview!

The great peeps at Actors Reporter let me know that they posted the interview they did with me on the red carpet at the Feel Good Film Fest this past August. [See above :) ]

It was such a wonderfully trippy experience to be, first of all, on a red carpet at all, and secondly, to have pics taken of me and asked to do interviews! I am so proud of everyone who helped and supported me to finish "Tah-Dah", and I wouldn't have been to any film fests without them!

Five more, oh me, oh my!

Five more film fests that "Tah-Dah" has been accepted into, I am just floored! This brings the total to 18 thus far, yahoo!

Here they are, in no particular order:

Oct 22 - Nov 1 in Chicago, IL: [This is the only Children's Fest to be Academy Award Qualifying, so that is exciting!]

Sept 25 - 27 in Birmingham, Alabama:

Oct 8 - 11 in Eugene, OR:

Sept 27 in Modesto, CA:

Traveling in Nov & Dec thru NYC, Rhode Island, Providence, NH & Concord:

Sketches of freelance / misc to come....I promise!
[I am slacking a bit on the "art-blog" end of things, I admit...but I just can't help but post film fest updates :) ]

Feel Good Film Fest

Having my film "Tah-Dah" screened at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood as a part of the Feel Good Film Festival this weekend has been nothing short of AMAZING!

More details to come :)

If you want to check out a few more pics from the event, click here.

LA Shorts Fest + "Tah-Dah" crits

My brother Cody and I jaunted down to LA this past weekend to see my film "Tah-Dah" Premiere at the LA Shorts Fest. The films screened at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theatres on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. It was his very generous birthday and early Christmas present to me...it was amazing!

A couple quick videos to show our excited experience: [we are obviously related]
Seeing Courtney Cox
Seeing Scarlett Johansson

It was a great experience, besides getting to sit right beside A-list stars like Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher & Lena Headey, I got to screen and participate in a filmmaker Q & A after my film screened. It was a huge honor to be invited to screen my film among these true Hollywood productions! I met a lot of great people in the Industry, and got some really positive feedback on my film. It was overall definitely worth the trip!

Festival is in November at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood:

The second fest I got some great feedback from was the AniMazing Spotlight - my film was included in the Quarter 3 entries and got feedback from amazing professionals in the Animation Industry all over the world.

Here are some of the comments I received about "Tah-Dah":

Nancy Beiman: [worked with Chuck Jones & a Disney Animation veteran]
"Good sound, interesting design. The animation is good, The style is highly derivative of 1950s Disney design and story but the film is professional looking and pretty to watch."

Bill Dennis:

"Delightful little film. Loved the sound track."

Paul Dopff: [animator & instructor from France]

"Just perfect, with a very good tribute to the UPA style.

very professional creation, visual and sound level together."

Bill Matthews: [Disney Feature Animation veteran]

"A short (very short) animated film using the flat, designy approach reminiscent of the 1950's style of commercial animation. Rather refreshing departure from all the 3-D computer shorts in this competition; used a jazz-type background for a character playing a cello concerto!! Nice expressions but just as I was "getting into" the idea, it ended. (Usually, I found that editing on some shorts would have tightened up their stories...here, I couldn't get quite enough!)"

Thanks so much everyone!!

"Tah-Dah" teaser trailer

So I finally threw together a quick teaser trailer of my film, "Tah-Dah"! A few of the film fests were requesting a trailer, and I thought then it could have some online presence without having to post the whole film...yet.



I hope this makes ya wanna see the real deal!

Festivus 8, 9 & 10

'Tis the season for film fests! I continue to be overjoyed with the response "Tah-Dah" has had amongst the film festivals! It has been invited to 3 more over the last little while, yayzers! Here they are for the inquiring minds who....inquire.

On Friday Aug 21st in Nevada City, CA:

On August 8th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood:

In November at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood:

I couldn't have done it nearly as well [or at all!] without Tams helping me colour the last few scenes, and all the Sheridan faculty's help along the way, not to mention all the support of my fab fellow 4th-year-ers!

Yay team!

Fest Numero 5, 6 & 7!

An update from Davis, California!

I am still on my extendedly wonderful vacation touring the better part of California and staying with wonderful friends along the way. I have had so many amazing experiences these past few weeks to honestly last me my lifetime!

"Tah-Dah" has made it into three more film fests, I feel so overwhelmed! I just wish I could be there to see each one screen....hmmm....if only I could get a plane ticket that would be free flights forever.......

Anyhoo, the three fests are:

On July 26th at Comic-Con in San Diego:

My film will be played at the San Diego Intl Children's Film Fest, which will take place at Comic-Con, so that is uber exciting!

On July 24th at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Hollywood:

On July 18th in PEI:

Yay for film fests! I hope to make at least a couple of them but we shall see. Well, on the road again.....

Fourth Film Fest!

On Aug 7th @ 11am in Hollywood:

Whilst enjoying our jaunts down South [my apologies on lack of posting, but we have been traveling by foot seemingly every waking moment!]...I heard from a fourth film fest that my film,
"Tah-Dah" has been accepted!

Yahoo! [The excitement never ceases for me!]

It's the West Hollywood International Film Fest, or WHIFF. Click on the image above to see their site. Visiting Hollywood this week is extra exciting for me, as in August my film will screen there!

As for our crazy awesome road trip extraordinaire, it has been going fabulously. More pics and sketches to come, but until then here's a few snapshots thus far :)

Moi hugging a HUGE rock formation at the Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.

Tams and I on her 30th birthday at the Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.

Super excited moi up in an air balloon for the first time over the beautiful vineyards in Temecula, California!

Doing some watercolour paintin' at the AWESOME Grand Canyon!

Doc and me, checkin' the time in Universal Studios, Hollywood.

"Tah-Dah" in Film Fests!

I thought I should update on here thus far: my thesis film from Sheridan "Tah-Dah" has made it into 3 film festivals!

I have applied to many [millions, it seems], but I have only heard from 3 so far, and I got into all 3, so I like that track record :) Most of the others I won't hear until well into the summer, so these were unexpected smiles.

The fests are:

During July & August on all Air Canada flights:

Air Canada's enRoute Film Festival - my film will be shown in-flight on all Air Canada's flights during July & August

On Friday, Aug 14th @ 8pm:


Washougal International Film Festival in Washougal, Washington


Beloit International Film Festival in Beloit, Wisconsin

I'm super pumped, it makes every long day of obsessively tweaking each scene and frame that much more rewarding!

Industry Day 2009

Two of my greatest Sheridan gal pals - Alysia Avey and Laurin Wolf
with their films on Industry Day!

Moi by my Tah-Dah station, awaiting Industry peeps :)

The big ol' Industry Day '09 at Sheridan College this past April 30th was, for me, an experience! I knew it could be a big day, but I also knew not to hold my breath and hope to get offered an amazing job immediately following the screening.

It was great experience getting some professional and honest feedback from various parts of the Industry; my first real animation "schmooze" day.

In the end, I met a lot of people, got some really positive feedback on my film, and landed an interview at Nelvana in downtown Toronto.

While I still cannot believe my 4 years at Sheridan are complete, I look forward to seeing what this next chapter holds for me!

"Tah-Dah" Poster.... Finally!

So even though I officially finished my Animation degree this previous Friday [yaaahOOOOOOOO!!!!] and will soon complete the last chapter in this 4-chapter book....it doesn't feel that way!

Industry Day is this Thursday, so I am madly trying to get together my portfolio, update my resume, do my demo reel, design a takeaway portfolio for possible interviews, design postcards and redesign my poster, get that all printed, apply to a bunch of film fests....OH and my family is flying out this weekend and then we will be moving back to the Peg.

PHEW! Time flies :)

BTW, if anyone wants to take a peek at my flat portfolio or my press kit for "Tah-Dah", the links are on the side > > > under "My Jazz".

We'll see how the big screening goes!

Another finished still!

The end is so near, I can taste it! I am muchos excited :)
I'd love to be able to just concentrate on my reel and portfolio now, however I have two electives to take care of, exams and such.

In any case, I only have two official weeks left of 4th year.... which then means I graduate in two weeks! Yipee kay-yay! WOW, how time has flown.

Much excitement to come, but for now, I gotta finish comp on "Tah-Dah"!

A finished still from "Tah-Dah"

I honestly feel like I am developing Photoshop Elbow. [in lieu of Tennis Elbow!!]

However, since I am on the almost-last stage of my film, I can deal with this never-ending Photoshop colouring frame by frame! By the end of all this, I will have felt like I ran 14 marathons. With my pencil :)

So here's a finished still from my upcoming film, "Tah-Dah"! I am excited to finally start to see it come to Technicolor life – I have been staring at the grayscale animation and backgrounds for what seems like eons, so this stage is exciting for me!

Stay tuned!

Straight to your airwaves...

I'm on the radio! Or, I was.

First off, a huge thanks to Toni Pennacchia at MergingArts Productions, who invited me to come and do an interview with her on Spoiler Alert Radio.

It was great fun! I have never been on the radio before, not even as a call-in for a contest, so this was an entirely new experience for moi. It's now available as a downloadable podcast on the Spoiler Alert Radio website here.

For more info on Toni's awesome film festivals, Short Short Short Film Festival and Womanimation!, click here.

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......!

Paintin' fences

I am done clean-up [yay!!], and I am starting now to colour my backgrounds. I have 13 backgrounds total, and 2 minutes worth of animation.....and I plan to paint each frame in Photoshop with texture SOOOOOOOOOO....

I gots a lots o' colouring ahead!

For now, background 01 is done-o!

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!

Rough "TAH-DAH" Poster Idear

UPDATE: Watch a trailer of the finished film "Tah-Dah" here!




Amid working like a nutbar on cleaning up my animation, I am also trying to compile a few promotional pieces for my film right now. I am confident I will have more artwork when the film is closer to being finished, but as it stands I threw together a few pieces.....here's one of them, a rough poster idear.

Stay tuned for more!

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......