"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!

23rd & 24th fest for "Tah-Dah"!

Just getting back from an amazing time in Kauai, Hawaii, I heard that I got into two more festivals, which is continued great news!

In February 2010 in Brooklyn, NY:

In March 2010, in Chilmark, Massachusetts:

Sketches from my Hawaiian experiences to come, I promise!

Winnipeg newspaper article

I was fortunate enough to be featured in one of Winnipeg's regular newspapers - The Metro - this week! It feels great to have the support of my homegrown community behind me! Here is a version of it online for those who feel compelled to read it:

http://www.canstarnews.com/page/story/1/4509

And now.....off to Hawaii!! [in a few hours...I cannot WAIT!]

From Chicago to Hollywood!

Happening next weekend....


Above is my "official" certificate of nomination from the AniMazing Spotlight fest, happening next weekend at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, CA! I am very honored to be up for Best Student Animated Short, yahoo! Wish I could be there to support everyone else's shorts as well!

Happening now.....


Also, this weekend "Tah-Dah" screened at the prestigious Chicago International Children's Film Festival [CICFF] - the only Children's Fest in the world that is an Academy-Award Qualifier! That is trés exciting for moi! My film screened multiple times throughout the fest; yesterday at noon & 2pm, and today at 9:30 am. For more info on the fest and schedules, click here.

An Interview with L.A. Kids Stuff

Imee Perius, from L.A. Kids Stuff, was kind enough to request an interview with me, as my film screened today in L.A. for the L.A. Intl Childrens Festival.

Click here to read the article.

Too bad I'm not down there to check out the fest, I'm sure it would have been a blast!

"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:

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 :) ]

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!

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.....

"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!