For Canadian filmmaker and artist Stacey Chomiak, her animated short film Tah-Dah is a perfect marriage of nature and nurture. Her love of art and natural artistic abilities began as soon as she could hold a pencil, but it wasn’t until four years ago that she decided to go back to school to Sheridan Institure in Ontario for its prestigious animation degree. The result speaks for itself, as Stacey’s first film and thesis project (she graduated just this past spring) is Tah-Dah, critically acclaimed and accepted and screened at an impressive 21 film fests throughout the US and Canada. L.A. Kid Stuff caught up with Stacey.

SEE TAH-DAH at the Los Angelese Children’s International Film Festival Today, October 17, 2009 at Los Angeles County Museum of Art!

LAKS:  What is Tah-Dah about?
Stacey: Tah-Dah is about a farmer [I named him Farmer Henry] who has a passion for playing his cello up in his barn loft. But he isn’t so skilled at it. He plays and plays, but the notes just keep falling flat – literally. Then one day a bug that resides in his loft [I called him Bentley Bug] decides that he must do something about this awful music because it is starting to get in the way of his living situation! So together the farmer and the bug are able to make beautiful music together, and there you have: tah-dah!

LAKS:  Your characters are so distinct in the film, which came first, the story or the art?
Stacey: The story came before my characters, for sure. I always try to think of the story and then design the colours, characters, layouts, etc from that. Sometimes I make up characters and then a story begins to spill from them, but in this case, my story was first. It took me quite a few passes on my characters to get them to look exactly how I had envisioned them in my head. I also wanted a flatter, graphic-y, textured style, but one that could still be fully animated. That was tougher than I thought when trying to build solid designs.

LAKS: Where did you get your inspiration for this film?
Stacey:My inspiration sort of came about when I least expected it – which is usually how it happens! I was trying to think of ideas for a short film, something that I could tie in with being inspirational and musical – two of my favs in terms of film.  I was visiting my grandparents at the lake one weekend, and a friend of theirs was over and he was talking about an old friend of his who used to live on a farm in a small town in Manitoba, and who became an amazing cellist at Juillard. I immediately had this image of a farmer playing a cello in a loft, and so it began.

LAKS: Tell us about the style of animation in Tah-Dah.
Stacey: For this film, which I knew would be totally just me, I decided to gravitate towards the more textured, old-fashioned cartoons that were done by UPA, and the 50’s Disney style. Those were my biggest inspiration and I just wanted to make a fun ol’ cartoon, and in this digital age of clean Flash animation, you don’t see much of that anymore!

LAKS:  Congratulations on the success of this film. Twenty-one film festivals – very impressive!
Stacey: That makes me very excited indeed! I never imagined anything like that when I was working my butt off at school this past year. I even got to visit a couple film fests in Hollywood; one of them screened at the Egyptian and that was a huge honor.

LAKS:  What is the future of Tah-Dah?
Stacey: The future of my film….good question! Who knows. I am open to anything. Maybe more film fests….perhaps it will make it onto a DVD compilation…maybe it will be an influence for another short, who knows. This whole creative business is unpredictable, but I am just enjoying doing what I love, and seeing where that will take me.

LAKS:  What can we expect in the future from Stacey Chomiak?
Stacey: The future for me is also unknown, but I am okay with that! Right now I have a couple character design contracts on freelance that are keeping me busy. I have a lot of ideas for shorts floating around in my head, I’d love to illustrate kids books, and I am looking for a full-time position at a studio right now. As long as my future has me creating and sharing, that’s all I ask for.

After ten summers attending Circus Camp in her native Peru, Indiana—the winter home for Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus before it moved operations to Florida—Tina Miser’s dream was to run away with the Circus. But her practical parents wouldn’t allow it, so they made her a deal: go to college, and if you still want to join the circus, go right ahead. Four years and one college degree later, Tina got her wish and more. She met and fell in love with her husband Brian, then a working circus trapeze artist, and they’ve been living happily under the big top ever since.

In 1997, Brian created his own patented “cannon” and since 2002 they’ve been performing a human cannonball act for Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus that catapults Tina and another performer 90 feet across the length of the Circus tent, 35 ft. high at a speed of 0-60 mph in 2 seconds flat. But don’t let the two seconds fool you, there’s a lot of training and preparation that goes into each performance for this acrobat who sometimes will do up to 13 shows a week. “You have to be strong, because you need to make sure your body is tight enough to tolerate the force of the cannon,” she says. “You have to do warm ups and get your body prepped.” Then of course there’s the minor issue of making sure to hit the target air bags that are a mere 15’ x 28’, something for which she puts all her trust in Brian, the trigger man.

“It’s definitely always a rush,” Tina says about her day job. “I never go to work yawning!” This sustained enthusiasm says a lot for someone who travels with the circus 50 weeks out of the year. But in addition to her love for the circus, Tina admits one of the best benefits is spending time with her and Brian’s 5-year old daughter, Skyler. A circus baby, if you will, Skyler is currently homeschooled and loves to be with her parents and her extended circus family. Part of her education is learning about all the different cities she travels to, and Tina and Brian make time to educate her about all the different locations. For Tina, it’s a blessing in disguise. “It can be challenging at times of course,” Tina admits, “But the best part is that I get to spend a lot of time with Skyler everyday, except for the three hours that the show is going on.” During those three hours while her parents are performing, Skylar hangs out with 15 other children of circus performers at the Circus day care.

Asked how long she plans to keep her family in the Circus, Tina has no plans on leaving what she adamantly says “is truly the best show on earth.” And as for how to handle little Skyler’s possible desire to follow in mom and dad’s footsteps? “Anything she wants to do, we will support,” Tina says convincingly. Well if it’s true that kids only want what they can’t get, maybe Skyler will want an average career when she grows up.  Nah, we’re not betting on it.

SEE Tina fly through the Circus at the Staples Center in Downtown, Los Angeles this week!