While collaborating with his dad on a stop motion film, Tim Tracey learned he may lose him to cancer

Tim Tracey, a stop-motion animator and filmmaker who grew up on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, has always been surrounded by art — his father, Gregg, is an artist. Tim remembers his dad painting with him on his lap when he was little, and they travelled around together when his father was working on projects.

For Tim's latest film, Picnic, he recruited his dad as a collaborator. The elder Tracey built one of the characters, an owl, and painted the backgrounds. "Picnic was the first time officially collaborating with my father, Gregg Tracey," says Tim. The story that inspired the film — written by Ed Thomason — follows Rock, "an old sweet gentleman" who's at the end of his journey and travels back in his mind to have a picnic with his friend Twig; they have a little adventure together before Rock moves on to the next world.

Tim explains, "Because I work in stop motion and everything is physically real, I have to actually fabricate it all, and I think that part is probably my favourite part of my whole process." In his past films Kreb, DataMine and Boil, he worked with more metal and salvaged material — objects that he would repurpose. With Picnic, he is working with rock and wood along with other natural elements. The film marks a departure in style for Tracey in terms of themes as well — it's gentler and more peaceful than most of his previous work.

It's also a very personal film. Tim modelled the character of Rock after his dad, and he says that it's the heaviest puppet and probably the heaviest movie he's ever made. "The kind of weird thing about this project has been that during the process, after I started sort of modelling this guy (Rock) after dad and everything, he (Gregg) got terminal cancer. So it's been heavy, but art and life — they do what they're going to do, and it is really nice to be making something really special."

Part of the reason for creating art, Tracey says, is that it can help the artist navigate through their own life. He describes himself as someone who uses filmmaking as a means to process, and to better understand himself and the world he lives in. In this instance, the creation of the film was also a chance to work with his dad and to tell a story with which he now feels deeply connected.

"It's really important to keep moving, and art's life; life's art. So for me, just sort of getting that out of my head and into something physical is really important for me." 

In this video, we meet Tim Tracey as he works on Picnic in his studio. He takes us through the process of stop motion animation as he crafts a pivotal scene from the film. We learn about the challenges that Tracey is facing in bringing Picnic to life — both the technical challenges of working with natural materials and bringing such a personal story to life — and reflects the close relationship he shares with his father, an artist whose footsteps he has followed with admiration. 

Follow Tim Tracey here.