Originally designed for the Instagram Stories vertical format, A Portrait of Tracy is an experimental short documentary that lets us in on a conversation between Tracy and her late grandfather—someone Tracy holds closest to her heart but struggles to remember. What echoes from childhood remain for a young immigrant who had to leave one life behind for another in a foreign country? How does one grieve for the memory of a person lost to distance, language, and time?
Writer & Director: Joanne Lam (Canada)
Art Director & Illustrator: James Lee Chiahan (Canada)
Animation Lead: Una Di Gallo (Canada)
Sound Designer & Sound Editor: Jonathan Webb (Scotland)
Composer: Vassilis Philippou (Cyprus)
A National Film Board of Canada and POV Spark co-production
Context
Memories are fickle. Still, we try to salvage anything we can, each of us a porous reliquary hoping to be blessed by what remains.
Tracy is exceptionally gifted at writing about olfaction and memory. The smell of jasmine, forever synonymous with her late grandfather in Chenzhou, was and still is a beloved subject of hers. Despite Tracy's palpable affection for Ye Ye, mentions of him were surprisingly brief across her early essays. I found it curious and wanted to understand why.
Asking about Ye Ye in greater depth revealed the heart of Tracy's struggle: what little she knew and remembered of him felt too slippery to commit to words. Their time together was so long ago, and she was so young. How can she be sure of anything without Ye Ye here to verify it all? Memories from an abandoned life and language can seem impossible to transcribe, and when you lose a person from that time, you also lose what only they knew and remembered about you.
A Portrait of Tracy became an exercise in building a vessel to hold this unspoken yet unresolvable bond between two people. It was also an attempt at documenting the core of an interior life—the great wilderness of oneself, as James Baldwin called it—without distorting or exploiting its emotional truth.
From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous:
In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Con nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me?
I miss you more than I remember you.
Team
A Portrait of Tracy was an international collaboration conducted remotely across four (and at one point, five) time zones, before and during the pandemic.
Art Director & Illustrator
James was the first person I emailed while working on my pitch to the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Not only was his art breathtaking, but also he was self-taught, had a background in design, and inherently understood the cultural nuances of kinship as an East Asian immigrant. I couldn't have asked for a better combination of qualities in a potential collaborator: dream team member #1.
Agreeing to work together was a bold move nevertheless. We didn't know each other beforehand, yet here I was writing him into a speculative proposal for a wildly experimental project requiring utmost faith, patience, and commitment. It's a lot to ask of a stranger! I count my blessings everyday that James trusted my vision enough to say yes. Dream team member #1 became actual team member #1.
Sound Designer & Sound Editor
Jonathan was someone I wanted to work with ever since we met at a symposium in 2015. I found him on the list of attendees and reached out for a chat, hoping to learn more about his experience in music design. He was beyond generous with his time and knowledge. Dream team member #2, but I never imagined someone of his level would be interested in my ideas let alone want to collaborate.
That didn't stop me from sending him the project pitch in 2019. I explained how I wanted to prioritize sound throughout the production process, and how Tracy's voiceover would steer the visual development instead of the other way around. Having previously created sonic storyboards for director Joanna Hogg, Jonathan understood what I was trying to achieve and was willing to participate in my experiment. Dream team member #2 became actual team member #2.
Animation Lead
After my pitch was green-lit by the NFB and POV Spark, I quickly realized that illustrations alone weren't enough: still images set to sound would turn our film into a sad rip-off of La Jetée. Somehow, the visuals had to move intuitively within the canvas of a phone screen despite brief interruptions every 15 seconds due to the limited clip length of Instagram Stories at the time (they're now up to 60 seconds long). We needed help from a wild card dream team member #3.
Thanks to a chaotic approach to recruitment—"freelance animator in Canada" was the search phrase I used—I eventually came across the Toronto Animated Image Society and discovered Una. Her thesis film 1992 stole my heart. She found a way to communicate the complexities of the human condition in a minute and a half of wordless animation, and I was in awe.
We set up an interview to see if she would be able to fill in the gaps of our project, but the technicalities were almost inconsequential. I wanted no one else for the job; it was Una or bust. Dream team member #3 became actual team member #3.
Composer
I met Vassilis and Jonathan on the same five-day trip to London. The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain was performing at a concert hall directly across from the symposium venue, and a front row ticket cost only £5 (oh the privileges of being young). I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Vassilis was in the adjacent seat and introduced himself as soon as I sat down. A composer—just my luck! Upon returning home, I gave his music a listen and bookmarked my favourite piece. Dream team member #4, though I didn't know it at the time.
Five years later, while searching for music to round out the film, I recalled my encounter with Vassilis and revisited "In Love". Listening to it again was wild: the composition seemed tailor-made for Tracy's voiceover. I couldn't believe my ears.
Thinking it was too good to be true, I continued to waffle over the final licensing decision until Jonathan, audio consigliere, wisely suggested that any song with lyrics in it would be a huge distraction. On the heels of his advice, I contacted Vassilis and we began brainstorming ways to adapt the piece. Perhaps we could bring in some strings, rework certain parts, or slow the whole thing down even more. I was a kid in a candy store, wanting to try everything.
We ultimately went back to the original rendition from 2012 because its pace and atmospheric quality fit the voiceover like a glove, as if the piano was Ye Ye responding to Tracy. Vassilis gave me his blessing, but recorded additional takes (plus a new miniature spin-off for our end credits) so I would have options to fall back on. Dream team member #4 became actual team member #4.
Creative Process
Script
My first deliverable to the NFB was the script; all other creative decisions would be determined by it. How much of Tracy's personal history should be divulged? Did I want her to simply narrate her life story, or express it some other way? What form would work best with the kinds of sounds and visuals I had in mind?
I don't remember how I arrived at the phone conversation concept but what a relief to have had it as a framework. A Portrait of Tracy was meant to be viewed on a phone anyway, so why not lean into that? The structure of a one-way call also left plenty of space for viewers to situate themselves within the story, which I loved.
My first draft was a set of questions I assumed Tracy would want to ask Ye Ye based on what I gleaned from our interview. Then, with Tracy's close consultation, I revised the script several times to better align with her lived experience and to match how she might speak if given the chance to talk to her grandfather again.
The final step was to rearrange the questions so that they progressed from curious and factual, to complicated and familial, to vulnerable and deeply personal. The only non-questions in the script were statements of truth for Tracy in the present.
Sound
Once the script was approved by the NFB, we brought Tracy in to record multiple readings of each line. This method allowed me to choose the best takes—paying special attention to their cadence and timbre—and arrange them sequentially with specific timing in between. I make mixtapes in much the same way (why yes, there's a mixtape for the film).
Jonathan created a professional version of my blueprint by first cleaning up the audio, then adding a custom telephonic treatment to Tracy's voice. We debated over everything from the grain and tone of the call to how forward the effect should be relative to rest of the sound design.
Locking the voiceover early on allowed James and Una to develop the visuals around a sonic anchor. This in turn allowed Jonathan to treat the visuals like an extension of the voiceover while building out the film's soundscape at a later stage. The result is an audiovisual experience that feels less ocularcentric and more haptic as a whole.
A prime example of this concept in action ("acoustic tactility", if you will) is the projector sound used in the food preparation sequence. The chunky mechanical noise is a delight to the ears, but also serves as shorthand for a bygone time or something long forgotten. The carousel scene from Mad Men was my go-to reference.
We placed the sound at the start of each clip so that tapping right (forward) on the Instagram Stories interface would mimic the action of advancing a projector slide. The dissonance between the quick touch of a thumb on a modern device and the laboured clang of vintage machinery added a phantom sensorial dimension to the story.
Less overt but equally exquisite examples of Jonathan's sound design work include the transition from a ticking clock inside the home to an exterior ambiance with a different ticking clock that sounds more like a gushing pulse; the sonorous wind chime redux as stems of jasmine grow and decay in the same breath; and the soft ping of the seatbelt sign amidst the low rumble of the aircraft cabin. I could go on, but it's best to give the film a closer listen for yourself. Headphones are highly recommended!
Visuals
James's first task was to set up the "workspace" of our film to ensure its proper functioning within the Instagram Stories interface. Our design backgrounds came in handy here as we agreed on things like margins, padding, and proportions of the illustration cels. We then needed to establish an internal logic for how these elements would interact within (and beyond) the film's canvas. The contents of the cels—what we chose to depict, their texture and aesthetic, and how they should be animated—also had to be considered simultaneously because they dictated the flow of logic from a storytelling point of view. James was the perfect person to problem solve with, and made this unconventional storyboarding process a breezy one.
Una stepped in at this stage to create a series of motion tests using James's initial artwork sketches. These demos were critical in helping me to decide the ideal blend of speed, direction, transitions, and interactions across all visual movements (meant to feel effortless and light). This in turn informed the animation techniques used within each individual cel (meant to feel as though time was dragging a bit). There are many poetic details worth noting, but my personal favourites are the magnetic snap-into-place after the downward slide of the cels column, and the glimmering reflections on the surface of the tea. Una architected our universe and breathed life into every corner of it.
Choosing what to depict wasn't as straight forward as it sounds. Tracy had no more than a handful of photos and memories from Chenzhou to share, and while we were grateful to have them, they didn't fully resonate with the script itself. Instead of trying to convey factual scenarios from Tracy's past, what James ended up illustrating were mostly scenes forged from our collective imaginations, borrowed from our own life experiences, and influenced by East Asian cinema (Hou Hsiao-Hsien in particular). He even bought a box of quail eggs to enact the shell cracking gesture: a method artist of the highest order.
Much like the idea of "acoustic tactility", appealing to the senses through specific artwork and animation choices was of great importance to our cause. Steaming hot tea, the turning of a radio dial, a gentle breeze over the kitchen sink, fresh homemade noodles prepared by a loved one... all these moments were necessary to create a tangible and familiar atmosphere that viewers can partake in while listening to Tracy. Not much happens within each scene, however, so the visuals had to be precise in their expression. The seamlessness of the final outcome speaks volumes for James and Una's meticulous craftsmanship.
Scenes that occupied the full extent of the canvas were reserved for Tracy's most vivid and unshakeable memories of leaving Chenzhou. These were painful moments, ones that still carry an immense weight, so Ye Ye's felt presence throughout the film was imperative as a form of solace. The incandescent orb from the title sequence reappears as a scent memory after the jasmines burgeon and wilt; the orb melts into a steadfast sun; the sun beams, and so does Ye Ye. Tracy's portrait begins and ends with the first person she ever loved.
A Portrait of Ye Ye
Tracy's most cherished possession is a close-up photo of Ye Ye with a big old smile on his face. Though this moment belonged to his later years, whoever captured it made permanent for Tracy what her early childhood memories could not. Ye Ye's expression feels real and alive and true; the image portrays his air.
From Camera Lucida:
The air (I use this word, lacking anything better, for the expression of truth) is a kind of intractable supplement of identity, what is given as an act of grace, stripped of any "importance": the air expresses the subject, insofar as that subject assigns itself no importance. In this veracious photograph, the being I love, whom I have loved, is not separated from itself: at last it coincides.
(...)
Thus the air is the luminous shadow which accompanies the body; and if the photograph fails to show this air, then the body moves without a shadow, and once this shadow is severed, as in the myth of the Woman without a Shadow, there remains no more than a sterile body.
Incorporating a photo of such significance into our film proved to be a delicate task. Misrepresenting Ye Ye was not an option, and the last thing I wanted was to ruin the magic of the original print for Tracy. There was also the question of how a still image can be visually "expanded" into a moving portrait suitable for the 9:16 aspect ratio.
We had no other pictures or footage of Ye Ye to refer to, but thanks to James and Una's ingenuity (plus face-modelling support from my dad and grandpa), a smile frozen in time bloomed into a moment of laughter you can almost hear. Photorealism was never our goal—what mattered most was the luminous shadow, and how art can be used to reveal it.
