There was a lot on the line at the 42nd Annual Annie Awards – which recognises the year’s best in the field of animation – on 31 January at the UCLA’s Royce Hall. The champion here is generally considered the favourite to win the Oscar later this month, as nine of the 13 winners since the Best Animated Feature Oscar category was introduced also took the top prize at the Annies. That includes last year, when Disney’s juggernaut Frozen claimed both prizes.
This year’s toon Oscar race is considered wide open in the wake of the snub for presumed front-runner The Lego Movie. Rival studios were left aghast by the lack of a nomination for the Warner Bros feature and immediately started to ramp up their promo machines. But The Lego Movie was among the eight nominees for Best Animated Feature here, going up against the five Academy Award hopefuls – Big Hero 6, How To Train Your Dragon 2, The Boxtrolls, The Tale Of the Princess Kaguya and Song Of The Sea – along with Cheatin’ and The Book Of Life.
The event was sponsored by the biggest players in the industry like: DreamWorks Animation, Walt Disney Animation, Pixar, Blue Sky, Laika and Reel FX; along with broadcast partners in Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Television Animation.
Among the big winners was DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon 2 (HTTYD 2) that went onto bag close to six awards in various specialties like character animation to Fabio Lignini for HTTYD2, a win for directing an animation feature film went to Dean DeBlois, for music in the animation feature went to John Powell, Jónsi for the same pic, Truong “Tron” Son Mai bagged top honours for story-boarding of this epic sequel, while John K. Carr picked up the Outstanding Achievement in the Editorial for a feature film honour; it also picked up the big one for the Best Animation Feature.
Among the other winners were The Boxtrolls with 2 wins – Paul Lasaine, Tom McClure & August Hall picking up the honour for Outstanding Achievement, Production Design in an Animated Feature Production and Sir Ben Kingsley for the voice of Archibald Snatcher recognised with Outstanding Achievement, Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production.
Big Hero 6 bagged the Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in an Animated Production award for Michael Kaschalk, Peter DeMund, David Hutchins, Henrik Falt & John Kosnik. Whereas the Outstanding Achievement, Character Design in an Animated Feature Production award went to Paul Sullivan, Sandra Equihua & Jorge R. Gutierrez for The Book of Life by Reel FX Animation Studios/Twentieth Century Fox.
One of the biggest disappointments was to see Isao Takashata and Studio Ghibli’s film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya lose out on winning any prize. In a recent interaction with AnimationXpress.com Cartoon Saloon’s Tomm Moore had expressed how much he was in awe of this great feature film. It was nominated in three categories: Best Animated Feature, Directing in an Animation Production for Takashata and for Music in an Animation Feature Production for composer Joe Hisaishi.
AnimationXpress.com would like to congratulate all the winners and nominees on their presence at the 42nd Annual Annie Awards. Now with all eyes on the Oscars, our predictions of the winners will soon follow suit; keep reading and logging on for the latest in animation world.