Cars big winner as 34th Annual Annie Awards handed out

February 12, 2007



Cars drove home the big prize last night, from the. The animation industry's highest honor, ASIFA-Hollywood's Annies recognise contributions to animation, writing, directing, storyboarding, voice acting, composing, and much more.

As mentioned, Pixar took home the big prize last night, after facing stiff competition from four other Happy Feet, Monster House, Open Season, and Over the Hedge.

But the biggest winner of the night didn't get a "Best Animated Feature" nod at all. Flushed Away won five feature animation categories including Animated Effects (Scott Cegielski), Character Animation (Gabe Hordos), Production Design (Pierre-Olivier Vincent), Voice Acting (Sir Ian McKellan as Toad), Writing (Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and Will Davies).

Over The Hedge won awards for Directing (Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick), Storyboarding (Gary Graham), and Character Design (Nicolas Marlet).

Of little surprise, Randy Newman won an Annie for Cars in the "Music in an Animated Feature Production" category. Newman has won many Oscars for his movie music, and has a nomination this year for the song "". Newman didn't attend the Annies, instead picking up a Grammy for "Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media".

DisneyToon Studios' Bambi II won "Best Home Entertainment Production", while "Best Animated Short Subject" went to Blue Sky Studios' No Time For Nuts, which is based on Ice Age.

"Best Animated Video Game" went to Flushed Away The Game, while a United Airlines ad named "Dragon" won a "Best Animated Television Commercial" Annie for DUCK Studios.

Foster an Annie fav on TV
Not only did Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends take home "Best Animated Television Production", but it also saw wins for Music (James L. Venable and Jennifer Kes Remington for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "One False Movie") and Production Design (Martin Ansolabehere for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Good Wilt Hunting"),

Other ASIFA Television animation statuettes were handed out for writing (Ian Maxtone-Graham for The Simpsons episode "The Seemingly Neverending Story"), Voice Acting (Eartha Kitt as Yzma, for The Emperor's New School episode "Kuzclone"), Storyboarding (Li Hong for The X's episode "You Only Sneeze Twice"), Directing (Giancarlo Volpe for Avatar episode "The Drill"), Character Design (Mike Kunkel for The Life & Times of Juniper Lee episode "Party Monsters"), and Character Animation (Yu Jae Myung for Avatar episode "The Blind Bandit").

ASIFA also hands out "Juried Awards" to various notable figures in animation. Bill Plympton, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Andreas Deja will each win the Winsor McCay Award, in recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation. Bill Matthews, Michael Fallik, Marc Deckter, and Eric Graf will each win a Certificate of Merit. The June Foray Award will go to Stephen Worth, for his "significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation." The Ub Iwerks Award and Special Achievement award will not be handed out.

The awards were started in 1972, after voice actress June Foray noticed the industry lacked a formal way to acknowledge its achievements. Performing in over 202 productions, Foray's most known characters are Rocket J. Squirrel (Rocky and Bullwinkle) and Granny (Looney Tunes).

Wikinews was there
Professional photographer John B. Mueller was at the Annie Awards red carpet, taking photos for Wikinews. This is the first time Wikinews has sent a photographer to an awards show red carpet, something this news organization hopes to do with increasing regularity. All of the photos taken at the event will be released under the Creative Commons By Attribution license, which allows them to be used freely by anyone for any purpose, so long as they credit both Mueller and Wikimedia.