“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” picked up another award on its way to the Oscars, winning the feature prize at the 50th ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards on Saturday night.
In addition to being named the animation industry’s top film, “Pinocchio” led the list of winners with five total trophies, including best director for del Toro and fellow director Mark Gustafson. The stop-motion film also won for music (Alexandre Desplat, Roeban Katz, del Toro and Patrick McHale), production design (Curt Enderle and Guy Davis) and character design (Tucker Barrie).
Del Toro, who came straight from the PGA Awards where he received the trophy for producing “Pinocchio,” was thrilled to win the Annie for directing alongside Gustafson. “Can I say this? I wanted fucking Annie so badly. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world!” He noted that the Annies ceremony was the only place where he didn’t have to point out that animation is a medium, not a genre. “What I can say about ‘Pinocchio’ is that it was made by artists and the animators were treated like a cast and not like technicians.”
“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” also a stop-motion film, followed closely behind, winning the Annie for indie film as well as two other awards. Jenny Slate won the voice acting award for her performance as Marcel while Slate, Dean Fleischer Camp, Nick Paley and Elizabeth Holm won for feature screenplay.
Apple TV+ and the BBC picked up four Annies for their animated short “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,” including best special production and direction for a television/media project. The 34-minute film was directed by Peter Baynton and Charlie Mackesy, the author of the book on which the film was based. Tim Watts won for TV/media character design and Daniel Budin took home a gold zoetrope for editorial TV/media.
Netflix’s animated anthology series “Love Death + Robots” took home four awards: Best FX for TV/Media (Kirby Miller, Igor Zanic, Joseph H. Coleman, Steven Dupuy and Josh Schwartz), Character Design for TV/Media (Alberto Mielgo), writing for TV/media (Andrew Kevin Walker) and storyboarding for TV/media (Emily Dean).
“Avatar: The Way of Water” scored two wins, one for best FX (Johnathan M. Nixon, David Moraton, Nicholas Illingworth, David Caeiro Cebrian and Alex Nowotny) and one for live-action character animation (Daniel Barrett, Stuart Adcock, Todd Labonte, Douglas McHale and Stephen Cullingford).
“Oni: Thunder God’s Tale” also won two awards, one for limited media TV series and production design for TV/media (Robert Kondo, Rachel Tiep-Daniels, Lia Tin, Yohei Hashizume and Masa Inada). Another double winner was ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ for storyboard for a feature film (Anthony Holden) and editorial for a feature film (James Ryan, Jacquelyn Karambelas, Natalla Cronembold, Joe Butler and Katie Parody ).
Other winners include “The Tiny Chef Show” for Best TV/Preschool Media, “Abominable and the Invisible City” for Kids TV/Media, “Bob’s Burgers” for TV/Media, “Ice Merchants” for short subject, “The Soloists” for student film, “Cuphead – The Delicious Last Course” for character animation/video game (Chad Moldenhauer and Hanna Abi-Hanna), Taylor Krahenbuhl for character design for “The Bad Guys,” “ The Cuphead Show » for music-TV/media (Ego Plum, Dave Wasson and Cosmo Segurson) and Maurice LaMarche for voice acting-TV/media, for his performance as Mr. Big in ‘Zootopia+’.
During the ceremony, held at UCLA’s Royce Hall, ASIFA-Hollywood celebrated its 50th anniversary. Interspersed throughout the show were clips of Amy Poehler, Billy Crystal, Patton Oswalt, William Shatner, Josh Gad and Weird “Al” Yankovic congratulating the Annies on their 50th anniversary.
Writer-director and Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter, prolific TV series creator Craig McCracken and the late Evelyn Lambart, known for her short films, were each honored with the Winsor McCay Award for Lifetime or Career Achievement.
In accepting his honor, McCracken thanked all the partners he has worked with over the past 30 years. “Thank you for your talent. Thank you for your passion, for your time, for your inspiration, for your friendship, and for helping to make these crazy ideas in my head a reality.”
Disney CEO Robert Iger presented the Winsor McCay Award to Pete Docter. Iger called Docter “one of the greatest animators of his generation. It’s hard to think of anyone who has made a bigger mark, literally and figuratively, on animation over the past three decades.”
Docter reflected on his long career with Pixar, saying, “It’s put me in a weird state of mind, because when I look back at the work I’ve done, I can’t understand where it came from. I was there for every major decision (at Pixar), and yet, in a way, the project has a life of its own. I don’t know if it’s familiar to any of you, but it’s a strange result. However it’s worked out, I’m very grateful that these ideas chose me.”
Author, historian and educator Mindy Johnson received the June Foray Award for significant and benevolent or philanthropic influence in the animation industry. The Ub Iwerks Award for Technical Achievement was awarded to the Visual Effects Reference Platform, originally developed by Nick Cannon and Francois Chardavoine to eliminate incompatibilities between digital content creation software. The Certificate of Merit Award for service to art and industry was presented to voice actor John Omohundro.
