Disney/Pixar will be entering submissions into this year’s Annie Awards. Last year, they “withdrew its support” for the annual awards sponsored by the International Animated Film Society to protest the rules and judging procedures. Apparently enough changes were made in the procedures that the animation studio has reversed course.
At this year’s awards show, DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon” won 10 awards, while Pixar’s “Toy Story 3,” which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, was completely shut out.
The result was exactly the same as it had been two years earlier, when DreamWorks’ “Kung Fu Panda” won the same 10 awards and Pixar’s acclaimed “Wall-E” went home empty-handed.
In the aftermath of this year’s show, for which Disney/Pixar did not make any submissions (though “Toy Story 3” did receive three nominations), ASIFA replaced longtime president Antran Manoogian with the well-liked veteran animation executive Frank Gladstone.
It’s nice to see corporations engaging in the same sort of award-whining that individual people engage in. It either legitimizes people’s behavior as business-like, or it legitimizes corporations as human.