by Nathaniel R
In one of the least shocking events of this awards season, Disney/Pixar's Coco swept the Annie Awards this weekend, winning in every category in which it was nominated. 2017 was widely seen as an underwhelming year for animated features but we should face facts: Coco would have been a strong contender for Oscar gold in many other years, too.
The complete list of winners (Coco wasn't eligible in every category) and a few more comments after the jump...
Feature Coco (Pixar)
Feature-Independent The Breadwinner (Cartoon Saloon/Aircraft Pictures/Melusine Productions)
Special Production Revolting Rhymes
Short Subject Dear Basketball
Dear Basketball and Revolting Rhymes are 2 of the 5 films up for the Animated Short Oscar. So perhaps this is a nail-biter for the gold between them? (Now watch something else entirely win the Oscar. Different voting bodies after all)
Television/Broadcast Commercial June (Broad Reach Pictures/Chromosphere/Lyft)
Television/Broadcast Production For Preschool Children Octonauts / Episode: Operation Deep Freeze
My honorary nephew is very obsessed with this show so chances are I might have seen this episode.
Television/Broadcast Production For Children We Bare Bears / Episode: Panda’s Art
General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production Rick and Morty / Episode: 303 -“Pickle Rick”
Student Film Poles Apart (Director: Paloma Baeza; Producer: Ser En Low, All Student Crew)
This film is also BAFTA nominated.
Animated Effects in an Animated Production Coco (Effects Artist: Shaun Galinak; Jason Johnston; Carl Kaphan; Effects Lead: Dave Hale; Keith Daniel Klohn)
Character Animation in a Television / Broadcast Production Trollhunters / Episode: 205 – “Homecoming (Bruno Chiou, Yi-Fan Cho, Kevin Jong, and Chun-Jung Chu (Character: Blinky, Dictatious, Aaarrrgghh!!)
I believe I have told y'all of my deep love for Trollhunters several times already. Watch it! If I though you would read it, we would review each episode.
Character Animation in a Feature Production Coco (Animator: John Chun Chiu Lee (Character: All characters)
Some of the categories have confusing or at least not well conveyed rules. For instance in this category two different animators enjoyed separate nominations for Coco both as "all characters" so why wasn't the nomination conjoined? Allison Rutland lost while John Chun Chiu Lee won (both pictured above) but if they both really worked on "all characters" it seems a strange way to do things. But don't feel bad for Rutland as she's won this category before for her work on Inside Out.
Our suspicion is that they both did not design "all characters" but were assigned different characters (isn't that the way these things work on big pictures?) and the Annies need to be more clear on credits.
Character Animation in a Live Action Production War for the Planet of the Apes
Character Animation in a Video Game Cuphead
Character Design in an Television / Broadcast Production Samurai Jack / Episode: XCVI
Character Design in an Animated Feature Production Coco
Directing in a Feature Production Coco (Director: Lee Unkrich Pixar; Co-Director: Adrian Molina)
Directing in a Television / Broadcast Production Disney Mickey Mouse / Episode: The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!
Music in a Television / Broadcast Production Disney Mickey Mouse / Episode: The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular! Composer: Christopher Willis
One of the only productions to win more than one Annie this year was this halloween episode.
Music in a Feature Production Coco (Composer: Michael Giacchino; Composer/Lyricist: Kristin Anderson-Lopez; Composer/Lyricist: Robert Lopez; Composer: Germaine Franco; Lyricist: Adrian Molina)
Production Design in a Television / Broadcast Production Samurai Jack / Episode: XCIII (Production Design: Scott Wills)
Production Design in a Feature Production Coco (Production Design: Harley Jessup; Danielle Feinberg; Bryn Imagire; Nathaniel McLaughlin; Ernesto Nemesio; Tom Cardone; Arden Chan)
Storyboarding in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production Disney Mickey Mouse / Episode: Bee Inspired (Storyboard Artist: Eddie Trigueros)
Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production Coco (Storyboard Artist: Dean Kelly)
Another situation where Coco had two separate nominees for the same prize and one lost while the other artist won. Coco's other storyboard artist nominee was Madeline Sharafian
Voice Acting in a Television / Broadcast Production Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants
This is Tom Kenny's third Annie win (from six nominations) for voicing the yellow sponge.
Anthony Gonzalez and Benjamin Bratt talking about their work on COCO
Voice Acting in a Feature Production Anthony Gonzalez as "Miguel" in Coco
Thrilled to see this win for Anthony Gonzalez since Coco had such good voice acting.
Writing in a Television / Broadcast Production Rick and Morty” / Episode: 307 – “The Ricklantis Mixup” (Writer: Ryan Ridley; Dan Guterman)
Writing in a Feature Production Coco (Writer: Adrian Molina; Matthew Aldrich)
Editorial in a Television / Broadcast Production Samurai Jack” / Episode: XCIII, XCIV, XCIX Paul Douglas
Editorial in a Feature Production Coco (Steve Bloom; Lee Unkrich; Greg Snyder; Tim Fox)
If you have 2 and a 1/2 hours to spare and are a huge Coco fan, here's the whole Annie Awards ceremony!