Monday, January 20, 2014
Oscar nominations without Tintin
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences officially revealed the nominees for the 84th Academy Awards which will be presented Februari 24th. It was a big surprise to see that Steven Spielbergs The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn wasnt even nominated in the category Animated Feature Film while it had just won the Golden Globe on January 15th (Best Animated Feature Film) and is nominated for a BAFTA award in the category Animated Film along with Arthur Christmas and Rango. The Golden Globes are awarded each year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are usually on par with the outcome of the Oscars.
So, no Tintin but five other animated features will be eligible to receive the Academy award, two of which were also nominated for the Globes:
A Cat in Paris directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli.
Chico & Rita by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal.
Kung Fu Panda 2 directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson.
Puss in Boots directed by Chris Miller.
Rango directed by Gore Verbinski.
It is the first time that Pixar isnt part of the nominated since the category was adopted in 2001. apparently the voters decided Cars 2 wasnt really what they expected from Pixar but instead favored the 2D tradigitally animated Chico & Rita and the French A Cat in Paris. Tintin, created with motion capture of the actors (just like in Avatar) had a tough time. In 2010 the Academy changed the game by stipulating that "motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75% of the pictures running time." Check out the BAFFA rules here.
However, Tintin isnt completely out of the picture, as Spielbergs favorite composer John Williams was nominated for Orginal Score (he is actually nominated twice, also for Spielbergs live action film War Horse). The category Animated shorts also holds five nominations:
Dimanche/Sunday directed by Patrick Doyon.
The Fantastic Flying books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce and B. Oldenburg.
La Luna directed by Enrico Casarosa.
A Morning Stroll directed by Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe.
Wild Life directed by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby.
The Fantastic Flying books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is based on William Joyces digital childrens book for the I-pad. In 2007 Disney released the computer animated Meet the Robinsons which was also based on one of Joyces childrens books (A day with Wilbur Robinson). Joyce also worked as character designer and concept artist on Toy Story (1995), A Bugs Life (1998) and Robots (2005).
A Morning stroll (left) was created by London based animation Studio AKA. Grant Orchards short is also nominated for a BAFTA award in the category Short Animation. The BAFTAs will be presented on Sunday February 12th.La Luna is created by Enrico Casarosa, who is head story at Pixar and also worked on Cars, Cars 2, Ratatouille and Up. The theatrical short has been in production for two years and will be released on June 22nd along with Pixars Brave. La Luna is based on Italo Calvinos story The distance to the moon and features a young boy, his father and his grand father on a fishing trip, unaware they are to embark on an exciting lunar adventure.
Like Patrick Doyons Dimanche, Wild Life is also a Canadian animated short. It is created by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, who already received an Oscar in this category in 1999 for their work on the short When the Day Breaks. Watch Wildlife and Dimanche/Sunday at Cartoonbrew.
Althought I think its a real honor for Chico & Rita to receive an Academy Award nomination, I still think a CGI feature will hawk the prize. Im putting my money on Paramounts first CGI animated feature Rango (all animation is done without motion capture by George Lucas ILM). Rango was completely awesome. I mean come on, check out this guy, isnt he great ?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.