Director Gore Verbinski’s Rango was the big winner at Saturday night’s 39th annual Annie Awards. The film captured five awards including Best Animated Feature, Writing, Character Design and Editing. Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Adventures Of Tintin won two awards each.
Disney withdrew from competition last year in protest to judging practices that they deemed gave preferential treatment to DreamWorks. However, their return to the competition only saw them win one category, Best Storyboarding for a Feature Film for Winnie The Pooh. Although nominated in several categories, the Disney/Pixar release Cars 2 did not win any awards.
Interestingly, the Annie Awards also recognize when animation is used as an effect in live action films. This year the award for Animated Effects in a Live Action Production went to Transformers 2: Dark Of The Moon and the statue for Best Character Animation in a Live Action Production was awarded to Eric Reynolds for his work on Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
The complete list of film winners is as follows –
- Best Animated Feature – Rango
- Best Animated Short Subject – Adam and Dog – Minkyu Lee, dir.
- Animated Effects in an Animated Production – Kevin Romond, The Adventures Of Tintin
- Animated Effects in a Live Action Production – Florent Andorra, Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Character Animation in a Feature Production – Jeff Gabor, Rio
- Character Animation in a Live Action Production – Eric Reynolds, Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Character Design in a Feature Production – Mark “Crash” McCreery, Rango
- Directing in a Feature Production – Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Kung Fu Panda 2
- Music in a Feature Production – John Williams, The Adventures Of Tintin
- Production Design in a Feature Production – Raymond Zibach, Kung Fu Panda 2
- Storyboarding in a Feature Production – Jeremy Spears, Winnie The Pooh
- Voice Acting in a Feature Production – Bill Nighy as Grandsanta, Arthur Christmas
- Writing in a Feature Production – John Logan, Gore Verbinski and James Byrkit, Rango
- Editing in a Feature Production – Craig Wood, A.C.E., Rango
