Category: Awards

Animation and interactive entertainment company Unbound Studiosrecently took home the gold. The Gold Broadcast Design Award forEducational Websites, that is. Unbound won for Sesame Street's MUSICZONE Website, which combines animation, interactivity and structuredlearning of music for a pre-school audience. Using the charm andhumor of the Muppets, Unbound designed and worked closely witheducators to fashion an engaging site that combined Macromedia'sFlash and Director programs with Beatnik audio to create operas and

The Surrey Institute of Art & Design University College will award an honorary degree to Michael Dudok de Wit during the Institute's convocation ceremony at Guildford Cathedral on July 19, 2002. De Wit, an Oscar-winning animator and graduate of the Institute, will be presented the degree in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the animation industry. Michael Dudok de Wit studied animation at the West Surrey College of Art and Design (now The Surrey Institute), where he made his first film, THE INTERVIEW.

Michael Dudok de Wit's multiple award-winning short FATHER AND DAUGHTER has claimed yet another honor, winning the Grand Prize at Zagreb 2002, the 15th World Festival of Animated Films. The official competition jury, Oksana Cherkasova (Russia), Joanna Quinn (Great Britain), Linda Simensky (USA), Georges Lacroix (France) and Edo Lukman (Croatia), singled out FATHER AND DAUGHTER from the 85 films in competition.

Jerry Scott, co-creator of the ZITS and BABY BLUES comic strips, has won the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) 2001 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. The "Oscar of cartooning" was presented at a black tie gala during the 56th Annual Reuben Awards Weekend, held this year in Cancun, Mexico. The Reuben Award, given by the NCS each year for exemplary cartoon work created in the previous year, was designed by and named after the NCS' first president, Rube Goldberg. In addition, cartoonists in various professional divisions were also honored with special plaques for excellence.

ACM SIGGRAPH has announced the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival's Best Animated Short and Jury Award winners for SIGGRAPH 2002. The SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival showcases films documenting significant advances in technology, interactive techniques and the creative potential of computer graphics. The two award winners were selected from 640 entries. Poland's Tomek Baginski won the Best Animated Short award for THE CATHEDRAL, based on Jacek Dukaj's novel of the same name.

May 17-19, 2002, Kalamazoo, Michigan hosted the first Kalamazoo Animation Festival International (KAFI). $15,000 in cash prizes was handed out to winners in 24 competition levels. Honorees included a Gold for Zach Schlappi's PASTA FOR WAR in the Student Graduate Films category, and TONGUES AND TAXIS by Michael Overbeck won the Independent Short Film Gold Award, and tied with ROCKIN' & ROLLIN' for Best In Show. ROCKIN' & ROLLIN' also won filmmakers Mark Waring and Gordon Allen a Gold in the First Film category. For a full list of winners please visit the KAFI Website at:

On May 11, 2002 the 29th Annual Daytime Emmy's were presented in 44 categories for the creative arts including the Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation Emmy Award. This Emmy is a juried award for a single episode of a series or a special.

The regional awards for excellence in film and television in British Columbia, Canada, The Leo Awards, announced their nominees on April 11, 2002. Winners in 74 categories will be announced at two separate ceremonies on May 10 and May 11, 2002. Vancouver-based studios Mainframe and Studio B dominated the animation noms, with Mainframe picking up nominations for series' ACTION MAN and REBOOT as well as four nominations for the direct-to-video BARBIE IN THE NUTCRACKER including Best Animation Program and Best Children or Youth Series.

The 11th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film was celebrated March 22-27, 2002. The biannual festival presented a wide-ranging program. 425 films were shown over six days and in four competitions. Prizes amounting to 54,500 Euro were handed out. In the International Competition, the Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg (7,500 Euro) went to STROJENIE INSTRUMENTÓW (TUNING INSTRUMENTS) by Jerzy Kucia, while the Prize of the City of Stuttgart, also 7,500 Euro, went to Phil Mulloy's THE INVASION.

AnimAction, Inc. will be presenting their 12th Annual TEAM (Tobacco Education Awareness Message) Awards on April 10, 2002, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. at the Wadsworth Theatre located in Brentwood, California. AnimAction is a production company dedicated to utilizing the art of animation as a way to educate children about issues of global concern. The company teaches kids to produce animated Public Service Announcements as part of their educational program.

The Cartoon Movie Tributes were awarded during the closing evening of Cartoon Movie, the forum dedicated to European animation feature films, that took place in the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany from March 14-16, 2002. Three European companies were selected from seven nominees who have made a significant mark on the animation feature film industry. The Cartoon Movie Tributes reward European strategies, outstanding facts, companies or personalities that have had a positive and dynamic influence on the European animation feature film industry.And the winners are

Voting members of the Academy, your ballots are almost due! Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must return their completed final Oscar ballots to PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5:00 pm on Tuesday, March 19, 2002. Ballots received after the 5:00 pm deadline are ineligible. If you havent had a chance to see all the nominated animated films, check out clips from the animated short films and find out information on all the animated feature nominees at AWNs Oscar Showcase.