'Coco's Night: Pixar Feature Dominates Annies with 11 Wins

Pixar's 'Coco' won 11 categories including best animated feature at the 45 annual Annie Awards, held Feb. 3 at UCLA's Royce Hall.

LOS ANGELES -- Pixar was the big winner at this year’s 45th Annie Awards as Coco won Best Animated Feature, and garnered top honors across 11 categories in a ceremony held Feb. 3 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

Also winning top awards were the independent feature The Breadwinner; short film Dear Basketball; Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty, Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears; and the Fox live-action feature War For The Planet of The Apes.

Adult Swim’s Samurai Jack and Disney Mickey Mouse won three awards each in the individual achievement categories for television.

The evening was dedicated to the late June Foray, the legendary voice actress who was responsible for founding the Annies 45 years ago. "This year, we paid tribute to our beloved June Foray, who always delighted in seeing how the event she founded continued to grow year after year. This year was no exception,” said Frank Gladstone, Annie Awards executive producer. “June would have enjoyed the increasing numbers, but more important to her, and to us, has always been seeing the proof, inherent in the Annies, that the capability of people, world-wide, to create animated films has also continued to diversify and increase.”            

Presenters for the evening included actress Wendie Malick; Coco’s Anthony Gonzalez; director Nora Twomey and actress Saara Chaudry from The Breadwinner; Disney voice talent Russi Taylor; SpongeBob himself, Tom Kenny; animators Mark Henn and Floyd Norman, and other industry notables, including Debi Derryberry, and E.G. Daily, along with ASIFA-Hollywood President Jerry Beck, Executive Director Frank Gladstone and animation producer and ASIFA board member, Sue Shakespeare.

Many presenters and attendees wore “Time’s Up” pins distributed by Women in Animation to raise awareness about safety and equity in the workplace.

The Winsor McCay Award for career contributions to the art of animation are being presented to three recipients: British character animator, James Baxter; SpongeBob SquarePants creator, Stephen Hillenburg and the Canadian animation duo, Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis. The Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancement that has made a significant impact on the art and industry of animation was presented to TVPaint for its versatile software for 2D animation.

The Special Achievement Award recognizing the unique and significant impact on the art and industry of animation was presented to Studio MDHR Entertainment for its 1930s inspired wonder-game Cuphead; and the June Foray Award for significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation was presented to animation historian, Didier Ghez. The Certificate of Merit award was presented to David Nimitz, devoted friend and caretaker of veteran voice actress and ASIFA-Hollywood and Annie Award pioneer, June Foray, who died in July at the age of 99.

The full list of winners:

• Best Animated Feature – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios
• Best Animated Feature-Independent -- The Breadwinner, Cartoon Saloon / Aircraft Pictures / Melusine Productions
• Best Animated Special Production -- Revolting Rhymes, Magic Light Pictures
• Best Animated Short Subject -- Dear Basketball, Glen Keane Productions, Kobe Studios, Believe Entertainment Group
• Best Animated Television/Broadcast Commercial – June, Broad Reach Pictures/Chromosphere/Lyft
• Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production For Preschool Children – Octonauts, “Operation Deep Freeze,” Vampire Squid Productions Limited, a Silvergate Media company, in association with Brown Bag Films
• Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production For Children -- We Bare Bears, “Panda's Art,” Cartoon Network Animation Studios
• Best General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production -- Rick and Morty, “Pickle Rick,” Williams Street Productions
• Best Student Film -- Poles Apart, Paloma Baeza
• Animated Effects in an Animated Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Shaun Galinak, Dave Hale, Jason Johnston, Carl Kaphan, Keith Daniel Klohn .
• Character Animation in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production – Trollhunters, “Homecoming,” DreamWorks Animation Television. Bruno Chiou, Yi-Fan Cho, Kevin Jong , Chun-Jung Chu.
• Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. John Chun Chiu Lee
• Character Animation in a Live Action Production -- War for the Planet of the Apes, Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, River Road Entertainment, 20th Century Fox. Daniel Barrett, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Emile Ghorayeb, Luisma Lavin Peredo, Alessandro Bonora
• Character Animation in a Video Game – Cuphead, StudioMDHR. Hanna Abi-Hanna
• Character Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Samurai Jack, “XCVI,” Adult Swim. Craig Kellman 
• Character Design in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Daniel Arriaga, Daniela Strijleva, Greg Dykstra, Alonso Martinez, Zaruhi Galstyan.
• Directing in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Disney Mickey Mouse, “The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!” Walt Disney Television Animation. Dave Wasson, Eddie Trigueros, Alonso Ramirez-Ramo.
• Directing in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina.
• Music in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Disney Mickey Mouse, “The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular!” Walt Disney Television Animation. Christopher Willis.
• Music in an Animated Feature Production – Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Michael Giacchino, Kristin Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez, Germaine Franco, Adrian Molina
• Production Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Samurai Jack, “XCIII,” Adult Swim. Scott Wills.
• Production Design in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Harley Jessup, Danielle Feinberg, Bryn Imagire, Nathaniel McLaughlin, Ernesto Nemesio
• Storyboarding in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Disney Mickey Mouse, “Bee Inspired,” Walt Disney Television Animation. Eddie Trigueros.
• Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Dean Kelly
• Voice Acting in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon. Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants.
• Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel
• Writing in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Rick and Morty, “The Ricklantis Mixup,” Williams Street Productions. Ryan Ridley, Dan Guterman.
• Writing in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios. Adrian Molina, Matthew Aldrich
• Editorial in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production -- Samurai Jack, “XCIII, XCIV, XCIX,”: Adult Swim. Paul Douglas.
• Editorial in an Animated Feature Production -- Coco, Pixar Animation Studios.

Source: ASIFA-Hollywood

Tom McLean has been writing for years about animation from a secret base in Los Angeles.