Annie Award

The Annie Awards is an animation award show created and produced by the Los Angeles, California branch of the "International Animated Film Association", ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972. Originally designed to celebrate lifetime or career contributions to animation in the fields of producing, directing, animation, design, writing, voice acting, sound and sound effects, etc., in 1992 it began to honor animation as a whole, and created the category of "Best Animated Feature". New categories were subsequently added for different animation media.

Award categories

Production

*Best Animated Feature
*Best Animated Home Entertainment Production
*Best Animated Short Subject
*Best Animated Television Commercial
*Best Animated Television Production
*Best Animated Video Game

Individual Achievement

*Animated Effects
*Character Animation in a Feature Production
*Character Animation in a Television Production
*Character Design in an Animated Feature Production
*Character Design in an Animated Television Production
*Directing in an Animated Feature Production
*Directing in an Animated Television Production
*Music in an Animated Feature Production
*Music in an Animated Television Production
*Production Design in an Animated Feature Production
*Production Design in an Animated Television Production
*Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production
*Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production
*Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production
*Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production
*Writing in an Animated Feature Production
*Writing in an Animated Television Production

Juried Awards

*June Foray Award
*Ub Iwerks Award
*Winsor McCay Award
*Special Achievement in Animation
*Certificate of Merit

Balloting controversies

Official rules for the Annie Awards state that voting members must view all nominated achievements in their entirety before casting their ballot for a winner. Members are directed to view the nominated films on a secure website. In 2008, the Annie Award nominees for "Best Short Subject" included two Walt Disney cartoons, a Pixar short, and two independent films: Picnic Pictures' "Chestnut Tree", and Don Hertzfeldt's popular short, Everything Will Be OK.

When the online ballot launched on January 15, the two independent films were not included for voters to judge. ASIFA acknowledged this error over a week later, at which point all the votes were reportedly thrown out and the balloting system was reset. Voters were instructed to return and re-vote the category. "The Chestnut Tree" was now uploaded properly to the ballot, however Everything Will Be OK was again not included: this time, the online ballot only played a portion of this film's 17 minute running time to voters, abruptly cutting out in the middle of a scene. ASIFA again took several days to repair the ballot, but this time allowed voting to continue. By the time the ballot officially closed on February 1, Everything Will Be OK was only available to voters for less than 24 hours of the entire 18 day voting period. [ [http://www.cartoonbrew.com/events/why-don-hertzfeldt-probably-wont-win-an-annie "Why Don Hertzfeldt Probably Won't Win an Annie"] ]

Though ASIFA publicly apologized to Don Hertzfeldt, they took no action to remedy (or further address) the admittedly unfair voting procedures and carried on with the event, awarding the prize to the Pixar short, "Your Friend the Rat". Reaction from animation fans and bloggers ranged from disappointment to outrage. [ [http://www.cartoonbrew.com/events/why-don-hertzfeldt-probably-wont-win-an-annie#comments Reactions from the animation industry to voting controversy] ]

Notable nominations

*Animated features that earned the most nominations:
#16: "The Incredibles" (2004)
#16: "" (2005)
#13: "Ratatouille" (2007)
#12: "Finding Nemo" (2003)
#10: "Mulan" (1998)
#10: "Surf's Up" (2007)

ee also

*List of Annie Awards ceremonies

References

External links

* [http://annieawards.org/ Official Site of the Annie Awards]