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The Annie Awards for 2016

Feb 5th, 2017
by rodney.
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Your humble ed-otter journeyed to UCLA for the 44th annual Annie Awards — the Oscars of animation, presented by ASIFA-Hollywood. As expected (or hoped by many furry fans!), Zootopia dominated the evening in the feature categories, taking home Annies for Storyboarding, Character Design, Writing, Directing, and Best Feature. It was not a sweep, however, and Kubo and the Two Strings was not far behind: It won awards in the feature categories for Editing, Character Animation, and Production Design. Voting for the Best Voice Acting in the feature category resulted in a tie, shared by Auli’i Cravalho for Moana and Jason Bateman for Zootopia. A new category, Best Independent Feature, was won by the subtly anthropomorphic film The Red Turtle. Disney’s film The Jungle Book won an Annie for Character Animation In A Live Action Production (though it’s still controversial if the film counts as that). Best Short was won by Pixar’s popular birdie film Piper, while Best Student Film went to a European short about dinosaurs called Citipati. Over in the TV broadcast categories the most popular winner of furry interest seemed to be Dreamworks’ Trollhunters, which won for Storyboarding, Character Design, and Character Animation. The Best Television Production for Preschool Children went to Tumble Leaf, while the Best TV Production for Children went to to Adventure Time. Visit the Annie Awards web site for a complete list of the nominees and winners. Congratulations to all!

image c. 2017 Walt Disney Animation

Do Only Cats Have Multiple Lives?

Jan 1st, 2017
by rodney.
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It seems as if we’ve been seeing trailers for A Dog’s Purpose for a long long time now, but it’s finally set to actually hit theaters at the end of this month. It’s a live action film directed by Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules), based on a novel by W. Bruce Cameron. Josh Gad (Frozen) stars as the interior voice of a domestic dog, initially named Bailey. We say ‘initially’ because after several years living with a beloved human boy, Bailey dies… only to be re-born as another dog with another human companion.  And so on and so on, different lives as different dogs with different humans… until, several lives down the road of eternity, he meets up with Bailey’s original companion. IMDB has more.

image c. 2017 Amblin Entertainment

A Closer Look at 2017

Dec 27th, 2016
by rodney.
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Our friends over at Cartoon Brew are finishing up the year with an article about 60 (!) animated films scheduled for release in 2017. Some are brand new releases, and some have already made the rounds in other parts of the world but will not be premiering in North America ’till next year. And of course, with a huge set of films like that, more than a fair share of them are definitely going to have some interest for the anthropomorphic fans out there! Taking a quick look ourselves, the upcoming animated films of furry note — some a lot, some a little — include (deep breath…): Animal Crackers, Beast of Burden, Blazing Samurai, Bunyan & Babe, Cars 3, Clara, Despicable Me 3, The Emoji Movie, Ferdinand, Foodiverse, Godzilla (yes, the first animated Godzilla movie!), Here Comes The Grump, Kikoriki — Deja Vu, Kung Food, Lino, Manou the Swift, Mune — Guardian of the Moon, My Cool Dad, My Little Pony — The Movie, The Nut Job 2, Ping Pong Rabbit, Pokemon The Movie — I Choose You, Punyakoti, The Red Turtle, Richard the Stork, Rock Dog, Sahara, Smurfs — The Lost Village, Spark, The Star, Urfin Jus and His Wooden Soldiers, and Underdog. Whew! The article at Cartoon Brew includes several trailers. Of course we’ll be talking a lot more about each of these films as they get closer to release. Happy New Year!

image c. 2016 Studio Canal

Never Chicken Out

Dec 17th, 2016
by rodney.
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We missed this one earlier this year, but it’s worth mentioning: For a few years now Disney has been distributing Animasia Studio’s 2D animated series Chuck Chicken on their channels in Southeast Asia. Now Animation Magazine has announced that Animasia have teamed up with Zero One Animation in China to create Chuck Chicken — The Movie. Animasia’s official web site lays it out pretty clear: “Chuck Chicken takes place on an island called Rocky Perch, a land filled with chaos, mayhem and birds…… lots and lots of birds. Welcome to Golden Egg Securities, the number one security service on Rocky Perch. Chuck, who runs the company with his two friends, Flick and Wing. They provide Kung Fu style security to the citizens of Rocky Perch and their valuables, as they travel across the island. Chuck also inherited a very special talisman in the shape of a golden egg, an object that bestows amazing powers on whomever possesses it, and turns Chuck into Kung Fu Chicken. Unfortunately for Chuck, the talisman doesn’t come with any instructions, so he doesn’t know how to properly control his new abilities.” Got all that? Given the interest that many Chinese animation studios have shown in creating product intended for American markets, there’s a good chance we may have an English version of Chuck Chicken waiting in the wings.

image c. 2016 Animasia Studios

Jackie Paper Was A Nincompoop

Dec 16th, 2016
by rodney.
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Just look at what he gave up… Word has come down thanks to Animation World Network (and other sources) that Fox Studio has given the green light to a new live action / CGI hybrid production of Puff The Magic Dragon. Based on the 1962 song made famous by Peter, Paul, and Mary, “It tells the story of the ageless dragon named Puff who lives by the sea in the fictional land of Honalee. His playmate, a little boy named Jackie Paper, grows up and loses interest in the adventures of childhood and eventually leaves his imaginary dragon behind.” The new film project is set to be directed by Mike Mitchell, who recently directed the hit musical fantasy film Trolls for Dreamworks.

image c. 2016 Cherry Lane Music

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Learning to Love Yourself and Others Like You

Dec 2nd, 2016
by rodney.
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Earlier this year we made mention of animator Diane Obomsawin and her 2014 graphic novel, On Loving Women, which Drawn & Quarterly had recently re-published. In it (through her drawings of anthropomorphic characters) she talked about her own experience and those of her friends, discovering that they were women who loved women, and who wanted to share their experiences with others who felt the same. Well now Diane has turned several of those very personal stories (and those characters) into an animated short film called I Like Girls. And this last September, I Like Girls was awarded the Nelvana Grand Prize for Independent Short at this year’s Ottawa International Animation Festival, which is one of the largest in North America. Read the article over at Animation World Network to find out more about this and other prize-winning films.

image c. 2016 by Diane Obomsawin

image c. 2016 by Diane Obomsawin

Looking Ahead To 2017

Dec 1st, 2016
by rodney.
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Animation Magazine recently ran an article listing a wide range of animated films coming our way next year. Though it would be difficult to compete with 2016 in terms of anthropomorphic content (no less than 16 films of furry interest!), the article does list several new animated titles that are likely to catch some attention from furry fandom. In order of planned release, they include: Rock Dog, The Nut Job 2, Cars 3, Despicable Me 3 (yes, more Minions…), Emojimove: Express Yourself (yes, yes, yes…), My Little Pony: The Movie, The Star, and Ferdinand. They also make mention of Blazing Samurai, though there are some doubts as to when that movie might be finished, given that the main production company went bankrupt early this year. Interesting, they do not mention Animal Crackers — but we did! Elsewhere in the same issue of Animation is a note that a work print of Spark (the monkey-in-space feature from The Nut Job folks) has been making the rounds at film festivals.  Needless to say, we’ll be talking about all of these as they come closer to a theater near you!

image c. 2016 Lionsgate

image c. 2016 Lionsgate

Animation Fans Like Zootopia

Nov 29th, 2016
by rodney.
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Recently the International Animated Film Society (ASIFA) announced the nominees for the Annie Awards of 2016, celebrating the best in animation in all media. Perhaps surprising no one, Zootopia topped the list with 11 nominations in 10 categories — including Best Feature Film, Best Writing, Best Directing, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Character Design, Best Voice Acting, Best Effects Animation, Best Storyboarding, and two nominations for Best Character Animation. The Annies being widely acknowledged as “the Oscars of Animation” means that Zootopia is now considered to be a front-runner for the Best Animated Feature Film at the actual Oscars — if not more categories as well. Interestingly, one thing that was a surprise was that Zootopia’s biggest competition at the Annies is not Pixar favorite Finding Dory (which was nominated in only four categories) but Laika’s most recent stop-motion film, Kubo and the Two Strings — which was also nominated in 10 categories. Other films of Furry interest that received nominations include Kung Fu Panda 3, The Red Turtle, The Secret Life of Pets, The Jungle Book, Sing, and Storks. Over in the TV category the anthro-themed nominees included Bojack Horseman, Peg + Cat, Puffin Rock, Tumble Leaf, Elena of Avalor, and long-running favorites like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Adventure Time, and Wander of Yonder. Plus many other nominees in many categories, including the avian favorite Piper for Best Short. Read all about it over at the Annie Awards site. The awards will be presented at UCLA on February 4th next year. (And don’t forget — soon it will be time to nominate the Ursa Major Awards too!)

image c. 2016 Disney Animation

image c. 2016 Disney Animation

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Out of Boneville… and Onto the Movie Screen

Nov 22nd, 2016
by rodney.
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Thanks to Animation News Network we found out about an article over at the Hollywood Reporter. It seems that Mark Osborne (director of Kung Fu Panda and the recent film The Little Prince) has been tapped to finally adapt Jeff Smith’s award-winning comic Bone for the cinema — not just as one animated movie, but an entire trilogy to be produced by Warner Brothers. “The comic told of three Bone cousins — Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone, all small, bald and human-like creatures with big noses — who are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert after being run out of Boneville. One by one they find their way into a deep forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures. The comics were published from 1991 to 2004 and then rediscovered by a new and more mainstream generation when Scholastic began releasing them in graphic novel form.” Adam Kline is writing the script for the first film, along with Mr. Osborne, and Animal Logic (Happy Feet) are involved as well, so expect some top-notch CGI. We’ll let you know when we find out a release date.

image c. 2016 by Jeff Smith

image c. 2016 by Jeff Smith

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