Gromit Wins Animag Oscar Poll! This year’s Animation Magazine Online Oscar Poll sees Aardman Animations’ and DreamWorks Animation’s Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit win with 47% of the vote. The clay-animated comedy from directors Nick Park and Steve Box easily beat fellow leading vote getters Warner Bros.’ Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (33%) and Disney’s presentation of Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle (20%). Though it did lukewarm theatrical and home video business in the U.S., the first-ever Wallace & Gromit feature was a huge hit overseas and looks like a shoo-in to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature on Sunday, having already picked up a bevy of kudos this season, including the BAFTA for best British Film. Our Oscar Poll opened in January, inviting animation fans and professionals alike to vote from a host of likely Oscar nominees. Other films short-listed at the time were Disney’s Chicken Little, DreamWorks’ Madagascar, Sony Pictures Classics’ presentation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Steamboy, The Weinstein Co.’s Hoodwinked, the Disney-distributed Valiant from Vanguard Animation and Gulliver’s Travel from Pentimedia Graphics Ltd. Last year, Animation Magazine readers chose the Disney/Pixar hit The Incredibles from director Brad Bird as the favorite to win the Oscar, which it did. In the Best Animated Short competition, Pixar’s One Man Band from directors Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews takes the cake with 39% of the vote. Shane Acker’s 9 and Anthony Lucas’ The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello each received 22% to tie for second place, while Sharon Coleman’s Badgered came in third with 11%. Also in contention was John Canemaker’s The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation with garnered just 6% of votes. We’d like to thank everyone who logged on to vote. To see how accurate you were this year, tune in to watch the 78th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday, March. 5. ABC will televise the ceremony live from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood beginning at 5 p.m. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Released by: DreamWorks Director: Steve Box, Nick Park Writer: Bob Baker, Steve Box, Mark Burton/ Nick Park (characters) Release date: October 7th, 2005 Domestic Box Office: $56.1 million International Box Office: $141.5 million Animation Style: Stop-motion Plot synopsis: Wallace & Gromit, the much beloved man-and-dog duo from across the pond, find themselves in the middle of another zany adventure. With the Giant Vegetable competition days away, their "Anti-Pesto" humane pest control business is booming, and the house is rapidly filling with rabbits. Things take a turn for the hairier when a giant Were-Rabbit begins praying on innocent veggies. It's up to Wallace & Gromit to catch the beast, impress Lady Tottington, evade the wicked Victor Quartermaine, and solve the mystery of the Were-Rabbit. Howl's Moving Castle Released by: Disney/Studio Ghibli Director: Hayao Miyazaki Writer: Hayao Miyazaki (orig. screenplay), Cindy Davis Hewiit & Donald H. Hewitt (English-language screenplay), adapted from the novel by Diana Wynne Jones Release date: June 10, 2005 Domestic Box Office: $4.7 million International Box Office: $9.7 million Animation Style: 2D/3D Plot synopsis: 18-year-old Sophie is cursed to inhabit the body of an old woman. Leaving her quiet life behind, she goes to live with the feared wizard Howl in his part mechanical, part magical moving castle. There she befriends a fire demon named Calcifer, who promises to lift her curse if she can break his contract with Howl. Together, they manage to defeat a witch, end a terrible war and fall in love. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Released by: Warner Bros. Director: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson Writer: John August, Pamela Pettler, Caroline Thompson Release date: September 23, 2005 Domestic Box Office: $53.4 million International Box Office: $78.5 million Animation Style: Stop-motion/CG Plot synopsis: Victor is a delicate young Victorian man with a severe case of pre-wedding jitters. After botching the rehearsal ceremony and making a fool of himself in front of his fiancée, Victoria, he runs off into the woods to practice his wedding vows...and accidentally betroths himself to the lovely (and terrifying) Corpse Bride. What follows is a twisted tale full of spooky characters and broken hearts as Victor tries to reunite with his true living love. The Shorts Badgered Director: Sharon Colman National Film and Television School 6 mins. A grumpy badger just wants the world to let him sleep in this 2D cartoon that premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Colman hopes to follow in the footsteps of former NFTS animation Alumni Nick Park, winner of two Oscars for his Wallace & Gromit shorts, and Alison Snowden and David Fine, who took the 1995 Best Animated Short Film award for Bob’s Birthday. Awards: Cannes Cinéfondation, Honorary Best Foreign Film Award at Edinburgh International Film Festival, Student Academy Award nomination The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation Director John Canemaker John Canemaker Prods. 30 mins. John Turturro voices the role of a son struggling to iron out his turbulent relationship with his Italian immigrant Father (Eli Wallach) in this autobiographical piece that employs trial transcripts, audio recordings, home movies and photos, along with original animation. Awards: Annie Award nomination for Best Animated Short of 2005. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello Director: Anthony Lucas 3D Films Prods./Monster Distributes 26 mins. Inspired by the works of Edgar Alan Poe and Jules Verne, this gothic horror mystery yarn is set in a world of iron dirigibles and steam powered computers, and tells the story of a disgraced aerial navigator who flees his plague-ridden home on a desperate voyage to redeem himself. Lucas employs a unique style of computer-generated silhouette animation reminiscent of one of the first animated features, Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). Awards: Annecy Grand Prix, BAFTA for Best Short Animation, AFI Awards for Best Short Animation and Outstanding Achievement in Craft in a Non-Feature 9 Director: Shane Acker This Student Academy Award winner has rag dolls struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world as a fierce mechanical beast stalks them for their souls. The film was created with CG, but realistic textures and stylized animation give it a stop-motion quality, which no doubt helped it get the attention of Tim Burton. The Corpse Bride director plans to produce a feature-length version with Acker directing from a script by Corpse Bride scribe Pamela Pettler. Awards: Student Academy Award, Best of Show at SIGRAPH 2005, Best Animated Short at San Diego Comic-Con Int’l, Grand Jury Award for Best Animated Short at Florida Film Festival One Man Band Director: Andrew Jimenez, Mark Andrews Pixar Animation Studios Street musicians Trebble and Bass compete for the affections and generosity of a young girl named Tippy in this latest Pixar short to make it to the big show. One Man Band premiered at the Annecy animation festival in France last spring and is getting pre-Oscar screenings in New York and Los Angeles. General audiences can catch it in theaters this summer with the release of John Lasseter’s Cars. Compiled by: Mercedes Milligan & Ryan Ball