The creative stars, aspiring talents and industry gurus of animation gathered at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Saturday evening for the 47th Annie Awards. Presented by ASIFA-Hollywood, the annual black-tie affair celebrated the greatest animated achievements in feature film, episodic, short film, commercial, VR, games and VFX, with 32 awards categories.
The 2020 ceremony was a knock-out for Netflix — the streamer was well rewarded for its aggressive investment in animated originals across all target audiences and genres, with its titles taking home 19 awards. A good chunk of these went to the Awards’ biggest winner: Sergio Pablos’ much-lauded traditionally animated holiday feature, Klaus, which won seven awards including Best Animated Feature and Directing in an Animated Feature. Another highly praised European 2D picture on the platform, I Lost My Body directed by Jeremy Clapin, won the Best Animated Feature – Independent, Music in an Animated Feature and Writing in an Animated Feature.
Netflix also triumphed in the TV categories: Adult anthology series Love, Death & Robots took home four awards, Carmen Sandiego took two, BoJack Horseman won the General Audience category, and Ask the Storybots won Preschool.
Disney’s Mickey Mouse was crowned in the Children’s TV category — the popular cartoons starring the studio icon also scored a TV Directing win for Alonso Ramirez Ramos. Additional key category winners were Regina Pessoa’s Uncle Thomas (Best Animated Short Subject), DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming (Best Animated Special), Baobab Studios’ Bonfire (Best VR) and Michelle Chua’s The Fox & The Pigeon (Best Student Film).
As previously announced, the 2020 Winsor McCay Award recipients were Satoshi Kon (posthumously), Henry Selick and Ron Clements & John Musker; the June Foray Award was given to Jeanette Bonds; and the Ub Iwerks Award went to Jim Blinn.
And the winners are…
Best Animated Feature: Klaus (Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Best Animated Feature – Independent: I Lost My Body (Xilam for Netflix)
Best Animated Special Production: How to Train Your Dragon Homecoming (DreamWorks Animation)
Best Animated Short Subject: Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days (Ciclope Filmes, National Film Board of Canada, Les Armateurs)
Best Virtual Reality Production: Bonfire (Baobab Studios)
Best Animated Television/Media Commercial: The Mystical Journey of Jimmy Page’s ’59 Telecaster (Nexus Studios)
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Preschool Children: Ask The Storybots, “Why Do We Have to Recycle?” (JibJab Bros. Studios for Netflix)
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Children: Mickey Mouse, “Carried Away” (Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel)
Best General Audience Animated Television/Media Production: BoJack Horseman, “The New Client” (Tornante Productions, LLC for Netflix)
Best Student Film: The Fox & The Pigeon, Michelle Chua (Sheridan College)
Animated Effects in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots, “The Secret War”, Viktor Németh, Szabolcs Illés, Ádám Sipos, Vladimir Zhovna (Blur for Netflix)
Animated Effects in an Animated Feature Production: Frozen 2, Benjamin Fiske, Alex Moaveni, Jesse Erickson, Dimitre Berberov, Kee Nam Suong (Walt Disney Animation Studios)
Character Animation in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production: His Dark Materials Ep. 7, Aulo Licinio (Character: lorek) (BBC Studios)
Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Sergio Martins (Character: Alva) (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Character Animation in a Live Action Production: Avengers: Endgame, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Sam Sharplin, Keven Norris, Tim Teramoto, Jacob Luamanuvae-Su’a (Weta Digital)
Character Animation in a Video Game: Unruly Heroes, Sebastien Parodi (Characters: Heroes Kid version, Underworld NPC), Nicolas Leger (Characters: Wukong, Kihong, Sandmonk, Sanzang, Enemies and cinematics) (Magic Design Studios)
Character Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: Carmen Sandiego “The Chasing Paper Caper”, Keiko Murayama (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix)
Character Design in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Torsten Schrank (Netflix Presents a Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Directing in an Animated Television/Media Production: Mickey Mouse “For Whom the Booth Tolls”, Alonso Ramirez Ramos (Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel)
Directing in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Sergio Pablos (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Music in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots “Sonnie’s Edge”, Rob Cairns (Blur for Netflix)
Music in an Animated Feature Production: I Lost My Body, Dan Levy (Xilam for Netflix)
Production Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots “The Witness”, Alberto Mielgo (Blur for Netflix)
Production Design in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Szymon Biernacki, Marcin Jakubowski (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Storyboarding in an AnimatedTelevision/Media Production: Carmen Sandiego “Becoming Carmen Sandiego, Part 1”, Kenny Park (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix)
Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Sergio Pablos (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
Voice Acting in an Animated Television/Media Production: Bob’s Burgers “Roamin’ Bob-iday”, H. Jon Benjamin (Character: Bob) (20th Century FOX / Bento Box Entertainment)
Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production: Frozen 2, Josh Gad (Character: Olaf) (Walt Disney Animation Studios)
Writing in an Animated Television/Media Production: Tuca & Bertie “The Jelly Lakes”, Shauna McGarry (Tornante Productions, LLC for Netflix)
Writing in an Animated Feature Production: I Lost My Body, Jérémy Clapin, Guillaume Laurant (Xilam for Netflix)
Editorial in an Animated Television/Media Production: Love, Death & Robots “Alternate Histories”, Bo Juhl, Stacy Auckland, Valerian Zamel (Blur for Netflix)
Editorial in an Animated Feature Production: Klaus, Pablo García Revert (Netflix Presents a production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine)
