The Race Is On!
“Is it just me or does everyone around us have tighter deadlines and faster schedules than ever before?” asked a terribly busy publicist friend as we were finishing our lunch and rushing back to work. No, it seems like everyone is feeling the fast and furious nature of our professional lives more than ever before. This year, to make things even crazier than ever, the Academy set February 7 as the date for the Oscars ceremony, which is much earlier than the customary date, shortening the campaign season and throwing everyone into a mad sped-up sequence, like one of those silly scenes from The Benny Hill Show.
On the plus side, this past week, we reported that a grand total of 32 animated features were competing in the Oscar race. Only five of these titles were directed or co-directed by women, a 16% ratio — and only two were U.S. studio pictures. A big congratulations to Jill Culton (Abominable), Jennifer Lee (Frozen II), Anca Damian (Marona’s Fantastic Tale), Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec (The Swallows of Kabul) and Emma De Swaef (This Magnificent Cake!) for bringing us a little bit closer to a 50/50 gender parity at the top. The percentage is far from ideal, but the waves of change are blowing and things are moving in the right direction. Hopefully, we will all reap the rewards of the efforts to push for equal representation behind the scenes as well as on the screen in the near future.
If you really want to feel optimistic and hopeful about the future of animation, all you need to do is look at our animated shorts dossier (put together in this issue by our brilliant digital editor Mercedes Milligan). The diversity of style, content, culture, tone and sheer talent represented in these inspiring projects are certainly mind-boggling. So many amazing little stories are served up in these delicious morsels. It makes us wish that there was a streaming service simply devoted to screening animated shorts 24/7!
Everyone is having a hard time predicting the award season frontrunners this year. Will it be one of the big studio sequels (Disney’s Frozen II, Pixar’s Toy Story 4, DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World), a poetic French adaptation (Xilam/ Netflix’s I Lost My Body), a lovingly crafted 2D holiday pic (Netflix/Sergio Pablos Animation’s Klaus), LAIKA’s stop-motion epic adventure Missing Link, one of GKIDS’ many indie artistic imports (Buñuel in the Labyrinth of Turtles, Funan, Weathering With You) or another year-end surprise releases? Since there are no sure-thing titles like last year’s bold and innovative Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse from Sony Picture Animation, the race is even more unpredictable and exciting to watch. Make sure you read our Oscar dossier put together by the always awesome Michael Mallory in this issue.
Among the many other pieces we have prepared for you in this special tabloid-sized award season edition are stories about the making of Disney’s much-anticipated Frozen II, Jeremy Clapin’s lovely I Lost My Body, China’s blockbuster feature White Snake, this year’s Student Academy Award winners, the visual effects of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Theodore Ushev’s widely acclaimed masterpiece The Physics of Sorrow, as well as special looks at Netflix’s Green Eggs and Ham, PBS’s Molly of Denali and Disney Junior’s The Rocketeer, to name a few.
I also have to point out that our own World Animation & VFX Summit is back in town this month, taking over the lovely Garland hotel in N. Hollywood (Nov. 3-5). If you’re in Los Angeles, please stop by and check us out. As always, it’s a wonderful opportunity to catch up with some of the top movers and shakers in our industry, learn about some of the latest trends and technologies and meet up with some of this year’s big Oscar and Annie Award contenders. You can read all the details on page….Thanks to our tireless event director Kim Derevlany, founder and publisher Jean Thoren and all the other hardworking members of the team for putting together such a fantastic three-day animation immersion extravaganza!
We all hope to see you there. Have a great month, and don’t forget to take some time to slow down and enjoy some precious moments with family, friends and loved ones before heading back to work.