Netflix Scores Big at the 47th Annie Awards

The night of January 25, 2020, was the night ASIFA-Hollywood hosted the 47th Annie Awards, the ceremony honouring the best in animation. A major bombshell then commenced where Netflix became the undisputed King of the ceremony. With acclaimed projects like Klaus, I Lost My Body, and Love, Death & Robots, the streaming giant walked away winning 19 of the 32 categories.

The grand champion under Netflix’s belt was Sergio Pablos’ ambitious hand-drawn Christmas classic Klaus, which won a total of seven Annies. Among those was the grand prize of Best Animated Feature, where it outmatched the competing computer-animated nominees of Frozen II, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, and Toy Story 4, as well as stop-motion nominee Missing Link.

The other six Feature awards swept by the Spain-made movie were for Character Animation (Sergio Martins), Character Design (Torsten Schrank), Directing (Pablos), Production Design (Szymon Biernacki and Marcin Jakubowski), Storyboarding (Pablos), and Editorial (Pablo García Revert).

Netflix’s indie contender I Lost My Body (French: J’ai perdu mon corps) was also a sizeable winner for the ceremony. Produced by Xilam Animation of France, Jérémy Clapin’s adult drama took grab of three Annie wins, including Best Animated Feature-Independent, Feature Music (Dan Levy), and Feature Writing (Jérémy Clapin and Guillaume Laurant).

On the television side, Netflix also held the crown for the most wins. Tim Miller’s adult anthology series Love, Death & Robots took home the most with a total of four, consisting of TV Animated Effects in “The Secret War”, TV Music in “Sonnie’s Edge”, TV Production Design in “The Witness”, and TV Editorial in “Alternate Histories”.

Netflix’s other television wins included two for Carmen Sandiego (TV Character Design and TV Storyboarding), one for Ask the Storybots (TV for Preschool Children), one for BoJack Horseman (TV for General Audience), and one for Tuca & Bertie (TV Writing).

This wasn’t entirely a dominating win for Netflix however. There was some room to give Disney some awards with Frozen II winning two for Feature Animated Effects and Feature Voice Acting (for Josh Gad as Olaf). The Mickey Mouse show also scored two wins with TV for Children and TV Directing (awarded to multi-Annie winner Alonso Ramirez Ramos).

New Zealand VFX house Weta Digital was awarded Character Animation in a Live Action Production for their contributions to the Disney-released Avengers: Endgame. As for Disney subsidiary 20th Century Studios (formally called Fox), Bob’s Burgers got an award for none other than Bob Belcher himself, where his voice actor H. Jon Benjamin won Voice Acting in an Animated Television/Media Production.

Although DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World didn’t win any of its six nominations, that didn’t mean the franchise left empty-handed. The series’ recent holiday special How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming won the Best Animated Special Production award.

Accepting the award in person, Homecoming director Tim Johnson revealed that this was his final directorial effort at DreamWorks, describing it as his swan song. Johnson had been at the studio since its fruition, directing movies like Antz, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Over the Hedge, and Home.

Three Winsor McCay Awards were handed out in recognition for an individual’s lifetime or career contributions in animation. These were awarded to stop-motion master Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline), Disney directing duo Ron Clements and John Musker (Aladdin, Moana), and posthumously, the late anime filmmaker Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika).

GLAS Animation founder Jeanette Bonds was awarded the June Foray Award, which recognises a “significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation”. For technical advancement, the Ub Iwerks Award was given to Jim Blinn, the computer graphics pioneer who is best known for his work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The 47th Annie Awards also paid tribute the late master animator Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Thief and the Cobbler) who passed away on August 16, 2019, and a memorial dedicated to the 36 Kyoto Animation staff who tragically lost their lives in an arson fire attack on July 18, 2019.

Below is the complete list of winners and recipients of the 47th Annie Awards (via Deadline):

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
Episode: “Why Do We Have To Recycle?“
JibJab Bros. Studios for Netflix

Best Animated Television/Media Production For Children

Disney Mickey Mouse
Episode: “Carried Away”
Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel

Best General Audience Animated Television/Media Production

BoJack Horseman
Episode: “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
Episode: “The Secret War”
Viktor Németh, Szabolcs Illés, Ádám Sipos, Vladimir Zhovna
Blur for Netflix

Animated Effects in an Animated Feature Production

Frozen II
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
Episode 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
Episode: “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

Disney Mickey Mouse
Episode: “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
Episode: “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
Episode: “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 Animated Television/Media Production

Carmen Sandiego
Episode: “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
Episode: “Roamin’ Bob-iday”
H. Jon Benjamin (Character: Bob Belcher)
20th Century Fox / Bento Box Entertainment

Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production

Frozen II
Josh Gad (Character: Olaf)
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Writing in an Animated Television/Media Production

Tuca & Bertie
Episode: “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
Episode: “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

We at Rotoscopers congratulate all the winners and nominations for their recognition at the 47th Annie Awards!