The 45th annual Annie Awards are being doled out tonight at UCLA’s Royce Hall, and Deadline is live blogging the event and posting winners as they are announced. You can following the livestream here.
Disney/Pixar’s Coco comes in with a leading 10 nominations for the Annies, which are presented by ASIFA-Hollywood. Winners will be revealed in 36 categories ranging from animated feature and independent feature to broadcast productions, commercials, short subject and student film.
The Day of the Dead-themed Coco will vie for the marquee Best Animated Feature prize along with Fox’s Captain Underpants and The Boss Baby (both from DreamWorks Animation), fellow Disney/Pixar toon Cars 3 (Pixar) and Universal’s Despicable Me 3. Click the related link above for the full list of nominees.
How will tonight factor in to a certain trophy show happening in early March? Well, since the Academy Awards’ Best Animated Feature category was launched in 2002, 11 of the 16 winners of the Annies’ top feature prize went on to claim Oscar gold. That includes last year’s big winner Zootopia, which took Best Animated Feature along with writing and directing nods en route to Oscar glory.
Tonight’s ceremony is dedicated to Annie Awards co-founder and Rocky the Flying Squirrel voice actor June Foray, who died in July. “This will be the first year she is not going to be with us, so we will do our best to remember and celebrate June’s creativity, generosity and unrelenting advocacy for the animation community.”
Diane Haithman is on the scene in Westwood, and Erik Pedersen is at the editor’s desk. Follow the action as it unfolds, and refresh often for the latest winners below.
Away we go — and we won’t stop until it’s time to say, “Th-th-th-that’s all folks!”
Here is the list of winners so far:
Best Student Film
POLES APART
Paloma Baeza
Outstanding Achievement, Editing – Feature Production”
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Outstanding Achievement, Editing – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCIII, XCIV, XCIX
Adult Swim
Paul Douglas
Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding – Feature/Broadcast Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Dean Kelly
Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding – TV/Broadcast Production
DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE
Episode: Bee Inspired
Walt Disney Television Animation
Eddie Trigueros
The student winner and her entourage had a long walk to the stage.
WINNER:
Best Student Film
POLES APART
Paloma Baeza
Nora Twomey and Saara Chaudry will present the next four awards.
CIFA Certificate of Merit: David Nimitz says “June is looking down on us”
The ASIFA-Hollywood Certificate of Merit goes to David Nimitz, who helped Foray in the last years of her life.
No mention of Hollywood hot-button issues or politics as yet. Fine by me.
ASIFA-Hollywood’s Jerry Beck is giving the President’s Message.
A lot of emphasis this evening on preservation and restoration of classic animation
He hosts a site called The Ultimate Disney Books Network
Didier Ghez is being interoduced as recipient of the 2018 June Foray Award.
Foray described onstage as “a wonderful tiny giant”
Foray probably is best known as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel from The Bullwinkle Show and Granny from the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons.
A documentary about her life, The One and Only June Foray, was produced in 2013.
Foray, who died in July, was an avid supporter of animation and tirelessly lobbied to have animated films recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Time for the tribute to June Foray.
Coco makes it 2-for-2 so far.
Hot Coco! Editing team talks about the hard work that went into it
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Editing – Feature Production”
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Paul Douglas isn’t there; like much of California, he has the flu.
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Editing – TV/Broadcast Production
SAMURAI JACK
Episode: XCIII, XCIV, XCIX
Adult Swim
Paul Douglas
Kobe on Boston native Kelly: “If he was a Laker fan, they would h ave given him more time.”
Security!
Kelly’s still talking, but no one can hear him over the music. OK.
We have 36 categories, let’s hope not all the speeches are that long.
A dazed Dean Kelly thanks his golden Retriever
WINNER:
Outstanding
Achievement, Storyboarding – Feature/Broadcast Production
COCO
Pixar Animation Studios
Dean Kelly
Yeah, the cheers are big for the first Coco scenes.
Next category is the first with Coco competing.
WINNER:
Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding – TV/Broadcast Production
DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE
Episode: Bee Inspired
Walt Disney Television Animation
Eddie Trigueros
First presenters are Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant.
Attendee calls Coco a “Love letter to Mexico.” Sweet
First mention of June Foray.
Talked to a Mexican American grad student who is rooting for Coco — it’s the subject of his Master’s thesis!
They’re telling us it’s one minute to showtime.
Because we’re at UCLA, hard to tell whether we’re at an awards show, or commencement exercises
Annie Awards veteran Kobe Bryant has his own office backstage to keep the masses at bay.
Among tonight presenters are Wendie Malick, Coco’s Anthony Gonzalez, Director Nora Twomey and actress Saara Chaudry from The Breadwinner, Disney voice actor Russi Taylor and SpongeBob and Adventure Time voice veteran Tom Kenny, animators Mark Henn and Floyd Norman and other industry notables including Debi Derryberry, and E.G. Daily.
Welcome to Deadline’s live blog of the 45th annual Annie Awards.
Paloma Baeza thanks the team, calls animation a 24-hour a day job for all