Rope of Silicon beats a dead horse:
Should the Academy Eliminate the Best Animated Feature Film Category?
... What exactly is the difference between [animated and live-action] films? Why do people think of animated films differently than live action? Animated films are considered the same in categories such as score, screenplay, director and cinematography. What makes the overall film any different? ...
ROS has the usual misguided idea. It seems to forget that ...
Animated films don't have on-camera actors.
Or directors of photography wielding a camera.
Or gaffers. Or grips. Or craft services.
All of those people (and more) constitute a sizable majority of Academy members, and they all vote. And they vote for the kinds of pictures they work on.
Which is live-action.
So I'll say it again, as I've said it before. Achieving the award of "Best Picture" is a matter of politics, and numbers. Sadly, animated features, no matter how glowing their reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, don't have the votes to get the top prize. For that reason, the Academy creating the category of "Best Animated Feature" is a good thing, because it means high-grossing, well-loved features created in a computer instead of a sound stage will get a little gold man with the word "Best" embossed on it.
Seems obvious enough to me.
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24 comments:
Absolutely. But, with so many animated films getting made each year and being finacially successful, I wonder if it isn't time to add a new category: Best Director of an Animated Feature...? as well as Best Written (which is kind of problematic since most features are usually re-written by the storyboard crew).
yes, let's segregate the awards even more. /sarcasm
Hey Steve,
Considering the "Brew"HaHa over the Annie Awards, why isn't there an Aniation Guild Awards?
You say "segregation" I say "recognition".
Animation directors will never be considered in the same light as live-action (especially since there are two of them usually) so why not a separate category?
Or if you feel so strongly that they deserve the same recognition then THAT should be the award Pixar goes after and not Best Picture - which they will NEVER EVER get.
Brew smew. They're starting to turn into the current version of Animation Nation thanks to Amid's biased behavior
It's amazing how an overall defeatist attitude is so subliminally omnipresent in liberal thinking.
You would rather be given an award that is on par with being seated at the kiddie table than actually, truly, honestly compete with your peers.
I hope they dissolve the Best Animated Feature category. It's an embarrassment - like being on welfare.
I don't care if it takes a hundred years for an animated feature to break through its glass ceiling - I would rather we break through honestly than to be given a handout.
Considering the "Brew"HaHa over the Annie Awards, why isn't there an Aniation Guild Awards?
Small staff. Large expenses.
And does the entertainment industry need yet another awards function?
It does seem unfair that if you release a live action movie you have a 1 in about 500 chance of winning the Best Picture Oscar, but if you release an animated movie your chances are approximately 1 in 15. I'd say it is much easier to get an Oscar if your movie is animated.
Let the flaming begin.
To qualify, that is 1 in 15 to win Best Animated Feature, not Best Picture obviously.
In the 100 years of animation, there has been very few of them (animated feats.) that are memorable and life changing.
Do you really think "Tangled" can compete with something like "There Will Be Blood" or "One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest"?...Seriously!?
rufus
Hey Steve,
I agree that there doesn't need t be another ceremony nor does it have to be a big trophy gettig event. How about something simple. Just post categories have the members vote on who they think should win, maybe get a certificate or small plaque and give them out during the holiday party. Other guilds recognize their own - woulod help build unity in ours as well.
I'd volunteer to help organize it, if that would help. Find sponsors, price trophies/plaqes etc. Maybe the membership could vote on it. Let me know and I'll contact you.
I would say the percentage of memorable and life-changing live-action films are just as small as life-changing animated films.
There's just more live-action films.
Not every "best-picture" over the years is life-changing. Id guess, what, like 10%? Thats probably the same as animated.
If they eliminate "Best Animated Film" they should eliminate Best Foreign and Best Documentary too.
What makes them different with that logic?
As if we needed any MORE proof that the civilians have been drooling to see a Pixar win Best Picture for the last seven years...Out come the "Outdated rules" articles like clockwork.
Do I want "Spirited Away" or "Secret of Kells" to be forced into a Best Picture race (and clobbered by the real competition), just because somebody overidealistically wanted Pixar to get a little recognition?...No.
But, like Foreign and Documentary, it's nice to have them in their own category where their own peers can recognize them for what they are.
(Dear Academy: Please...PLEASE...give it to TS3 this year, if it'll finally shut angry-activist TS2-avenging "Let's change the unfair rules!" articles like this up every year in the future.
Look how many people finally stopped whining about Randy Newman and Martin Scorsese after they got one.)
I like what Randy said at the Oscars.
"I don't need your pity."
I agree that there doesn't need t be another ceremony nor does it have to be a big trophy getting event. How about something simple. Just post categories have the members vote on who they think should win, maybe get a certificate or small plaque and give them out during the holiday party. Other guilds recognize their own - would help build unity in ours as well.
Kevin here. This has been suggested, off and on, many times before. The sticking point, aside from the effort and expense that Steve mentioned (which would inevitably take up some TAG staff time, since it would be an official function), are the logistics and rules.
Would it only be for features, or include TV also? Now you're replicating the Oscars and the Emmys. What about shorts, commercials, games, independent work? I've heard a lot of people say they wouldn't want the Guild to give awards to nonunion productions. That's a huge factor. How much of a production has to be done by active TAG members to qualify? Would producers have to submit their entries? If the answer is yes, you risk getting few entries. If the answer is no, then who decides on the nominees.
Other guilds and unions that offer awards tend to be working within rather narrow job categories/duties/segments of the industry. The incredible breadth and depth of productions and job titles that TAG members are involved in is an order of magnitude beyond that of those groups.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but whenever I've had one of these discussions with a group of people, it quickly becomes apparent that everyone has dramatically different, and often mutually exclusive, ideas about how it should happen.
I agree with Rufus.
The animated films, no matter how entertaining, do not compete with their live action counterparts. They contain the weight of a good Romantic comedy... which I have never have seen in a best picture category. light, fun, easily re-watchable, but that's all. remove the best animated feature awards, and most likely animated films will not be heard from again. They are completely different animals
Live action snobs? I think we are taking both ourselves and the academy awards a little bit too seriously. At best, you are retrofitting logic on something that is to a large extent coincidental.
The Oscars predates the first animated feature film by about 14 years. It is a live action party created as a promotional gimmick, like the star system. Snow White caught Hollywood by surprise and they are still making the adjustment.
Aside from the format similarities of being shown in a theater using a projector, animation is a different art form with different skill sets that deserves it's own category.
As for writing, a script is a script. There is no reason why animation scripts shouldn't compete with live action scripts. Actually, they should also compete in categories like art direction and production design, but with those awards, animation would have an unfair advantage.
A script is a script? You have obviously never worked on an animated feature.
Not as a writer. My point was that there is no reason why an animation script couldn't compete for recognition with live action scripts. Maybe I don't take your meaning correctly.
Because animation scripts never make it to the screen remotely in any way the way the WGA writer wrote it. The story crew on almost every feature completely rework a script so it bears little to no resemblance to the script that leaves the writers computer.
If an Animation scriptwriter were to win an award that would be the most dishonest award ever presented and would only increase the divide between writers and story crews.
I think that that's a lot of hair splitting. If the story crew contributed a major part of what became the final "script," then they all get to go up and accept the award. Why not? Why is it a given that a single individual needs to be named?
I'd volunteer to help organize it [an awards competition/show], if that would help. Find sponsors, price trophies/plaqes etc. Maybe the membership could vote on it. Let me know and I'll contact you.
Certainly feel free to contact me about it. (818-845-7500). Doesn't hurt to talk.
"I think that that's a lot of hair splitting. If the story crew contributed a major part of what became the final "script," then they all get to go up and accept the award. Why not? Why is it a given that a single individual needs to be named? "
Lol...I'd like to see that happen. The WGA is sooo good about that type of thing.
Writers almost always have language in their con tracts that would preclude anyone other than them getting credit without arbitration - from the WGA.
And, no, it isn't hair splitting if you've ever worked on an animated feature. In the bets of times story crew and writers will work together, but it usually doesn't work that way.
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