Annie Awards

The Annie Awards are an American award for animation, meaning that animations don't have to to fight for the one animation-only award in the Oscars. This year, the awards will be given on February 1st, and the nominees make me very excited to see what the outcomes will be.

One of the things that I have noticed is that Frozen, Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 and The Croods have probably the most nominations out of anything there, so it will be interesting to see which of these end up with the most awards and what category they beat the others in.

The categories that all four films have been nominated in are Best Animated Feature, Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production, Character Design in an Animated Feature Production, Music in an Animated Feature Production, Production Design in an Animated Feature Production and Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production. This includes some of things I am most interested in with animation - character design, production design and storyboarding.

For the Best Animated Feature, Frozen has a very good chance; though I have seen a lot of criticism from fans on the internet about sexism and the change from the source material, most of the reviews from critics that I have seen have been extremely positive, helped along by the fact that it won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film, winning out against The Croods and Despicable Me 2. However, I do think that Monsters University was a great film, so the fact that it wasn't even nominated for the Golden Globes might show that the awards are judged to different standards.

Frozen 

I think that Monsters Inc could fall a little bit in the Character design category, with many returning characters. though the changes they have made were very fitting and some of the new monsters were very creative, I think that they can't compare to the original film. I think that, again Frozen stands very strong here, with it's strong cast of characters with brilliant colour schemes, and Elsa's outfit when she creates her ice palace especially is one of my favourite Disney designs. The Croods' designs weren't the sort that I usually like, but I think that they are definitely different enough to be considered. However, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 is also nominated in this character, and the style and characters are definitely well done, and could have a chance themselves.

Frozen 

Croods 

I think it will be interesting either way to see the outcome of these awards, and to see if my predictions are anywhere near correct. I just hope that Monsters University gets enough awards that it deserves!