Toon Boom: How AMPAS Views the Influx of Animated Film Submissions

By David Tobia
December 5, 2012

While computer animation may lead to tremendous box office success, it may not lead to Oscar success, as the Academy has proven it considers not only beauty and technical advances, but the traditional art of hand drawing.
Bill Kroyer, a governor on the Academy short films and feature animation branch told Variety that “a lot of the older members have a real hunger for what they consider to be art in animation. Anything hand-drawn and hand-painted immediately has an impressionistic, very unpredictable quality to it that makes it very difficult to come up with a computer film to which audiences will respond in the same visceral way.”
But while the Academy loves traditionally hand drawn films, it has also proven it loves stop-motion films. This is relevant this year as “Frankenweenie,” “ParaNorman,” and “Pirates!” all fit into this category. The Academy has traditionally loved stop-animation because the frame-by-frame hand manipulation is sometimes seen as even more artistic than hand drawing.
There have been more animated film submissions than ever this year, with 21 films vying for just five spots, notes Variety.
And while CG may dominate among the big screen feature films this year, there are also 56 animated shorts that represent “unbelievable quality and unbelievable variety,” says Kroyer. “Everybody thinks CG is going to take over. Not in short films. We have every medium you could think of, and the quality level is remarkable.”

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