Talk of potential Oscar for animated films

Meantime, the likelihood that the Motion Picture Academy will give special recognition to cartoons remains, in a word, sketchy. “There is a lot of interest in animated films. They’re very popular, and there’s a large selection out there. Why not give them their own division or category?”said Tom Sito, president of the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild.

A long-time advocate for an animated feature Oscar, Sito has worked on such films as Beauty and the Beast, the only feature-length cartoon ever nominated for Best Picture. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences periodically considers forming an animated feature category, but has perpetually declined because of a shortage of nominees. The animated short film category attracts as many as 50 applicants in one year, according to Sito, who is a member of the Academy. One way to add more films to the proposed category would be easing qualifications to include movies that are only partially animated. Sito said some live-action films, especially sci-fi and action thrillers, utilise animation in virtually every scene.

With the advent of computer-generated images, visual effects films and purely animated movies now use “essentially the same techniques”, according to sito, who helped blend animated characters with real actors in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

By that rationale, Buzz Lightyear and Woody the cowboy from rToy Story 2 could be considered cousins to the alien Jar-Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace and the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

However, the Oscars already offer a category for visual effects, and some filmmakers may balk at the animation label. There are hybrids of live-action and animation, but it would be hard to create a category that includes both,” Pavlik said. “I don’t see how that could be done in a way that would satisfy everyone.”

Another drawback to an animated feature Oscar was that almost all the potential nominees were long produced by one studio Walt Disney. While Warner Bros and Dreamworks SKG are now regular contributors to the field, studios have generally refrained from pressing for new categories. Pavlik said most calls for reform appropriately, come from groups within the Academy.