Club Jade

In the land of not-Star Wars, Lucasfilm picked up a couple awards last weekend:

Red Tails won the NAACP Image award for Outstanding Motion Picture, beating out others such as Flight and Django Unchained. In a video clip from the event, George Lucas shares why he produced the WWII action film about the Tuskegee Airmen.

While the Annie Awards were dominated by wins for Wreck-It Ralph and Dragons: Riders of Berk, a team from Industrial Light and Magic won for Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in a Live Action Production: Jerome Platteaux, John Sigurdson, Ryan Hopkins, Raul Essig, and Mark Chataway won for their work on The Avengers. Also in the running, we had The Clone Wars crew with four nominations and LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out with one nomination.

The nominations for the 40th annual Annie Awards, showcasing the best in animation, were announced today, with a few nominations headed towards Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Joel Aron got a nomination for individual achievement for Animated Effects in an Animated Production (for the second year in a row).

Sam Witwer was nominated for voice acting for his role as Darth Maul in the season four finale ‘Revenge,’ while Keith Kellogg was a nominee for Character Animation in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production. The season five premiere, ‘Revival,’ was granted a nomination for Jason Tucker for Editorial in an Animated Television Production. The judges do love Maul.

Threshold Animation Studios earned an nomination for Best Animated Television Production For Children with their LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out, that aired back in September. See… more love for Maul! (Don’t forget our interview with writer Michael Price!)

Meanwhile, two teams from ILM got nominations for Animated Effects in a Live Action Production: The crews that worked on The Avengers and Battleship. Another ILM team was a nominee for Thor’s abs and Hawkeye’s butt Character Animation in a Live Action Production for The Avengers.

Overall, Disney and Pixar picked up a handful of nominations across the board, including 3 Best Picture noms for Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, and Frankenweenie. On the TV side, DreamWorks’ Dragons: The Riders of Berk snagged a slew of nominations for its crew.

“I am very excited about this year’s slate of nominees!” ASIFA-Hollywood president, Frank Gladstone, said in a statement. “We had more submissions to choose from this year than for any prior year in Annie Award history, running the gamut from big studio features to indie films, television series to internet shows, games, shorts and, for the first time, student films, all showcasing the huge variety of venues, creativity, technical innovation, and story-telling that our art form has to offer.”

The 40th Annual Annie Awards will take place on February 2, 2013 at UCLA and are selected and presented by the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

There was no love – or at least, no awards – for The Clone Wars at Saturday’s Annie Awards. However, ILM’s Rango did take home several prizes, including best animated feature, while composer John Williams won for his Tintin score. ILM’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon took best animated effects.

The Clone Wars had 5 total nominations, including Best General Audience Animated TV Production (The Simpsons won) and editing. The individual achievement categories singled out Joel Aron for animated effects and voice actors Dee Bradley Baker and Nika Futterman.

The International Animated Film Society released its list of nominations for the 2011 Annie Awards, and both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the new Star Tours theme park attraction made the list. The Clone Wars earned a nomination for Best General Audience TV Production, competing against such shows as Archer, The Green Lantern: Animated Series, MAD, and The Simpsons. Two voice actors picked up nominations: Dee Bradley Baker, who plays Rex and all the other clones (although the Annie nomination list credits him as Obi-wan Kenobi!) and Nika Futterman, who earned her second nomination two years in a row for voicing Asajj Ventress.

Behind the scenes, Joel Aron of Lucasfilm Animation got nominated for an individual achievement in an animated production for his work on The Clone Wars, while ILM staff picked up individual nominations for their work on Rango, and swept the individual achievement nominations for animated effects in live action productions: Cowboys & Aliens, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. For his work editing a television production, Jason W. A. Tucker picked up a nomination for The Clone Wars.

Star Tours picked up a nomination for best animated special production, running against Adventure Time: Thank You, Batman: Year One, and Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, among others.

The 39th annual Annie awards will be announced on February 4, 2012.

The Clone Wars received four Annie Award nominations: Best Animated Television Production (for the episode ‘Arc Troopers,’) writing and voice acting (Nika Futterman as Asajj Ventress and Corey Burton as Baron Papanoida.)

Meanwhile, Robot Chicken Star Wars III gained character animation nods for Savelon Forrest and Elizabeth Havetine.

The two even face off in the category Writing in a Television Production: Daniel Arkin for Clone Wars ‘Heroes on Both Sides’ and Geoff Johns, Matthew Beans, Zeb Wells, Hugh Sterbakov, Matthew Senreich, Breckin Meyer, Seth Green, Mike Fasolo, Douglas Goldstein, Tom Root, Dan Milano, Kevin Shinick & Hugh Davidson (phew) for Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III

Pixar’s Up took Best Animated Feature last night at the Annie Awards. And while it might not be worth a mention from The Hollywood Reporter, Robot Chicken: Star Wars 2.5 nabbed Best Animated Short Subject. Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder was named Best Home Entertainment Production.

The Clone Wars’ Kevin Kiner was up for Music in a Television Production, but that honor went to The Fairly OddParents

Check out the complete list of winners at annieawards.org

The Clone Wars’ Kevin Kiner was nominated for Music in a Television Production for the episode ‘Weapons Factory,’ while Robot Chicken: Star Wars 2.5 is up for Best Animated Short Subject. Other genre noms went to Coraline, Up, Futurama and the other usual suspects. (via)

Kiner was nominated in the same category last year for the music of ‘Rising Malevolence,’ while Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II took home three awards, including Best Animated Television Production.

Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II won Annie Awards for Best Animated Television Production, Writing, and Voice Acting for Ahmed Best’s Jar-Jar. But perhaps the biggest shock was the total shut-out of WALL-E – it was beat in nearly every category it was nominated for by Kung Fu Panda. Seriously. Kung Fu Panda. The hell?

Other winners include Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Kevin Kiner was up for Music in an Animated Television Production for the ‘Rising Malevolence’ episode of The Clone Wars, but lost out to Henry Jackman, Hans Zimmer & John Powell for Secrets of the Furious Five, a Kung Fu Panda spinoff.