Best Animated Feature - 2016: Zootopia, Moana, Kubo, Zucchini, Red Turtle

[Jason]

Just now, cannastop said:

Not sure why you'd think that. Funimation just needed to do some outreach.

 

If they got people to really think that Shinkai was the next Miyazaki, they would have turned heads.

 

I'm skeptical that being told other people like a film should make most people feel differently about it compared to the weight of all the other factors that affect our perceptions. Even more skeptical that the Animation Branch would be influenced in that way, given the weight of their additional knowledge and experience with animated films.

 

Do you really think you'd rate a film more highly in a secret ballot just because you knew a lot of other people liked it? I'm very sure I wouldn't.

[Mojoguy]

Your Name and Finding Dory got snubbed. Expected.

[cannastop]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

I'm skeptical that being told other people like a film should make most people feel differently about it compared to the weight of all the other factors that affect our perceptions.

Then you don't know how film awards work.

 

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

Even more skeptical that the Animation Branch would be influenced in that way, given the weight of their additional knowledge and experience with animated films.

Lots of these guys are working insane hours at WDAS, Pixar or Dreamworks. Maybe they need to be reminded to broaden their horizons.

 

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

Do you really think you'd rate a film more highly in a secret ballot just because you knew a lot of other people liked it? I'm very sure I wouldn't.

You know, maybe I would.

 

My point is that the movie didn't catch on with the animation community. Maybe if they got critics or animation journalists to see it earlier, it would have helped spread awareness. But Funimation didn't attempt to break outside of the anime bubble like GKIDS would have.

[Jason]

27 minutes ago, cannastop said:

Then you don't know how film awards work.

 

I can see why a number of other categories are affected by campaigns - in ranked ballots, awareness will often be a more important factor than the average level of reception. The Animation Branch process is different, and shouldn't be affected by awareness level unless personal perceptions are being influenced by knowledge of other opinions. That really shouldn't happen for professionals. It certainly didn't make the Animation Branch nominate The Lego Movie.

 

29 minutes ago, cannastop said:

You know, maybe I would.

 

That's something I can't understand. Why would you? It's not like anyone would see and be like "oh, look, they're a pleb because they liked x movie".

 

46 minutes ago, cannastop said:

My point is that the movie didn't catch on with the animation community. Maybe if they got critics or animation journalists to see it earlier, it would have helped spread awareness. But Funimation didn't attempt to break outside of the anime bubble like GKIDS would have.

 

Maybe, sure. I just don't think it's likely awareness would have made a difference. Previous films with very little awareness have been nominated, essentially whenever they have a high level of critical reception. It just hasn't been a predictive factor in the past. The fundamental problem Your Name was up against is that this was a ridiculously competitive year.

 

In a race with essentially four films competing for three spots (if you can accept Zootopia and Kubo as locks) and all other films as very unlikely, one film had to miss. Your Name ended up with the lowest average rating of those four from members of the Animation Branch. I would ascribe that to those who viewed it, on average, not thinking it was quite as good, possibly because of a bias against anime, possibly because of technical factors I can't quantify. If you really think awareness is an important factor, we'll have to agree to disagree. Because as far as I can tell, the data says otherwise.

[cannastop]

10 minutes ago, Jason said:

possibly because of a bias against anime

Probably the #1 reason. It looks typically anime. Some voters probably didn't even bother.

 

And it's partly Funimation's fault that they didn't disabuse people of that notion.

 

Quote

The Animation Branch process is different, and shouldn't be affected by awareness level unless personal perceptions are being influenced by knowledge of other opinions. That really shouldn't happen for professionals. It certainly didn't make the Animation Branch nominate The Lego Movie.

The reason that The Lego Movie didn't get nominated was because the branch is going to vote for their own projects (WDAS, Pixar, Dreamworks), unless the other movies are foreign or exotic. And not too anime, of course.

 

Not everything is a quantitative variable.

Edited January 24, 2017 by cannastop

[Jason]

18 minutes ago, cannastop said:

The reason that The Lego Movie didn't get nominated was because the branch is going to vote for their own projects (WDAS, Pixar, Dreamworks), unless the other movies are foreign or exotic. And not too anime, of course.

 

Not everything is a quantitative variable.

 

I don't really want to re-open that discussion, DamienRoc has done good job explaining this in the past - but the fact is, when you look at the actual data, some of which are categorical variables (which, as I think you know, can still be analyzed), the evidence suggests the most likely reason for The Lego Movie missing is because of being excluded by other animated films that had essentially equal strength of critical reception, or stronger technical merits.

 

There's a lot of evidence that contradicts any type of studio, distributor, or country bias (relative to general critical reception), those possibilities can be excluded. A bias against anime can neither be demonstrated nor excluded, because very few non-Ghibli anime films have been submitted.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Jason

[cannastop]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

The Lego Movie missing is because of being excluded by other animated films that had essentially equal strength of critical reception, or stronger technical merits.

Technical merits only achievable in the Los Angeles industry setting. Coincidence?

[BadAtGender]

12 hours ago, Jason said:

I think Funimation's biggest mistake was to give it a qualifying release in 2016. Especially given that their wider North American release is going to be in April, which means that even if it had been nominated it would be of limited benefit.

 

That being said, I do agree that their promotion of it was piss-poor. Just doubt that the Animation Branch is likely to be influenced much by a promotion campaign.

 

It's likely that the campaign doesn't matter so much for nominations, but I actually think the distributor might.

 

GKIDS has a sort of mission statement to go and find the best animation worldwide and bring it to the US. They pretty much exclusively deal with feature length films.

 

Funimation mostly does TV anime distribution, and many of their actual films are tie-ins to the same.

 

And that different might mean that members of the branch would be inclined to support something that's more appealing to them in the sense of broadening the medium.

 

10 hours ago, cannastop said:

Technical merits only achievable in the Los Angeles industry setting. Coincidence?

 

A bit, yeah. Those technical merits happen because WDAS, Pixar, and DWA (at least in the past) are willing to spend the time and resources on their films. There isn't anything that says Illumination, WAG, SPA, or Blue Sky couldn't do the same. They just choose not to.

[cannastop]

4 hours ago, DamienRoc said:

There isn't anything that says Illumination, WAG, SPA, or Blue Sky couldn't do the same. They just choose not to.

Yes, there is something that says that Illumination, WAG, SPA, or Blue Sky can't have the same astronomical budgets: Their studio bosses.

 

I'm not sure why you think the branch is looking at these movies and thinking "Hmm, well that's not a very detailed render. Better vote for my own movie out of sheer coincidence!"

 

You seem rather dead-set on this explanation, but I'd like to ask: Have you visited many animation blogs? I guarantee that's not how most of them think.

Edited January 25, 2017 by cannastop

[TalismanRing]

2 hours ago, cannastop said:

Yes, there is something that says that Illumination, WAG, SPA, or Blue Sky can't have the same astronomical budgets: Their studio bosses.

 

I'm not sure why you think the branch is looking at these movies and thinking "Hmm, well that's not a very detailed render. Better vote for my own movie out of sheer coincidence!"

 

You seem rather dead-set on this explanation, but I'd like to ask: Have you visited many animation blogs? I guarantee that's not how most of them think.

 

 

Illumination instead spends an astronomical budget on marketing.    Universal spent more than 2 and a half times as much on TV ads for Sing than Disney did for Moana.  $55m+ v $20m.  That's just TV and just the U.S.  That's their game plan, lower budgets and humongous marketing budgets.   They've  determined as a studio this is how they make the most money.  It's worked for them but then they don't get to turn around and boo hoo about critical reception and awards and disparagement on their quality

 

You don't think detailed rendering has anything to do with quality as concerns CGI animation and that quality isn't of interest to those voting in the Animation Branch?   Moana vs Sing vs Norm Of The North - there's a difference visually and that difference is part of the art of CGI animation.

 

There are of course three other nominees with budgets much lower than Illumination, WAG, SPA, or Blue Sky

[cannastop]

1 hour ago, TalismanRing said:

You don't think detailed rendering has anything to do with quality as concerns CGI animation and that quality isn't of interest to those voting in the Animation Branch?   Moana vs Sing vs Norm Of The North - there's a difference visually and that difference is part of the art of CGI animation.

Most of the branch are in the artistic side of things:

 

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/awards/know-your-oscar-voters-a-list-of-the-academys-animation-members-115036.html

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VqIT-wz6Mh33787RiD89SnCG9wA_s6RrRlRTm8mYBGE/edit#gid=0

 

I don't think they're penalizing some CG movies because some rendering isn't super-detailed. Technology isn't their main job. In fact, lots of the members only started working on CG animation in the middle of their careers.

 

But what I do see is a bunch of people from WDAS/Pixar/Dreamworks voting on things and rewarding themselves.

Edited January 25, 2017 by cannastop

[eXtacy]

Not the first time the anime medium has been ignored. Wolf Children probably should of won back in 2012, its leaps and bounds better than the winning film Brave and runner up Wreck it Ralph. That did not get nominated either. Guess the quality of the film is only half the equation in getting awards recognition.

[AniNate]

6 minutes ago, eXtacy said:

Not the first time the anime medium has been ignored. Wolf Children probably should of won back in 2012, its leaps and bounds better than the winning film Brave and runner up Wreck it Ralph. That did not get nominated either. Guess the quality of the film is only half the equation in getting awards recognition.

 

Yeah, pretty much. Voters are too busy to go looking for the goods. You have to bring it to their attention.

[cannastop]

10 minutes ago, eXtacy said:

Wolf Children probably should of won back in 2012, its leaps and bounds better than the winning film Brave and runner up Wreck it Ralph.

>Licenced by Funimation

 

That's why.

[TalismanRing]

1 minute ago, cannastop said:

Most of the branch are in the artistic side of things:

 

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/awards/know-your-oscar-voters-a-list-of-the-academys-animation-members-115036.html

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VqIT-wz6Mh33787RiD89SnCG9wA_s6RrRlRTm8mYBGE/edit#gid=0

 

I don't think they're penalizing some CGmovies because some rendering isn't super-detailed. Technology isn't their main job. In fact, lots of the members only started working on CG animation in the middle of their careers.

 

But what I do see is a bunch of people from WDAS/Pixar/Dreamworks voting on things and rewarding themselves.

 

Sheesh, it's not my job at all but I can see which is rendered better and which looks more visually impressive or artistic so I'm pretty sure they can as well. 

 

Regardless, there are three nominees that are from smaller studios that were nominated.  That's 60%.  In comparison to other branches they do a rather good job acknowledging smaller films as well as foreign films.

 

In then end a big studio film usually wins because they're voted on by the entire Academy and they vote what they see or have heard about from their kids or can be bothered to even vote on.

[cannastop]

35 minutes ago, TalismanRing said:

Sheesh, it's not my job at all but I can see which is rendered better and which looks more visually impressive or artistic so I'm pretty sure they can as well. 

I'm saying that the animation branch might not care as much.

 

As long as we're wondering why this or that movie wasn't nominated, I'm going with Your Name's having a poor campaign, and The Lego Movie not being an indie, but also not being made by members of the Academy. The Lego Movie wasn't anyone's #1 priority to get nominated.

Edited January 25, 2017 by cannastop

[TalismanRing]

Just now, cannastop said:

I'm saying that the animation branch might not care as much.

 

As long as we're wondering why this or that movie wasn't nominated, I'm going with Your Name's having a poor campaign, and The Lego Movie not being an indie, but also not being made by members of the Academy. The Lego Movie wasn't anyone's #1 priority to get nominated.

 

You'd be wrong.  They are enormously big on technique and skill levels which is one of the reasons they didn't highly rate The LEGO movie.  There were numerous interviews and and articles about this.  It's also why they have a hard on for stop motion films- even not great ones like Boxtrolls.

 

That was also the same year they nominated two far superior movies that made very little at the US Box Office and weren't CGI blockbusters -  - Song Of The Sea and  The Tale of The Princess Kaguya.

Films are watched and rated individually on a scale of 6-10 with only those scoring a 7.5 and up avg qualified to for a nomination.   Each member has to watch 66% of the eligible films.  This year there were over 20 so that means  about 14 movies.  I'm pretty sure Name was watched and rated by most everyone unlike Norm Of The North, Ratchett & Clank or even Ice Age 5912 & Angry Birds.   Which means it was watched and treated more fairly with a better chance at a nomination than hundreds of other worthy films and maybe thousands of other quality performances that are never watched let alone considered in all the other Oscar categories.

[Jason]

5 hours ago, cannastop said:

You seem rather dead-set on this explanation, but I'd like to ask: Have you visited many animation blogs? I guarantee that's not how most of them think.

 

Facts aren't decided by popular opinion. You should know this.

 

1 hour ago, cannastop said:

I don't think they're penalizing some CGmovies because some rendering isn't super-detailed. Technology isn't their main job. In fact, lots of the members only started working on CG animation in the middle of their careers.

 

But what I do see is a bunch of people from WDAS/Pixar/Dreamworks voting on things and rewarding themselves.

 

The simplest explanation for why Disney/Pixar/DW films have been getting nominations is because they're actually better films to most people, not just those who work at those studios. Not necessarily in terms of technical merits, but overall. None of the several hundred critics who contribute to scores on Rotten Tomatoes work for WDAS/Pixar/Dreamworks, but they've also rated those films more highly than other animated films.

 

Without needing to do a proper multiple regression analysis, there is absolutely no effect favouring films distributed by at least WDAS/Pixar when taking into account critical reception. Quite the contrary, there's a small but almost certainly non-significant effect against WDAS/Pixar, in that their films need a slightly higher rating (compared to the either the submission or nominating average for that year) to have a high likelihood of nomination.

 

Dreamworks is in about the middle of the pack. Again, almost certainly not meaningful. The differences are all very small, about a few tenths of a rating point.

 

40 minutes ago, cannastop said:

As long as we're wondering why this or that movie wasn't nominated, I'm going with Your Name's having a poor campaign, and The Lego Movie not being an indie, but also not being made by members of the Academy. The Lego Movie wasn't anyone's #1 priority to get nominated.

 

I really don't have time to do a full analysis showing just how unlikely it is that there's a popularity/awareness effect, or a studio effect. But there are numerous counterexamples. Explain why Boy and the World was nominated (foreign, independent, unknown), or why any number of Universal, Sony, or WB films were nominated despite being neither independent, nor WDAS/Pixar/Dreamworks, while not having particularly strong overall reception.

 

Simply put, your opinion is inconsistent with the overall pattern of nominations. The better explanation for why those films missed a nomination is because the Animation Branch genuinely thought more highly of their competitors, for reasons other than awareness or self-rewarding bias.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Jason
typo

[Jason]

1 hour ago, eXtacy said:

Not the first time the anime medium has been ignored. Wolf Children probably should of won back in 2012, its leaps and bounds better than the winning film Brave and runner up Wreck it Ralph. That did not get nominated either. Guess the quality of the film is only half the equation in getting awards recognition.

 

1 hour ago, cannastop said:

>Licenced by Funimation

 

That's why.

 

Funimation never even submitted it for consideration. So the Animation Branch absolutely cannot be blamed for not recognizing it.

[cannastop]

18 minutes ago, TalismanRing said:

I'm pretty sure Name was watched and rated by most everyone

Not sure why you assume that.