2013 Producers Guild Award Nominations Revealed (And New For Your Consideration Ads)

The Producers Guild of America have revealed the nominees for the 2013 Producers Guild Awards, honouring the best films of the past year. The nominees for the Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures are the five films that we've come to expect will be nominated (aside from the Golden Globes' odd inclusion of Hotel Transylvania, and exclusion of awards-favourite ParaNorman). It's sad to see that Aardman's fantastic The Pirates! is being nominated for so few awards, but the five films (and producers) nominated here are all deserving:

New ParaNorman For Your Consideration Ads

Laika are taking full advantage of all the awards critical circles are lavishing on them as of late, as well as their Annie and Golden Globe nominations, working them into their For Your Consideration campaign and presumably hoping to segue this success into Oscar success in February.

Awards Daily have three new ParaNorman FYC ads (although two of them are actually ones we've already seen, now adorned with the film's awards success) and you can check 'em out above, as well as the previous batch here. ParaNorman's odds of taking home the Oscar seem stronger and stronger by the week, and Laika's second outing is slowly becoming the one to beat.

ParaNorman is out on DVD and Blu Ray now in the US, and arrives in the UK on 28th January, 2013.

More For Your Consideration Ads: DreamWorks Hammer Rise of the Guardians Promotion!

Awards, awards, awards. Yep, this is another one of those posts. Awards Daily has the latest batch of For Your Consideration ads, and DreamWorks have the majority of them for us; today we get a massive haul of Variety covers promoting the studio's latest, Rise of the Guardians, to Academy voters. Any other year, Guardians would be almost certain for a nomination, but 2012 has been a particularly strong year for animation, and with Frankenweenie all of a sudden emerging as a top contender, DreamWorks are promoting their film as hard as they can (with a strong, but lesser effort for Madagascar 3).

The bold Rise of the Guardians (directed by Peter Ramsey) ads tout some of the film's accolades (including its recent Annie nominations) and tote the simple-but-effective line: "Believe in the best animated film of the year". Check 'em out after the jump break.

Awards Bits: 40th Annual Annie Nominations, and New For Your Consideration Ads

Awards season is soon to be upon us, as such, ASIFA-Hollywood have unveiled the nominations for the 40th Annual Annie Awards. After the Pixar shut-out a couple of years ago, it seems things are back to normal this year, with Pixar/Pixarians getting a total of 10 nominations this year. That said, this year seems to be a very evenly distributed year, with DreamWorks getting a colossal 26 nominations (bear in mind they did release two features and a few TV specials this year).

So It Has Begun: First Round of For Your Consideration Ads

Yes, it is that time of year again. It has its detractors, but I happen to think Awards season is pretty exciting! So, in a bid to get their films nominates for as many awards (well, mainly Oscars) as possible, studios have begun rolling out For Your Consideration ads - and we've got some cool animation ones so far.

For Your Consideration: Paperman

Via Big Screen Animation.

It should come as no great shocker that Disney are trying to give their latest short-film a head start in the awards race. The above "For Your Consideration" ads appeared on Cartoon Brew recently, promoting Paperman, the wave-making short film that will precede Wreck-It Ralph in cinemas.

Directed by former Pixar-animator John Kahrs, the short is the first to use Disney's groudbreaking new animation software, Meander. Meander creates CG models of the characters, and blocks out the movements, as with a computer animated film; a traditional hand-drawn animator then draws over the top, and Meander fuses the two together. The innovative technique leads to striking images like the one below, with the depth and immersion of CG, and the personality and heart of hand-drawn: this is the future of animation, folks.

It has a suitably warm sounding story too, with the synopsis reading:

Introducing a groundbreaking technique that seamlessly merges computer-generated and hand-drawn animation techniques, first-time director John Kahrs takes the art of animation in a bold new direction with “Paperman.” Using a minimalist black-and-white style, the short follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City, whose destiny takes an unexpected turn after a chance meeting with a beautiful woman on his morning commute. Convinced the girl of his dreams is gone forever, he gets a second chance when he spots her in a skyscraper window across the avenue from his office. With only his heart, imagination and a stack of papers to get her attention, his efforts are no match for what the fates have in store for him. Created by a small, innovative team working at Walt Disney Animation Studios, “Paperman” pushes the animation medium in an exciting new direction.

One can't help but think that Paperman has a pretty good chance of being successful at the Oscars. Check it out in cinemas with Wreck-It Ralph: 2nd November (US), 15th February (UK).

More For Your Consideration Adverts

As awards season heats up, what with Annie, Golden Globe and more nominations being revealed, and the 84th Academy Awards getting closer and closer, we are treated to more and more For Your Consideration Ads, promoting the year's best animated films.

Above and below, you can see, courtesy of Awards Daily, some of the latest For Your Consideration Ads for animated films, including ones for the Warner Bros. short film, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, as well as Blue Sky Studios' Rio, DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, and Aardman's Arthur Christmas.

For a full list of For Your Consideration Adverts, animated or otherwise, keep your eyes on Awards Daily.

More For Your Consideration Ads

After just posting about the Cars 2 For Your Consideration Ads, I stumbled upon (thanks to Big Screen Animation) Awards Daily's large list of the For Your Consideration Ads released as of now, a select few of which are scattered about this post, the rest can be viewed at Awards Daily.

I particularly like the sleek designs of the Tintin and Arthur Christmas ones, as well as the very vibrant Happy Feet Two and Rango ones. Also, note how The Adventures of Tintin is also being promoted for consideration in the Best Feature Film category, which it is good enough to be nominated for!

Cars 2 For Your Consideration Campaign Begins

As awards season rapidly approaches, Disney and Pixar begin the promoting of the Emeryville studio's latest feature with the above For Your Consideration Oscar adverts. Cars 2 is being promoted for consideration in the categories of Best Animated Feature, Best Song and Best Score.

However, due to the outpouring of negative and mixed reviews for Cars 2, Pixar face an uphill battle for the first time ever, just to get nominated; especially against such firm competition this year as Kung Fu Panda 2, Tintin, Rio and more. Personally, I thought Cars 2 was very, very good and was reviewed very unjustly, however, it is hard from Pixar's strongest and the studio that have won the prestigious Best Animated Feature Oscar consecutively for the past 4 years, will struggle to win, if, of course, they get the nomination.

Toy Story 3, 2 More For Your Consideration Ads

Merely weeks after Disney and Pixar rolled out a gargantuan 12 new For Your Consideration ads for Pixar's Blockbuster of the Summer, Toy Story 3, we get 2 more For Your Consideration Ads for its Best Picture push.

The first (above) is the latest in the series of "Not Since..." ads spoofing previous best picture winners, this one parodies Midnight Cowboy. The second ad (below) promotes Lee Unkrich as Best Director and gives some of the countless achievements and awards heaped on Toy Story 3 (I notice they didn't include my award) and is one of my favourite ads to date.

There's not long left until nominations are announced, I hope Toy Story 3 can do it, but I guess only time will tell. Stay tuned.

Toy Story 3, 12 New For Your Consideration Ads

Pictured above are 4 of the new 12 For Your Consideration Ads for the Toy Story 3 Best Picture Oscar Campaign, above is the Not Since... posters for Godfather Part II, Mutiny on the Bounty, Platoon and Silence of the Lambs. They are all, in my opinion, really appealing and good looking. You can check out all twelve on the Disney Awards Site in the campaign section of the photo tab.

Toy Story 3, New For Your Consideration Ad

Over the past few weeks as the Toy Story 3 Best Picture push gathered steam, we've seen several For Your Consideration Ads for Pixar's 11th feature - which you can see here, here and here - previous ads spoofed past winners such as Shakespeare in Love and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. This new ad spoofs James Cameron's award winning and several billion dollar grossing Blockbuster Titanic.

The ad was originally seen in Variety on December 13th, and is now online (above).

Whilst I think the ad is really good and a great idea, I think the text colour - in this case - is quite poor and difficult to read. Nonetheless TS3 has my vote.

Thanks to The Pixar Blog for alerting me to this.

For Your Consideration, Death by Monkeys

Last week saw the first For Your Consideration Ad for Toy Story 3's run for Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards. All ads will spoof past winners, we've already seen Mr. Pricklepants, spoofing Shakespeare in Love, now we get Death by Monkeys, spoofing The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King.
With more to come, including a dismembered Mr. Potato Head, spoofing Silence of the Lambs, Disney is really pushing Toy Story 3.