2006 Academy Awards® Winners and History Monster House (2006) Actor: FOREST WHITAKER in "The Last King of Scotland," Leonardo DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond," Ryan Gosling in "Half Nelson," Peter O'Toole in "Venus," Will Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness" Actress: HELEN MIRREN in "The Queen," Penelope Cruz in "Volver," Judi Dench in "Notes on a Scandal," Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada," Kate Winslet in "Little Children" Supporting Actor: ALAN ARKIN in "Little Miss Sunshine," Jackie Earle Haley in "Little Children," Djimon Honsou in "Blood Diamond," Eddie Murphy in "Dreamgirls," Mark Wahlberg in "The Departed" Supporting Actress: JENNIFER HUDSON in "Dreamgirls," Adriana Barraza in "Babel," Cate Blanchett in "Notes on a Scandal," Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine," Rinko Kikuchi in "Babel" Director: MARTIN SCORSESE for "The Departed," Clint Eastwood for "Letters From Iwo J

ima," Stephen Frears for "The Queen," Paul Greengrass for "United 93," Alejandro González Iñárritu for "Babel" The 2006 nominees continued Hollywood's trend of nominating relatively low-to-modestly budgeted films with ensemble casts and personal subjects, again eschewing big budgeted Hollywood studio epics, though in this year, three of the Best Picture-nominated films were at least partially bankrolled by a major studio.

Three of the five films were released by specialty divisions, while director Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima was able to be made by a studio, using his reputation to get financing for its narrowly-appealing content. It was one of the most diverse and international rosters of nominees and winners in recent Academy history. The five films that were nominated for Best Picture had a total of only 26 nominations -- the fewest since 1932/1933 (when 10 films were nominated for the top prize but there were fewer awards categories). No single film received nominations in more than six categories. And the Oscar wins were spread out over numerous films - many received either one or two awards. As with last year, there was a perceived backlash against flashy, "popcorn" Best Picture nominees and winners.

Mega-budget, special effects-heavy box-office blockbusters that received minimal nominations included: Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (4 technical nominations, with a sole Oscar win for Best Visual Effects), one of the fastest grossing films in history, reaching $100M and $200M box office dollars in record time, and grossing over $1B worldwide, as the second part of a planned trilogy Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand (no nominations), the third film in the series, grossing box-office of about $460 worldwide Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code (no nominations), which grossed over $750M worldwide despite savage reviews Superman Returns (one nomination for Best Visual Effects), the fifth in the series, directed by former X-Men director Bryan Singer and a total worldwide box-office of almost $400M Martin Campbell's Casino Royale (no nominations), the exciting 007 "reboot" starring Daniel Craig as the new James Bond, which grossed about $550M worldwide J.J.

Abrams' Mission Impossible III (no nominations), starring and produced by Tom Cruise, which earned nearly $400M worldwide despite negative reviews and bad word-of-mouth; Cruise would later be fired by Paramount due to diminishing box office returns and personal instability Michael Mann's Miami Vice (no nominations), a resounding flop Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon (one nomination for Best Visual Effects), another major dud The Best Picture category was an interesting mix of ethnically and linguistically diverse films -- in two of the films, English was a second language. [Note: The most-nominated film with 8 nominations, Dreamgirls, was not a Best Picture nominee.

It was the first time ever in Academy history that the film with the most nominations failed to earn a Best Picture slot.] The Best Picture winner was: The Departed (Warner Bros.) (with 5 nominations and four wins including Best Director, Best Screenplay Adaptation, and Best Film Editing), a gritty tense cop suspense-thriller and crime drama, and a loosely-based remake of the action film Infernal Affairs (2002, HK) (aka Mou Gaan Dou, or Wu Jian Dao) by director Martin Scorsese - it was the first - and only - remake of a foreign film to win Best Picture; it told about a pair of Irish Bostonians, one an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) spying on the local organized crime family, the other a police plant (Matt Damon) hired by the same family; this was Scorsese's second film remake, the first being the twice Oscar-nominated Cape Fear (1991), and the highest budgeted of the five Best Picture nominees at $90M The other four Best Picture nominees were: Babel (independent feature distributed in the USA by Paramount) (with 7 nominations and only one win, Best Original Score - for Gustavo Santaol

alla, who received the same prize a year ago for Brokeback Mountain (2005)), director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's sprawling, multi-threaded ensemble story similar in structure to Traffic (2000), Crash (2005) and Syriana (2005), centered around cascading tragedies stemming from the accidental shooting of an American wife (Cate Blanchett) by a Moroccan sheepherder; the film was a major box office flop and was received poorly by critics in general, but aggressive campaigning, similar to the previous year's Crash, earned the film numerous awards including the Best Dramatic Feature Golden Globe Award The Queen (co-produced by Pathe Films and Miramax) (with 6 nominations and only one win, Best Actress), director Stephen Frears' riveting "inside story" monarchy chronicle told about the week the Royal Family became reviled by the British public due to their silence following the death of "the People's Princess" Lady Diana in 1997, and how newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) cajoled Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) to acquiesce to the public's demands Letters From Iwo Jima (DreamWorks/War

ner Bros.) (with 4 nominations and only one win, Best Sound Editing), director Clint Eastwood's emotional American-produced foreign language film about the Japanese perspective during the bloody Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II [Note: If Letters From Iwo Jima had been named Best Picture, it would be the first foreign-language film to win in that category] Little Miss Sunshine (independent feature globally distributed by 20th Century Fox) (with 4 nominations and only two wins, Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay), a quirky light comedy/road movie about the adventures of an oddball, dysfunctional New Mexico family driving cross-country in a broken-down Volkswagen van for their 7 year-old daughter Olive's Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in Redondo Beach, California [Trivia Note: If underdog Little Miss Sunshine had won Best Picture, it would have been only the fourth film - after Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Grand Hotel (1932) and Wings (1927/28) - in Oscar history to take the top prize without having its director nominated] Time Warner Inc.'s studios (including New Line and Picturehouse), due in part to Pan's Labyrinth (6 nominations and 3

 wins) and The Departed (5 nominations and 4 wins), received the most Oscar nominations with 31 (spread out over 11 films), and came away with the top two films with the most wins.

Viacom Inc.'s Paramount units (including DreamWorks SKG) had 23 (for 5 nominated films) and Walt Disney Co. had 17. News Corp's Fox studios received 10 nominations, while General Electric Co's Universal Pictures had five for Children of Men and United 93. There was one Best Picture nominee whose directors were not nominated for Best Director: husband and wife co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for Little Miss Sunshine. Their replacement on the Best Director nominees roster was Paul Greengrass for United 93. If Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris had been nominated as Best Director for Little Miss Sunshine, it would have been only the third time in Oscar history that co-directors would have been nominated on a single film. [Other pairs included Oscar-winning Jerome Robbins and Robert E. Wise for West Side Story (1961) and the Oscar-nominated duo of Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait (1978).] Once again, the two favored Best Director nominees (Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood) from 2004 were rematched again this year in the category.

The winner was sentimental favorite 64 year-old Martin Scorsese (his sixth Best Director nomination and his first Oscar win), for the bloody crime film The Departed. He had never won an Oscar despite receiving five previous directorial nominations for Raging Bull (1980) , The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), GoodFellas (1990) , Gangs of New York (2002), and The Aviator (2004), as well as two screenplay nominations for GoodFellas and The Age of Innocence (1993). The remaining Best Director nominees included: 76 year-old Clint Eastwood (his fourth Best Director nomination), for the WWII war film Letters From Iwo Jima - he has already won two Best Director Oscars for: Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).

[Note: Eastwood went head-to-head in 2004 in the same category with the winning Million Dollar Baby against Scorsese's The Aviator] Paul Greengrass (his first nomination) for United 93 (2 nominations including Best Film Editing, but not Best Picture!), the moving account of the real-life events about the doomed United Flight 93 jet airliner, which was hijacked by terrorists during the September 11th, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington DC, who were overcome by passengers who self-sacrificially crashed the plane rather than allowing it to be used as a weapon Mexican-born Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (his first nomination) for the four story-lines film Babel Stephen Frears (his second nomination) for The Queen, a long time Oscar snub (he received only one directorial Oscar nomination for The Grifters (1990)) Three of the year's most-nominated films were the work of Mexican directors.

The Mexican directing troika of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron took a combined 16 nominations for their films Babel (with seven nominations), Pan's Labyrinth (with six nominations including Best Foreign-Language Film) and Children of Men (with three nominations), respectively. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was the first Mexican director nominated for the top prize. Animated films were returning to the box office dominance they enjoyed in the 1950's under Disney, with four of the top 10 grossing films of 2006 being animated films: Cars (#2 in box office), Ice Age: The Meldown (#6 B.O.) (no nominations), Happy Feet (#7 B.O.), and Over the Hedge (#10 B.O.) (no nominations).

Weeks before the Academy Award nominations announcement, Luc Besson's strange CGI animated film Arthur and the Invisibles (featuring an eclectic English-language all-star voice cast of Madonna, Robert De Niro, Mia Farrow, Harvey Keitel, Chazz Palminteri, Emilio Estevez, and rapper Snoop Dogg) was declared ineligible (less than 75% of the film was animated), reducing the number of pool of eligible nominees from 16 to 15, which, in compliance with Academy rules, reduced the number of eligible nominees to 3. This effectively removed the chance of having 5 nominees in the Best Animated Feature Film category for the first (and only) time since 2002. All three nominees were CGI-animated films, reversing the previous year's inclusion of no CGI films at all. Among the three remaining strong contenders, the Animated Feature Film Oscar was won by Warner Bros. and George Miller's rollicking and poignant penguin song-and-dance musical Happy Feet (its sole nomination).

Miller earned his first Oscar win after three previous Oscar nominations: for Lorenzo's Oil (1992) (Best Original Screenplay) and twice for Babe (1995) (for Best Picture and Best Screenplay Adaptation). The other two nominees were: Disney/Pixar's mediocre Cars (2 nominations including Best Song), about anthropomorphic cars in a rural Southwestern USA desert town (the plot was similar to Michael J. Fox's comedy Doc Hollywood (1991)) Sony Pictures and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment's witty suburban satire Monster House (its sole nomination) With five African-Americans, two from Spanish-speaking countries and an Asian, it was the most ethnically-diverse lineup ever among the 20 acting nominees. (Also add the three British, one Canadian, and one Aussie performer to make it even more diverse!) Ten of the 20 acting nominees were first-timers. The other 10 nominees shared a total of 49 nominations and three (Streep, Dench and Blanchett) were previous Oscar winners.

Of the ten Best Actor and Best Actress nominees, only Helen Mirren was in a Best Picture nominee [Trivia Note: the last time this happened was 75 years earlier in 1931/32, when Wallace Beery was nominated for The Champ (1931/32)]! This year marked only the third time in Oscar history that African-Americans won two of the four acting prizes (it also occurred in 2004 and 2001). In the Best Actor category, four of the five nominees represented the sole nomination for that picture, and all of them had never won an Oscar. Two were long-time Oscar snubs. It was the third time in Oscar history that two black performers were among the five Best Actor nominees (this also occurred in 2001 and 2004). The winner was 45 year-old Forest Whitaker (with his first nomination and first win) for his hammy portrayal of brutal, infamous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who was responsible for the genocide of over 500,000 Ugandans in The Last King of Scotland (its sole nomination). He was the fourth African-American actor to win the Best Actor Oscar.

The remaining candidates for Best Actor included: 74 year-old Peter O'Toole (with his eighth Best Actor career nomination) for the role of Maurice, a dying, impotent, yet lecherous and lustful has-been actor who has a platonic March-December romance with his best friend's teenaged grand-niece (Jodie Whittaker) in Venus (its sole nomination). [O'Toole has already received seven unsuccessful Best Actor nominations for Lawrence of Arabia (1962) , Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), and My Favorite Year (1982), and received an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 2003. O'Toole's loss put him in the record books as the actor with the most nominations without winning. O'Toole was tied with Richard Burton with seven losing nominations before his Venus nomination.

If O'Toole had won the Oscar, he would have joined Henry Fonda and Paul Newman as actors who won their first competitive Oscars after receiving Honorary Awards. He nearly turned down the honorary Oscar three years ago because he hoped to earn one outright.] 32 year-old Leonardo DiCaprio (with his third nomination, previously earning a lead nomination for The Aviator (2004), and supporting nomination for What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

(1993)) as white South African diamond smuggler/mercenary Danny Archer in Blood Diamond (5 nominations) 26 year-old Canadian Ryan Gosling (his first nomination) as crack-addicted inner city (NYC) junior high school teacher Dan Dunne in the independent film Half Nelson (its sole nomination) 38 year-old Will Smith (his second nomination, previously a lead nomination for Ali (2001)) as real-life single father and rags-to-riches success story Chris Gardner, an unpaid Dean Witter intern and homeless father who supported himself and 8 year-old son Christopher (Jaden Smith) while living off the streets before rising to corporate prominence in The Pursuit of Happyness (its sole nomination) In the Best Actress category, three of the five nominees including the favorites - were over 50. The prohibitive favorite and winner for Best Actress was 61 year-old Helen Mirren's (with her third career nomination and first win) astonishing portrayal of current reigning British monarch Queen Elizabeth II in the sleeper hit The Queen, whose popularity hit a nadir during the week following the tragic 1997 death of Lady Diana, former Princess of Wales after a divorce from Prince Charles.

This was her first lead nomination after two unsuccessful supporting nominations for The Madness of King George (1994) (as another real-life queen, Queen Charlotte) and Gosford Park (2001). [Ironically, Mirren won the Emmy in the same year for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in the British television miniseries Elizabeth I (2005)!] The four other Best Actress nominees were: 32 year-old Spanish actress Penelope Cruz (her first nomination) as tough, working-class single mother Raimunda, whose dead mother Irene (Carmen Maura) returned to fix unresolved family issues and grappled with ghosts in the tragi-dramedy Volver (its sole nomination), her third role for writer/director Almodovar - she became the first Spanish woman to be nominated for a best actress Academy Award for a non-English speaking role 72 year-old Judi Dench (her sixth nomination, all earned after the age of 60, following three previous lead nominations for Mrs. Brown (1997), Iris (2001), and Mrs.

Henderson Presents (2005), and two supporting nominations for Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which she won her sole Oscar, and Chocolat (2000)), as lonely, disturbed, treacherous and blackmailing spinster-lesbian Islington district school teacher Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal (4 nominations, including Best Screenplay Adaptation and Best Score) [Trivia Note: Dench received an Oscar nomination for five of the last eight years!] 57 year-old Meryl Streep (her incredible fourteenth nomination, her first since Adaptation (2002), with two Oscar wins in 1979 and 1982) as ruthless and tyrannical style-magazine editor Miranda Priestly (a thinly veiled caricature of real-life Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour) in The Devil Wears Prada (2 nominations including Best Costume Design) [Note: Two-time Oscar winner Streep's 14th nomination padded her record as the most-nominated actor ever, ahead of both Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson with 12 nominations] 31 year-old Kate Winslet (her fifth nomination, including her two lead nominations

 for Titanic (1997) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and two supporting nominations for Sense & Sensibility (1995) and Iris (2001)) as bored suburban wife and mother Sarah Pierce who has an adulterous affair with her neighbor Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) in Little Children (3 nominations, including Best Screenplay Adaptation) [Trivia Note: At 31 years of age, Kate Winslet became the youngest performer to receive five acting nominations.

The previous record holder was Olivia de Havilland, who was 33 when she received her fifth nomination for The Heiress (1949) . Earlier, 22 year-old Winslet became the youngest actress to have two nominations, and in 2004, she became the only actress to have scored four nominations before the age of 30.] None of the performers in the tightly-contested Best Supporting Actor race had ever won an Oscar; they included a longtime Oscar snub, and another earning a nomination after several decades of work since his last recognition. The race was won by: 72 year-old Alan Arkin (his third nomination - and his first after 38 years, although not a record - he had been nominated for Best Actor twice, for The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!

(1966) and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968)), as foul-mouthed, porno-reading, heroin-addicted and crotchety Grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine The four other nominees were: 45 year-old former Bad News Bears child star Jackie Earle Haley (his first nomination) as convicted, and creepy yet sympathetic pedophile Ronald James McGorvey whose parole affects an entire suburban community in Little Children 43 year-old Beninese-American Djimon Hounsou (his second nomination, previously nominated in a supporting role for In America (2003)) as Sierra Leone fisherman-turned-diamond miner Solomon Vandy, who fights for his stolen son and becomes embroiled in a jewel theft to buy his family's freedom in Blood Diamond 45 year-old comedian Eddie Murphy as raucous, flamboyant, womanizing, drug-addicted "rock-and-soul" singer James (Jimmy) 'Thunder' Early in Dreamgirls [This was long-time Oscar snub Murphy's first nomination, having been overlooked by the Academy for such worthy roles as 48 HRs (1982), Trading Places (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Coming to

 America (1988), and The Nutty Professor (1996).] 35 year-old Mark Wahlberg (his first nomination) as self-righteous, wise-cracking Boston cop Sgt.

Dignam in The Departed, the only acting nominee from the film The Best Supporting Actress category was won by the heavily-favored 25 year-old American Idol star Jennifer Hudson in her powerful film debut as outspoken and brassy cast-away Dreams lead singer and single mother Effie Melody White (based on real-life singer Florence Ballard), in Dreamgirls. She became the third African-American actress to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. [Trivia Note: Three other singers received their first nomination for debut roles: Barbra Streisand as Best Actress (win) for Funny Girl (1968), Diana Ross as Best Actress (nom) for Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and Bette Midler as Best Actress (nom) for The Rose (1979).

All three actresses portrayed real-life singers as well - Fanny Brice, Billie Holiday, and Mary Rose "The Rose" Foster, based on Janis Joplin.] The other Best Supporting Actress nominees included two actresses from Babel, each earning a first Oscar career nomination: Mexican-born Adriana Barraza as careless Mexican housekeeper Amelie in Babel - she is forced to bring her American employers' children to Mexico in order to attend her son's wedding, leading to a cascade of unfortunate tragedies 26 year-old Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi as isolated, depressed and troubled 16 year-old deaf-mute Tokyo teenaged girl Chieko in Babel [Trivia note: If she had won, Kikuchi would have become the first Japanese performer in about 50 years to win an Oscar in an acting category since Miyoshi Umeki won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Sayonara (1957) .] 37 year-old Aussie Cate Blanchett (her third nomination, having won an Oscar for her supporting role in The Aviator (2004), and nominated for her lead role in Elizabeth (1998)), in her lead role as art teacher and morally

-challenged, bored wife and mother Bathsheba "Sheba" Hart, whose affair with a 15 year-old student leads to her blackmailing by an older, treacherous lesbian-spinster teacher (Dench) in Notes on a Scandal 10 year-old actress Abigail Breslin (her first nomination) as 7 year-old beauty pageant-addicted Olive in Little Miss Sunshine; at 10 years, 279 days, Breslin was the youngest actress to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress since Quinn Cummings (at 10 years and 192 days) was nominated for The Goodbye Girl (1977) The Best Documentary Feature Film category was one of the most hotly contested in Academy Awards history.

The nominees included a collection of controversial, politically-charged films and two films which took a hard look at organized religion. The winner experienced a surprising clean-sweep: the heavily-favored An Inconvenient Truth (with 2 nominations and 2 wins, also Best Original Song) - a harrowing ecological disaster documentary film about the ravages of global warming lectured by former US Vice President Al Gore The other four nominees were: two Iraq-based documentaries critical of current US President George W.

Bush administration's policies in the Middle East: (1) Iraq in Fragments and (2) My Country, My Country Deliver Us From Evil, a searing, candid look at child molestation among Catholic priests, focusing on one of the convicted Catholic priests - pedophile ex-priest Oliver O'Grady, who served parishes in central California and was eventually convicted in 1993, served seven years in prison, and was then deported Jesus Camp, an illuminating documentary about the charismatic Pentecostal movement, in particular, Pastor Becky Fischer's Evangelical summer camp ("Kids on Fire") in Devil's Lake, North Dakota that teaches children to "take America back for Christ" The Best Foreign Language Film category included the following five nominees (the winner is listed first): The Lives of Others (Germany) (aka Das Leben der Anderen), a powerful emotional character study set five years before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, with an incisive look at the surveillance network of the terrifying secret police (Stasi) in East Berlin, following the story of one of its disillusioned secret police survelliance agents named Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) who was ordered to spy on a young couple: loyal

 Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his devoted actress/lover Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) - Note: This was the third Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for a German film - the other two were West Germany's The Tin Drum (1979) and Germany's Nowhere in Africa (2002) After The Wedding (Denmark) (aka Efter Brylluppet), an emotional drama about shattered revelations regarding family relationships Days of Glory (Algeria) (aka Indigenes), a WWII war film about Algerian soldiers in North Africa who enlist in the French army to fight against the Nazi oppression in Morocco the heavily-favored Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico) (aka El Laberinto del Fauno), a magical and engrossing film set in 1944 rural Spain during Franco's regime, about young Ofelia's (Ivana Baquero) imaginary escapist world to seek refuge Water (2005, Canada), director Deepa Mehta's compelling socio-political period drama about the unjust treatment of Hindu widows (some very young girls) in the late 1930s, with great un-nominated performances by female cast members (

Seema Biswas, Lisa Ray, and Sarala) Three of Dreamgirls' eight nominations were for Best Original Song - this tied the record that was set by Beauty and the Beast (1991) (with one win) and The Lion King (1994) (with one win) - however, its overwhelming odds to win in the category were upset by the documentary An Inconvenient Truth's Best Original Song Oscar win for "I Need to Wake Up".

The Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar went to 78 year-old famed Italian composer Ennio Morricone, best known for scoring Sergio Leone's films - in particular the spaghetti western "Man With No Name" trilogy including: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). Other Leone films he scored included Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), A Fistful of Dynamite (1971), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). He had five unsuccessful Academy Award nominations for Days of Heaven (1978) , The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Malena (2000). Oscar Snubs and Omissions: Some of the most critically acclaimed films of the year and their directors went unhonored for Best Picture. The most shocking Best Picture omission was for Dreamgirls, which earned 8 Oscar nominations, considering its previous win as the Best Musical or Comedy for the Golden Globes awards.

Un-nominated director Bill Condon's film was a lavish and vibrant screen adaptation of Michael Bennett's popular Broadway musical about a trio of soul singers The Dreams, in a thinly veiled roman a clef of the real Motown singing group The Supremes. [Note: Dreamgirls received eight Oscar nominations, the most of any nominee, without a Best Picture nomination, and came away with only two wins: Best Supporting Actress, and Best Sound Mixing. Only They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) had more Oscar nominations (9) without a Best Picture nomination, but it didn't have the most Oscar nominations in its year of competition. In the same year, Anne of a Thousand Days (1969) had more nominations (10), but it was nominated for Best Picture. Therefore, Dreamgirls with 8 nominations set a major record - it was the first-time ever in Academy history that the film with the most nominations failed to earn a Best Picture slot.] Pan's Labyrinth earned 6 nominations and 3 Oscars (Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup) and Blood Diamond earned 5 nominations (with no wins) - both without a Best Picture nomination.

Other major Best Director/Best Picture omissions included: Guillermo del Toro for Pan's Labyrinth (with six nominations including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay, but not Best Visual Effects!), a wondrously imaginative World War II era fantasy film set in Spain Richard Eyre for Notes on a Scandal (with four nominations including Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, and no wins), a sexual thriller based in a London-area working-class high school some dubbed "Fatal Attraction for the art-house crowd" Todd Field for Little Children (with three nominations and no wins, including Best Screenplay Adaptation and Best Actress), a drama about American suburbia Mel Gibson for Apocalypto (with three technical nominations and no wins), an ultra-violent adventure film set in the last days of the Mayan Empire the blockbuster action film Casino Royale (with no nominations) with Daniel Craig's scintillating performance as the newly-reinvented 007 James Bond director Alfonso Cuaron's bleak, futuristic and dystopic drama Children of Men (with three nominations including Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay - and no wins) was set in the year 2027 Clint Eastwood for his other WWII film, Flag

 of Our Fathers (with two technical nominations and no wins) about the bloody Battle of Iwo Jima and three of the soldiers who hoisted the flag in the famous photograph - the first part of Eastwood's "Iwo Jima Diptych" [Trivia: Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima competed against each other in one category: Best Sound Editing, which the latter film won] Robert De Niro's second career directorial stint for The Good Shepherd (one nomination for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration), a methodical and somber, intriguing, almost three-hour character-based historical drama that examined the formation of the CIA (based in part on the real-life experiences of the organization's enigmatic founder James J.

Angleton) through a look at the decades-long involvement of top CIA agent Edward Bell Wilson (Matt Damon) Roger Michell for Venus (one nomination for Best Actor), a tearjerker/character study about a 72 year-old dying, has-been actor who fell in love with a 19 year-old aspiring model David Lynch for Inland Empire (with no nominations), a mindbender about an actress for whom reality and fiction begin to blend while working on a new film James McTeigue for V for Vendetta (with no nominations), a comic book fantasy about a masked vigilante's quest to topple a fascist British government Other worthy Best Picture nominees included Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Casino Royale, Overlord, Half Nelson, The Proposition, Infamous, Stranger Than Fiction, and The History Boys.

The biggest un-nominated acting roles included: Sacha Baron Cohen's lead performance in the mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (its sole nomination for Best Original Screenplay) as Kazakhstani television reporter Borat Sagdiyev Gretchen Mol's uncanny portrayal of real-life S&M pinup queen Bettie Page, and Lili Taylor's supporting role as intelligent, sharp-witted photographer Paula Klaw in The Notorious Bettie Page (no nominations) Ulrich Mühe as sympathetic "guardian angel" secret police Stasi survelliance agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (aka HGW XX/7) in director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature The Lives of Others, the winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film Maggie Gyllenhaal as self-absorbed, recovering junkie/ex-con Sherry Swanson eager to establish a relationship with her young daughter in Sherrybaby Naomi Watts as restless, upper-class British society girl Kitty, opposite producer/star Edward Norton as middle-class British bacteriologist Dr.

Walter Fane -- a mis-matched couple in disease-plagued, mid-1920s China in The Painted Veil, a love story based on a novel by W.

Somerset Maugham Jack Nicholson for his supporting role as the quiet, intense villain Frank Costello, Leonardo DiCaprio as deep undercover cop Billy Costigan who infiltrated an Irish crime family, and Matt Damon's lead role as Mob police plant Colin Sullivan, in Martin Scorsese's The Departed Ken Watanabe's brilliant performance in a lead role as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, and Japanese pop-star Kazunari Ninomiya as common soldier Saigo, in Letters From Iwo Jima Michael Sheen's portrayal of shrewd and charismatic British Prime Minister Tony Blair in The Queen Jodie Whittaker as Jessie - the 19 year-old fresh-faced object of lust for Peter O'Toole's charming Maurice, Leslie Phillips as Maurice's crotchety best friend and Jessie's grand-uncle Ian, and Vanessa Redgrave as Maurice's bemused, observant estranged wife Valerie, in Venus Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock for their portrayals of Truman Capote and Nelle Harper Lee in Infamous (no nominations), the roles for which Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener both earned nominations the previous year for Capote (2005), with Hoffman victorious Robert Downey, Jr.'s paranoid hip

ster Barris in the rotoscoped animated film A Scanner Darkly (no nominations) Catherine O'Hara as Oscar-obsessed, desperate actress Marilyn Hack in Christopher Guest's mockumentary comedy For Your Consideration (no nominations) Annette Bening as Augusten Burroughs' psychotic mother Deirdre in Running with Scissors Jamie Foxx as conniving, Machiavellian manager Curtis Taylor, Jr.

(based on real-life music producer Berry Gordy) of the Dreams, Beyonce Knowles as backup singer-turned-disco diva Deena Jones (based on real-life disco queen Diana Ross), and Anika Noni Rose as mousy, squeaky-voiced backup singer Lorrell (based on real-life singer Mary Wilson) in Dreamgirls Richard Griffith's lead role as older, tenured teacher Hector in director Nicholas Hytner's adaptation of Alan Bennett's popular play The History Boys (no nominations) Aaron Eckhart, snubbed years before for his role in In the Company of Men (1997), for his role as slimy Big Tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor in debut director/scriptwriter Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking (no nominations) Renee Zellweger as real-life off-beat modernist and The Tale of Peter Rabbit children's book English author Beatrix Potter in Miss Potter (no nominations) Kevin Spacey's campy role as villain Lex Luthor in Superman Returns Sylvester Stallone for his sixth portrayal of lower-class now-sexagenarian boxer Rocky Balboa in Rocky Balboa (no nominations) Bill Nighy for two roles: (1) as the supernatural, octopus-headed Davy Jones

 in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest , and (2) as older husband Richard Hart whose bohemian wife/art teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) was engaged in an affair with a sexually-aggressive teenaged 'male Lolita' student (Andrew Simpson) in Notes on a Scandal Keira Knightley's reprised role as a more sexually mature and aggressive Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Other notable acting snubs included: Laura Dern as actress Nikki Grace whose life seemed to confusingly merge and intersect with her character in her starring role (as Susan Blue) in a new movie, in David Lynch's Hollywood satire Inland Empire Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci's supporting roles in The Devil Wears Prada Will Farrell as hyper-neurotic IRS auditor Harold Crick - the lead fictional character of blocked author Kay Eiffel's (Emma Thompson) book in Stranger Than Fiction (no nominations) - the film was also overlooked for Zach Helm's clever original screenplay 12 year-old Ivana Baquero as Ofelia, a girl who escaped the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in northern Spain by traveling into her own imaginary world in Pan's Labyrinth Brad Pitt's lead as Richard -

 the husband of a random-shooting victim, and Gael Garcia Bernal's supporting role as Santiago in Babel Ben Affleck as Superman star George Reeves in Hollywoodland Shareeka Epps (in her feature debut) as inner-city 8th-grader Drey in Half Nelson Toni Collette as the harried mother Sheryl and Steve Carell as suicidal uncle Frank in Little Miss Sunshine Juliette Binoche as poor Bosnian seamstress refugee Amira, mother of a 15 year-old truant/thief in Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering Adam Beach as alcoholic Marine serviceman Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers There were some major omissions among the Best Song nominations - - including Chris Cornell's hard-driven song "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale, and songs from two animated films: Prince's "Song of the Heart" in Happy Feet, and any of Ben Folds' original, insightful songs, including "Family of Me" and "Still" in Over the Hedge.

Documentary Film omissions included: writer Dave Chappelle's and director Michel Gondry's Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2005) (released in March, 2006), a chronicling of a block party held in comedian Chappelle's Bedford-Stuyvesant hometown neighborhood in Brooklyn in September, 2004 - a warm, exuberant celebration of community for friends and fans during a musical concert avant-garde film pioneer Pat O'Neill's experimental The Decay of Fiction (2002), a documentary about the famed Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (where Robert Kennedy was assassinated, the Academy Awards have been held, and numerous films have been made), using double exposure to overlay color shots within the hotel with B/W footage of actors enacting vignettes from 1940s films The biggest Foreign Language Film omission was the domestic crisis drama Volver (Sp.) - it had been considered a possible front-runner for the Foreign Language Film prize. It was also not nominated for Best Director (Pedro Almodovar).

Other notable Foreign Language Film omissions included: director/writer Michel Gondry's second film (after his Oscar-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), the romantic fantasy The Science of Sleep (Sp.) (aka La Science des Rêves) with a combination of animation and live action - it delved into dreams, consciousness and imagination, and starred Gael García Bernal as an introverted eccentric artist/inventor director/writer Yüksel Aksu's comedy Dondurmam Gaymak (Turkey) (aka Ice Cream, I Scream), about an obnoxious small-town ice cream vendor Ali (Turan Ozdemir) [Note: It would have been better if Turkey had instead selected writer/director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's domestic melodrama Climates (aka Iklimler), which told about the strained marriage between a self-absorbed university professor (director Ceylan) and his younger, infantile wife Bahar (real-life wife Ebru Ceylan)] gay director João Pedro Rodrigues' overwrought, tearjerking romantic tragedy Odete (2005, Port.) (aka Two Drifters) Carlos Reygadas' sexually explicit drama Battle in Heaven (2005,

 Mex.) (aka Batalla en El Cielo) - although it was ineligible for nomination, due to the Academy's rule of one-film-per-country (Pan's Labyrinth took the country's one spot) The biggest Animated Feature Film snub of the year was DreamWorks/PDI's CGI-animated Over the Hedge, a clever adaptation of the newspaper comic strip about con-artist raccoon R.

J. (voice of Bruce Willis) who tricks a group of forest animals led by cautious turtle Verne (voice of Garry Shandling) into stealing food from a suburb. Other notable Animated Feature Film omissions included: DreamWorks/Aardman Studio's first CGI-animated film Flushed Away, about the adventures of stuffy, upper-class pet rat Roddy (voice of Hugh Jackman) trapped in the London sewers 20th Century Fox's sequel Ice Age: The Meltdown, a downbeat parable for the modern danger of global warming Richard Linklater's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story titled A Scanner Darkly, using the same rotoscoped computer animation used for Linklater's own Waking Life (2001) Animation in Australia | australia.gov.au Animation in Australia Animation in Australia George Miller at the Happy Feet 2 premier in Sydney, November 2011. Courtesy of the artist. Animated films allow audiences to go beyond the realistic world to an out-of-world experience based on sound and visual art forms. Animation has unique strengths in exploring metaphors and creating larger than life characters.

In Australia, this has led to animation being popular with political cartoonists and comedy writers, as well as animators musing on personal relationships, the environment and the place of the individual in a world of thought and dreams. For nearly one hundred years, Australian animators have contributed to the world of animated film. Australian animation is internationally recognised across both short and also feature length animation films: Leisure (1976), Harvie Krumpet (2003) and The Lost Thing (2010) have all won Oscars for Best Animated Short Film. Happy Feet won the Best Animated Feature in 2006. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005), was the winner of the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Animation is a broad category that includes works made in a variety of methods and styles. Originally animation relied upon character design as well as drawing each movement frame by frame (needing 24 hand-drawn frames with incremental changes for a one second motion).

Today there are still character designers but animators generally employ digital processes that allows traditional techniques such as watercolour and oils to be applied using digital tools, texture mapping or a computer-generated graphic or 3D models, lighting effects, camera movements and other special effects and animation methods. The Australian film Leisure (1976) employs cell style animation whilst the first Australian animation to compete at Cannes Film Festival; Pleasure Domes (1987) reflects the strengths of animating from watercolours and pencil images on paper. Happy Feet features computer generated 3D animation. Adam Elliott’s Harvie Krumpet is made using the method of stop-motion claymation, as did his feature film, Mary and Max (2009), utilising custom software and digital technologies in combination with the world’s oldest film form. Animation in the Silent Era 1910s–1920s Pat Sullivan, Felix the Cat Cartoon Strips. Courtesy of the State Library of NSW: pxd946. Predecessors of animation have been popular since the 1800s. However it was during the silent era of cinema that animation truly captured the attention of audiences.

Newspaper cartoonist Harry Julius is recognised as Australia's first animator. He produced the Cartoons of the Moment series which commented on topical events and newsreels of the time (watch a clip from Cartoons of the Moment – The War Zoo, 1915). One of the most popular animated characters from the silent era was Felix the Cat. Felix cartoons were made in the United States, but were produced by the Australian Pat Sullivan. Felix and his surreal antics were wildly popular during the 1920s (watch the Felix cartoon All Balled Up). However with the introduction of sound to the cinema, the silent Felix's popularity fell and was overtaken by more vocal characters such as Disney's Mickey Mouse (follow the links to watch Mickey Mouse's first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie). Animation in the Sound Era 1940s–1950s Eric Porter Productions, Aeroplane Fruit Jellies Advertisement Bertie the Aeroplane, 1942. Courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive. In the sound era, animation production was dominated by Warner Bros and Disney studios. The expense and labour intensiveness of making animation meant that many more animations were imported into Australia than produced locally.

However there were some notable animators that persevered despite the difficulty. Eric Porter, an AFI award winner (PDF 30KB), produced many animated works during this period. His production company made a number of animated shorts not - unlike those of Warner Bros such as the theatrical cartoon Bimbo's Auto in 1954. He is also responsible for iconic Aeroplane Jelly Advertisements, including the 1942 Bertie the Aeroplane. Television animation 1950s–1970s Air Programs International, King Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table, 1972. Courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive. In the late 1950's television was introduced in Australia. It wasn't long before TV became the principal medium of animation. The new genre of 'Saturday Morning Cartoons' was dominated by the US production company Hanna Barbera. Australian animators contributed to various Hanna Barbera cartoons as the company had a production company in Sydney. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has long been a supporter of children's programming. This has included broadcasting and assisting to produce various animated programs.

ABC's Kindergarten Playtime (1959) was Australia's first children's education program and one of the first programs to feature animation. Continuing their pioneering role, the ABC screened the Australian stop motion animation, Wambidgee, in 1962. The black and white series followed the adventures of an Aboriginal boy and his tribe. Air Programs International was an Australian animation studio that had world-wide success with their animated series King Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table (1972). It was syndicated in the U.S. by Twentieth Century Fox and sold to 14 countries. Feature length animation 1970s–1980s Yoram Gross, Dot and the Kangaroo, 1977. Courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive. Walt Disney produced the first feature length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. In 1972 Eric Porter produced and directed Australia's first feature-length animated film, Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon. However, it wasn't until forty years after the release of Snow White that an Australian feature-length animated film was recognised on the world stage.

Yoram Gross produced the iconic Dot and the Kangaroo in 1977. The film used live action backgrounds of the Australian bush, with cell-style characters animated over the top. The film was hugely successful internationally and spawned a number of follow-up films such as Dot and the Koala (1985) and Dot and the Whale (1986). A vehicle for big picture thoughts – theatrical releases – 1970s–2001 Political cartoonists were early innovators in animation. exploring both political life and also social issues in short animated films, based initially on their cartoons as works on paper. Animating from drawings and paper to build metaphors that could explore music, romance, personal relationships and a sense of self in the landscape was a strength of animation captured by some award-winning women animators. Michael Leunig, How Democracy Actually Works, 2001. Peter Nicholson, a cartoonist, produced a regular series for the ABC and News Centre Nine during the 1970s using a 16mm Bolex camera and homemade animation stand.

His 1974 productions Fraser’s Leadership Challenge and Gough’s World Tour satirises Billy Snedden’s leadership claims on the assumption of Malcolm Fraser’s challenge and other political leaders: Gough Whitlam, Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Bob Hawke. Nicholson went on to produce the popular animation Rubbery Figures (1987–88) series in the late 1980s. Leisure, produced in 1976 by Suzanne Baker using cartoons by Australian newspaper cartoonist Bruce Petty is a fast-paced, humorous and thought-provoking film. The film emphasises the use of leisure time as an important aspect of life in our society today. After its success at the Oscars as Best Animated Short Film , it went on to theatrical release with screenings at the Paramount Theatre in New York and many international Film Festivals A popular success at the box office, Pianoforte (1984) was described by its creator Antoinette Starkiewicz as ‘a fairytale about love’.

A lighthearted film utilising music and dance, the film tells the story of a young woman who is rescued from a sleazy cabaret by a mysterious cat burglar with whom she falls in love. Pianoforte, a 2D hand-drawn cel animation, also featured in Perspecta ’85 at the Art Gallery of NSW. In the first Australian animation to compete at Cannes Film Festival – Pleasure Domes (1987) – director Maggie Fooke utilises the strength of animation in abstraction and metaphor to look at the perception of landscape. Fookes’ water colour and pencil images cross-fade and blend with hand-coloured historical photographs creating ‘a fluid, shifting evocation of a St Kilda infused with thoughts of other times and places’. Tiga, 1987, animation directed by Lucinda Clutterbuck. Based on documentary footage shot in Hobart, Tasmania in the 1930s, Lucinda Clutterbuck’s film Tiga relies upon 2D animation using mixed media on cel and paper, utilising paint markers, a reprographic camera and rotoscoping (where photographs are traced by the animator and hand coloured).

An animated eulogy to the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger, Tiga won the Asia Pacific Award for Best Animation had a cinema release at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Some whimsical but thought provoking animations in the 1980s included The Maitland and Morpeth String Quartet (1989) a tale of music and romance, narrated by Ruth Cracknell and set amidst the Great Maitland Flood of 1955. Ada (2001) illustrates Lee Whitmore’s preference for making autobiographical films focusing on her childhood and family, using the traditional technique of drawing or painting on paper. Set in a domestic dining room in Sydney over a number of years in the mid-1950s, Ada portrays a young girl’s observation of her elderly grandmother’s nightly ritual of shelling peas. In the same year, Kathy Smith’s animated short film Indefinable Moods is a journey through a vividly coloured Australian landscape. A series of images – both abstract shapes and representational objects – appear and metamorphose.

Sarah Watt’s animation, Living with Happiness handles imagined and real disasters with a light touch – the mother (voiced by Sigrid Thornton) ridicules her own fears that happiness and life itself may be snatched away at any moment. Television animation 1980s–1990s Anthony Lawrence, Plasmo, 1997. Courtesy of December Media. Locally produced television animation was rare in Australia in the 1980s; production was dominated by the U.S. company Hanna Barbera. A notable exception to this is Kaboodle (1988–1989) a children's series that featured clips of both live action and animation and was screened by the ABC. In 1991, Australian company Roo films produced The Dinky Di's, a children's animated action series. The Dinky Di's rescued rare and endangered animals and birds from 'the planet's number one eco-enemy – Mephisto'. This was a prelude to the Blinky Bill productions.

In the 1980s and early 1990s Yoram Gross Film Studios (see above) continued to release animated feature films culminating with the film Blinky Bill in 1992. The studio based its first animated television series on the Blinky Bill film. The series was successful both in Australia and internationally. More than 50 half hour episodes were produced. (Watch clips from a Blinky Bill episode). Yoram Gross Film Studios has maintained its production of television series, which include titles such as Tabaluga (1997, 2001) and Flipper & Lopaka (1999, 2001). Many of the studio's animations share the environmental themes of Dot and the Kangaroo and maintain a cell style (rather than computer generated) appearance. (Watch clips from Tabaluga and Flipper & Lopaka).

The ABC screened a number of Yoram Gross animations as well as other animated series including The Dreaming (1995) a series of 78 short animations of Aboriginal dreamtime stories, the stop motion animation Plasmo (1997) about a shape shifting alien, and Li'l Elvis and the Truckstoppers (1997) about a young reincarnation of Elvis in the outback. Animation in the Digital Era 2000– Digital technology has had a huge influence on how animation is produced and how it looks. The technology has made animation production less labour and resource intensive. It's unsurprising then, that many Australian animators have adopted the method. It has also added a wow factor to other feature films contributing to their box-office success. The Australian film Babe, for example, is a combination of live and computer animated effects, and it became a huge hit worldwide as a film about survival – of a talking pig in a live action film. Television Blue Rocket Productions, Hoota and Snoz, 2000. Courtesy of ABC Kids. Hoota and Snoz (2000) is arguably Australia's first totally computer generated animated series.

The episodes are shorts (rather than half hour episodes) and feature two characters that constantly compete, with the yellow character, Snoz, coming out best. The Tasmanian based company, Blue Rocket, produced Hoota and Snoz and in partnership with the ABC their series Dog and Cat News (2002) was broadcast on television and is available online. In 2006 Rocket Productions developed a 26-part animated series based on the character Pixel Pinkie about a digital being named Pixel Pinkie who lives inside Nina’s new mobile phone. Series One (2007) and Series Two (2009) were produced in conjunction with Channel Nine, Film Tasmania, Film Finance Corporation and Daro Film Corporation. The first half hour length computer generated series produced in Australia was The Shapies in 2003. The series follows the adventures of The Shapies, a rock band whose members each resemble a different geometric shape. The episodes feature musical numbers performed by the fictional band. Flying Bark Productions, Enyo. Image courtesy of Flying Bark Productions. A number of Australian series combine live action and digital animation including Crash Zone (1998) and Noah and Saskia (2004).

In 2006, Flying Bark Productions Pty Ltd was established as a joint venture with EM Entertainment, then with Belgian company Studio 100 in 2008, after being established by Yoram and Sandra Gross in 1968. Since their 1977 feature film, Dot and the Kangaroo they produced another 14 feature films before diversifying into making animated television shows. Zeke's Pad was the winner of the 2009 Alana award for Best Animation in a TV series, shown on Channel Seven. Zeke is a creative and talented artist who has an electronic drawing pad that is ‘totally – mysteriously – WIRED,,,,whatever Zeke draws comes to life. Flying Bark have also produced The Woodlies, Dive Olly Dive and the Legend of Enyo. Short film animation The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005, 26 minutes), an Oscar nominee and winner of the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, uses a unique style of silhouette animation developed by Anthony Lucas, the film's director.

Skilfully combining 2D and 3D animation techniques, the film conveys an imaginary world containing both Victorian and futuristic elements whilst its compelling story recalls the nineteenth century adventure tales of Jules Verne and Edgar Allen Poe. Marian Quigley, Curator's notes, Screen Australia Shaun Tan, The Lost Thing. In 2009-10, Australian Shaun Tan created The Lost Thing, a 15-minute computer generated and hand painted short movie which began as a picture book. The story is set in Melbourne and is about a boy who, while collecting bottle caps near a beach, discovers a strange creature that seems to be a combination of an industrial boiler, a crab and an octopus. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2010. Tan was involved in the project as a director, writer, designer and artist, working with a core team of four other creators in a Melbourne-based studio to develop the layers of images and sound required for animation.

The vast majority of time has been invested in the careful building, texturing and lighting of digital elements to create a unique aesthetic that avoids the artificiality of CG objects; almost every surface is essentially hand-painted using non-digital materials: acrylic paint, pencil, oils and collage. Shaun Tan, The Lost Thing Feature film animation Live action films have long used computer generated animation for special effects. However, Pixar's Toy Story, released in 1995, was the first fully computer generated feature length film. Another later Pixar film, Finding Nemo (2003), featured Australian voices and locations such as Sydney Harbour and the Great Barrier Reef. However it was not until Happy Feet (2006) that an Australian (co)produced feature-length digital animation attracted international acclaim. Happy Feet is a technical achievement. It is highly detailed visually, some shots contain thousands of independently animated penguins. The film used motion capture technology to record the movements of dancers and directly translated them into the movements of the animated penguins. Adam Elliot, Mary and Max, 2009.

$9.99 (2008) is a feature length stop motion animation 'which offers slightly less than $10 worth about the meaning of life'. Harvie Krumpet director Adam Elliot has a feature length claymation entitled Mary & Max (2009), black comedy-drama film about a lonely eight year old girl Mary, living in the suburbs of Melbourne who corresponds at random with Max, an overweight depressive in his 40's living in New York, suffering from Aspergers Syndrome. A friendship is born as the pair exchange letters over the next 20 years, offering each other support, advice and the chance to see life through another set of eyes. While the world is painted in gloomy hues of brown and grey and the characters lead bleak lives, the genius of the script is that the characters never wallow or feel sorry for themselves. The tone is kept humorous and balanced allowing us to be moved by the characters as they stumble through life but also laugh at their foibles and observations of the world they struggle to fit into. IMDb, Mary and Max, review Do-it-yourself digital animation The Zimmer Twins, 2007. Courtesy of Lost the Plot and ABC Kids.

The advance of digital technology has led to an explosion of animation production. There many easily accessible programs available and the internet provides an ideal means of sharing the animation works. Flash is a popular and easily accessible program that can be used to create animation. (Watch flash Australian animations by Peter Nicholson of The Australian newspaper and flash animations by the Australia/New Zealand web production company Nectarine. There are even easier ways to create your own animations. For example Lost the Plot in association with ABC's Rollercoaster encourages children to make their own animation online at the Zimmer Twins website. Future of animation in Australia Australia can expect many new locally developed animated works on television, computer and cinema screens. There are also countless new animated works available to watch online. Animation industry representation Since 2004, the Screen Producers Association of Australia has promoted its Animation & New Media Division. In 2008 a group under the banner of the Australian Directors' Guild called for formal representation of animators within Screen Australia. One of the primary aims of the group is to see an animation project officer appointed by Screen Australia.

Other aims include redefining the role of the producer in animation, increasing the number of screens and other viewing platforms for Australian animation and increasing recognition of the role of animation in all film genres. Today Screen Australia supports the production of short animation as a means of career progression for leading emerging animation talent, with particular emphasis on the director with short animation production funding available for production teams, as part of its talent escalator program. The international animation festival (MIAF ) at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, was the centre of the international animation universe in June 2012. Australian entries ranged over recent graduate showcases to artist Lee Whitmore’s animation – drawing on her body of short personal works based on original works in pastel – and script writer Tristian Taylor’s work, who wrote the script (and contributed one of the voices) for Flamingo Pride, a German film in competition at MIAF Useful links Will the Academy Deny Spielberg an Animated Film Oscar for 'Tintin'? Search Will the Academy Deny Spielberg an Animated Film Oscar for ‘Tintin’?

Motion-capture technology is causing confusion in the animated film category and causing actors to overlook great performances Steve Pond | October 6, 2011 @ 3:02 PM Should a film made using the motion-capture technique qualify as an animated movie at the Oscars, or is it something else? Does the answer to that last question change if Steven Spielberg is the guy making the movie? Those are two of the questions facing the Academy at a time when the expanding use of performance capture has the potential to wreak havoc in the Best Animated Feature category. And it's also confusing the acting category, where voters have to figure out if a performance can be awards-worthy even if the actor's face is never seen onscreen. "I think there still needs to be a lot of education, because there's still a reasonable amount of fear," said actor Andy Serkis , who's delivered several of the most compelling performance-capture performances and who appears in two of the films in the thick of this year's discussion, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "The Adventures of Tintin." Also read: Andy Serkis : Can't a Guy With an Ape's Face Get Some Oscar Respect?

The performance-capture process, in which a performer's movements and facial expressions are recorded and then translated by computer into the movements and expression of an onscreen character, has been used to great effect in the "Lord of the Rings" films, in "Avatar," and more recently in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." It has also given rise to a whole genre of films that skirt a middle ground between live-action and animation, from Robert Zemeckis 's "The Polar Express" and "A Christmas Carol" to the Oscar-winning "Happy Feet." The Short Films and Feature Animation Branch has been grappling for years with the question of whether films based in motion capture are truly animated. In 2010 the branch added specific language covering motion capture to its rules for qualifying for the Best Animated Feature Oscar.

The rules point out that motion capture "by itself is not an animation technique" and stipulate that "a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time," requiring that "movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique." Three films that could potentially qualify this year are affected by this rule: Simon Wells's March release "Mars Needs Moms," George Miller 's upcoming "Happy Feet Two" and Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin." The makers of all three films have been asked by the branch to supply explanations of their intent. The studios behind "Tintin" and "Happy Feet," meanwhile, are adamant that those films are animated and should be in contention for the award. (Jon Bloom, a governor in the short films and feature animation branch, declined to comment any further on the process to TheWrap.) The consensus among those who closely watch the animation category is that the branch will either rule that all three films qualify or that all three don't – and virtually everyone TheWrap spoke to is expecting them to qualify.

One reason: "Happy Feet Two" is the sequel to a 2006 film that won the Oscar for Animated Feature; to say that it isn't animated would be to cast retroactive doubt on a previous winner. (Not that the the use of motion capture in "Happy Feet" wasn't noticed: Pixar's Oscar-winning "Ratatoulie" took a sly shot at Miller's movie in end credits that read, "100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film.”) "Tintin," meanwhile, comes from one of the most powerful directors in Hollywood — someone the committee could be disinclined to cross. "Spielberg is going to say what he needs to say – and my question is, who on that committee is going to call him a liar if they don't believe him?" asked one animation insider. The third motion-capture film, "Mars Needs Moms," is a tricker (but perhaps more inconsequential) case. Zemeckis, its producer, has made a string of films using the technology but in the past has sometimes resisted entering his films in the Animated Feature race.

"To call performance capture animation is a disservice to the great animators," Zemeckis said in 2007, before his motion-capture version of "Beowulf" was originally ruled ineligible by the Academy. But AMPAS later changed its mind about "Beowulf" (which wasn't nominated), and Zemeckis has allowed his films to be entered in the category. Still, "Mars Needs Moms" was such a commercial and critical flop that it'll likely serve only to pad out the category, without any real chance of landing a nomination. Andy Serkis as Caesar” src=”” style=”width: 330px; height: 206px; margin: 15px; float: right;” title=”” />Padding out the category could prove to be crucial: if the three performance-capture films are deemed eligible, that appears to bring the number of competing films to 15. One more entrant is all that'd be needed to bump the number of nominees in the category from four to five. On the acting side, the problem isn't eligility, it's that actors are typically disinclined to view performance capture as being worthy of nominationt.

hat "You don’t physically appear on screen as yourself, and I guess some actors would probably object to that," Serkis, who portrayed the ape Caesar in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (above), told TheWrap in August. "Because they feel that their greatest tool is their face, and that's that." In fact, he added, performance-capture acting is "incredibly subtle and very pure" – and no more diluted by outside factors than any other kind of acting. "Every single actor's onscreen performance is enhanced to some degree by what you wear, by the makeup team that works on your face, by the shot size, by the way the director moves the camera around what you're doing. There is not a single actor's performance onscreen that is not enhanced by other things." James Cameron made some of the same points two years ago when "Avatar" came out, insisting that the actor who played the alien Na'vi characters were not animated, and that the actors deserved full consideration for acting awards. None were nominated – and, indeed, no actor in a performance-capture film has ever been nominated by the Academy. "I'd like to think it could happen," said Serkis.

"I'd like to think it could be understood as being no more than acting. I don't think there should be any kind of special category or anything. The visual effects side of it is the visual side of it, and the performance is acting. "And if some directors want to enhance or slightly animate, that's moving into something else." In other words, this is a world in which fine lines are everywhere: the lines between acting, enhancement and animation, between a motion-capture film and an animated one. Good luck, Academy. Happy Feet - WarnerBros.com - Movies Happy Feet Original Theatrical Date: November 17, 2006 OSCAR WINNER: Best Animated Feature In the great nation of Emperor Penguins, deep in Antarctica, you're nobody unless you can sing - which is unfortunate for Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), who is the worst singer in the world. He is born dancing to his own tune...tap dancing. As fate would have it, his one friend, Gloria (Brittany Murphy), happens to be the best singer around. Mumble and Gloria have a connection from the moment they hatch, but she struggles with his strange "hippity- hoppity" ways.

Away from home for the first time, Mumble meets a posse of decidedly un-Emperor-like penguins—the Adelie Amigos. Led by Ramon (Robin Williams), the Adelies instantly embrace Mumble's cool dance moves and invite him to party with them. In Adelie Land, Mumble seeks the counsel of Lovelace the Guru (also voiced by Williams), a crazy-feathered Rockhopper penguin who will answer any of life's questions for the price of a pebble. Together with Lovelace and the Amigos, Mumble sets out across vast landscapes and, after some epic encounters, proves that by being true to yourself, you can make all the difference in the world. Genre: ComedyAnimation

Question: In which film, winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar for 2006, are all the central characters penguins?
Answer: Happy Feet