The 41st Annual Annie Awards

Last night ASIFA-Hollywood hosted the 41st Annual Annie Awards at UCLA's Royce Hall. I had the honor to attend supporting our PIXAR team and my husband, Jon Reisch who supervised the Annie Award nominated Monsters University FX Team! The night was full of laughs, heartfelt acceptance speeches, and the honor of seeing women in animation on stage to accept the student film aard as well as the two top awards of the night!

 Here's a recap of the night's events: 

Patrick Wharburton (a.k.a. The Tick) kicked off the night as our deep-voiced comedic host.


Chloris Leachman quickly stole the show however kissing the winners and smoothing down their hair to make sure they were camera perfect.

The very first winner of the night was for Best Student Film. An extremely excited Viola Baier exclaimed "I lost my shoes!" when she reached the stage. Baier, a student at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg won for her piece Wedding Cake.

It was an honor to see the great June Foray present her namesake award to legendary costume designer Alice Estes Davis. Alice is famous for her work with Walt Disney, who employed her to develop costumes for films, television, and theme parks. Seeing these two iconic women on stage together was the highlight of the night.

The  Windsor McCay Award was presented to three iconic individuals, Steven Spielberg, Phil Tippett, and Katsuhiro Otomo. Otomo spoke first utilizing a translator to relay his funny and humble remarks. He said that he is used to working by himself behind his computer so to be addressing a room with so many people was terrifying and he couldn't wait for it to be over. He also expressed his surprise in receiving the award as he doesn't watch his films once created and he was surprised that others do. He said, he should go back and watch them.

Next up was the ridiculously talented and unique Phil Tippett. In his expected style he spoke off the cuff, relaying stories from the old days, holding nothing back. When the music started to play indicating his time was up he just waved his hand and said "oh, turn that thing off...I'm going to talk over it anyway..." And, they complied. Around ten minutes later he wrapped up sharing his advice to students to "Be subversive."

Finally, Steven Spielberg was recognized for his contributions to animation including Tin-tin, The Animaniacs,