Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
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29 KEYFRAME F E AT U R E ING OSCAR What will it take for an animated film to win the Best Picture prize? THERE'S AN ICONIC MOMENT IN ACADEMY AWARDS CEREMONY HISTORY THAT IS NOT ABOUT THE PRESENTATION OF AN OSCAR —IT'S ABOUT THE PRESENTATION OF EIGHT OF THEM. By Whitney Friedlander Actress Shirley Temple presents Walt Disney with a special Oscar honoring Snow White. In the late 1930s, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences was perplexed with what to do with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. There was certainly no arguing that the 1937 Walt Disney Productions feature was a mastery of animation. But should it be judged by the same standards as its live-action contemporaries? Once more, Disney had mastered how to make animated films that were both box office successes and awards staples, as evident by his sweeping the Best Short Subjects, Cartoons category. Did a chance at a Best Picture Oscar win give him carte blanche to add another award to his ever-growing legacy? So it came to be that in 1939 — a year after Snow White received a nomination for Best Musical Score — AMPAS awarded Walt with an honorary Oscar at the 11th Academy Awards, making a big to-do with then-10-year-old Shirley Temple presenting one award surrounded by seven tiny golden men. This performance, while adorable, most likely prophesized what are now at least two pivotal facts about Oscars history: While Disney's studio still has unbeatable brand recognition, it's also the only one of the old Hollywood guard never to win a Best Picture Oscar. And — more importantly — an animated feature has yet to win that category. "Up until the late 1990s, the problem was the American feature animation market was very spotty," says Tom Sito, a member of the Academy's Board of Governors and former president of The Animation Guild. "It was generally the Disney product and the one other." That isn't to say animated films haven't put up some excellent contenders, with a few breaking through to the Best Picture category. Disney's Beauty and the Beast made history when it became the first animated film to crack the category during the 1992 Oscar ceremony, an event that Gary Trousdale, the film's co-director, says still shocked him despite it having its premiere at the prestigious New York Film WINTER 2018 29