Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1343869
20 KEYFRAME LOOKING BACK ON THE ANNIE AWARDS OVERALLS AND UH OH Gladstone's first recollection is his own, from before he was even an ASIFA member. He'd just arrived in California in the mid-1990s to do work with Warner Bros. "I was underneath the sink fixing something," he says, "and my wife said, 'Don't you have that Annies thing?' 'Oh yeah,' I said, 'I gotta go.' I had grease on my shirt and I was wearing overalls. I quickly changed my t-shirt. "[The ceremony] was at the Pasadena Civic, which has something like 3,000 seats, but the Annies themselves back then were very small. Maybe 400 people in the corner of the auditorium. The rest of the place was empty. I was late because I'd forgotten about it. So I get there in my overalls and go in. I didn't have to have a ticket or anything. And I look down and see this group rows and rows in front of me. They're wearing tuxedos and fancy clothes. I think, uh oh, and sit in the back where nobody can see me. When the ceremony was over and everybody was getting up, I just scrammed out of there." NO AWARDS CEREMONY IS WITHOUT ITS STORIES, AND FRANK GLADSTONE— EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD, THE ORIGINATOR AND ORGANIZATION BEHIND THE ANNIE AWARDS—HAS PLENTY. THERE HAVE BEEN AT LEAST TWO STATUE DROPS, A BACKSTAGE FIRE STOMPED OUT BY AN AWARD WINNER, AND LOTS OF TEARS. HERE HE SHARES A FEW MEMORABLE ANECDOTES. Frank Gladstone Photo courtesy of ASIFA-Hollywood. Photo credit: Joel Hindman. 20 KEYFRAME D I A L O G U E