Monday, February 12, 2007

Cars drove home the big prize last night, from the 34th Annual Annie Awards. The animation industry’s highest honor, ASIFA-Hollywood’s Annies recognise contributions to animation, writing, directing, storyboarding, voice acting, composing, and much more.

As mentioned, Pixar took home the big prize last night, after facing stiff competition from four other Happy Feet, Monster House, Open Season, and Over the Hedge.

But the biggest winner of the night didn’t get a “Best Animated Feature” nod at all. Flushed Away won five feature animation categories including Animated Effects (Scott Cegielski), Character Animation (Gabe Hordos), Production Design (Pierre-Olivier Vincent), Voice Acting (Sir Ian McKellan as Toad), Writing (Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and Will Davies).

Over The Hedge won awards for Directing (Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick), Storyboarding (Gary Graham), and Character Design (Nicolas Marlet).

Of little surprise, Randy Newman won an Annie for Cars in the “Music in an Animated Feature Production” category. Newman has won many Oscars for his movie music, and has a nomination this year for the song “Our Town“. Newman didn’t attend the Annies, instead picking up a Grammy for “Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media”.

DisneyToon Studios’ Bambi II won “Best Home Entertainment Production”, while “Best Animated Short Subject” went to Blue Sky Studios’ No Time For Nuts, which is based on Ice Age.

“Best Animated Video Game” went to Flushed Away The Game, while a United Airlines ad named “Dragon” won a “Best Animated Television Commercial” Annie for DUCK Studios.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Rhode Island will receive US$90 million in funding from the United States federal government to support unemployment benefits in the state.

Rhode Island’s Department of Labor and Training stated on Wednesday that it requested the line of credit because the account utilized to provide funding to unemployed individuals in the state had decreased to only $2 million; enough to last only a few days.

In a statement released by the Department, the agency said: “Unemployment insurance customers will not experience any delays in receiving their weekly payments.”

Unemployment in Rhode Island was 12.8 percent in August 2009 – the third-highest rate in the United States. During the first eight months of 2009, Rhode Island’s state unemployment insurance trust fund has provided over $300 million in unemployment benefit funding.

In addition to Rhode Island, 20 other states have outstanding balances on money they borrowed from the Federal Unemployment Account of the United States Department of Labor. Rhode Island has an outstanding balance of approximately $90.68 million due to the account. The loans are interest-free until December 2010.