73 People Invited To Join Academy’s Animation And VFX Branches

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out the Oscars, has invited 395 artists, filmmakers, and executives to join its organization.

Among the Academy’s branches, there are two related to Cartoon Brew’s areas of coverage: Short Films & Feature Animation and Visual Effects. This year, 39 were invited to the former and 34 to the latter. Last year, those numbers were 81 and 48.

The steep drop in invitations can be seen across all 17 branches: the Academy is only welcoming 395 new members this year, as opposed to 819 last year. This was done “[t]o enable steady future growth and to ensure the necessary infrastructure, staff resources, and environment to support all Academy members,” said the organization in a statement. The proportion of invitations going to animation and vfx people has actually gone up, from 15.8% to 18.5%.

The 2021 class across all branches is 46% women, 39% underrepresented ethnic/racial communities, and 53% international (from 49 countries outside of the U.S.). As in previous years, the animation and vfx intakes come up notably short in terms of women: only around a third of new animation members and roughly a fifth of new vfx members identify as female. We have written in the past about this problem, and how it might reflect broader structural issues in the animation and vfx industries.

On the other hand, animation and vfx were among the ten branches to have invited the majority of their candidates from countries outside the U.S.

Below are the full lists of people invited to join the Short Films & Feature Animation and Visual Effects branches. The former branch includes filmmakers involved in live-action shorts.

Short Films & Feature Animation

• Rita del Rosario Basulto – Eclosión, Rain in the Eyes
• Ossama Bawardi – The Present, Haneen
• Will Becher – A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, The Pirates! Band of Misfits
• Jerry Beck – Wicked City, Robot Carnival
• John Bryant – The Wild Thornberrys Movie, Rugrats in Paris
• Réka Bucsi – Solar Walk, Symphony No. 42
• Clara Chan – Over the Moon, Storks
• Peilin Chou – Over the Moon, Abominable
• Sharon Colman – The Croods, Badgered
• Anca Damian – Marona’s Fantastic Tale, Crulic – The Path to Beyond
• Philippe Denis – Trolls, Megamind
• Travon Free – Two Distant Strangers
• Andrew Gent – Isle of Dogs, Frankenweenie
• Michael Govier – If Anything Happens I Love You, Space for Rent
• Gísli Darri Halldórsson – Yes-People, Kókó the Killer Whale
• SungHo Hong – Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs, Sky Blue
• Joey Horvitz – Game, Friday Night
• Brenden Hubbard – The Helping Hand, Cul-de-Sac
• Jeanette Jeanenne – Departures, Trusts & Estates
• Sebastian Kapijimpanga – Over the Moon, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation
• Sara Koppel – Embraces & the Touch of Skin, Seriously Deadly Silence
• Christophe Lautrette – The Croods, Bee Movie
• Carolina Markowicz – The Orphan (O Órfão), Tatuapé Mahal Tower
• Will McCormack – If Anything Happens I Love You, Toy Story 4
• Adrien Mérigeau – Genius Loci, Song of the Sea
• François Morisset – Bonobo, Sin Cielo
• Dana Murray – Soul, Lou
• Farah Nabulsi – The Present, Nightmare of Gaza
• Erick Oh – Opera, The Dam Keeper
• Gennie Rim – Over the Moon, Dear Basketball
• Martin Desmond Roe – Two Distant Strangers, Buzkashi Boys
• Madeline Sharafian – Burrow, Onward
• Tomer Shushan – White Eye, Inside Shells
• Lisa Stewart – Turbo, Monsters vs Aliens
• Ross Stewart – Wolfwalkers, The Secret of Kells
• Erez Tadmor – Sirens, Dear God
• Charles Williams – All These Creatures, Home
• Nate Wragg – The Croods: A New Age, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
• Carlos Zaragoza – The Emoji Movie, Gnomeo & Juliet

Visual Effects

• Lance Baetkey – Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War
• Peta Bayley – Dolittle, Shazam!
• Dennis Berardi – Shazam!, The Shape of Water
• Daniele Bigi – Aladdin, Ready Player One
• Axel Bonami – Artemis Fowl, Godzilla
• Genevieve Camilleri – Love and Monsters, Velvet Buzzsaw
• Raymond Chen – Alita: Battle Angel, The Meg
• Yeenshi Chen – Over the Moon, Life of Pi
• Santiago Colomo Martinez – The One and Only Ivan, The Jungle Book
• Michael Joseph Conte – Terminator Genisys, Elysium
• Michael Cozens – Alita: Battle Angel, Pete’s Dragon
• Ferran Domenech – Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Alien: Covenant
• Benoit Dubuc – Missing Link, X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Scott Edelstein – Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War
• Matt Everitt – Love and Monsters, Skyscraper
• Pawl Fulker – Dolittle, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
• John Haley – Hellboy, The Amazing Spider-Man 2
• Sherry Lynn Hitch – Mank, The Irishman
• Nick Hsieh – Monster Hunt, Looper
• Chia-Chi Hu – Soul, Incredibles 2
• Steve Ingram – Mulan, Pete’s Dragon
• Ben Jones – The One and Only Ivan, The Lion King
• Shannon Justison – Spider-Man: Far from Home, Captain Marvel
• Matthew Kasmir – The Midnight Sky, Paddington
• Michael Kennedy – The Jungle Book, Prometheus
• Ryan Laney – Welcome to Chechnya, Ant-Man
• David Lee – Tenet, John Carter
• May Leung – Bohemian Rhapsody, Star Trek Beyond
• Viktor Muller – Voyagers, Gemini Man
• Max Solomon – The Midnight Sky, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
• Sheldon Stopsack – Gemini Man, Terminator: Dark Fate
• Damien Stumpf – Cruella, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
• Stephen Unterfranz – Shadow in the Cloud, Rampage
• David Watkins – The Midnight Sky, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them