What a shame, as it is, in my opinion, Hertzfeldt’s best film. Sharp, poignant, dark, truthful, and FUNNY. Way to go Don! If it only gets one vote, it’s from me.

Brilliant.

Perhaps his next film title will be, “Hanging Chad”.

So THAT’S why “Everything Will Be OK” so abruptly ended in the version I viewed during my online Annie Award voting. It’s a pity this horrendous screwup had to affect the chances of any entry, let alone one so refreshingly unique in its humor and world view.

As a member of the Board of Directors of Asifa-Hollywood, I too am disappointed with this one-time unfortunate glitch in our online voting process. You can be assured it won’t happen again.

We do state that “voting members must view all of the films before voting for a winner” and we try our best to provide an opportunity for our members to see all the films. In fairness, it should also be noted that Asifa members had at least one (and possibly several) opportunities to screen Hertzfeldt’s short at free, open-to-the-public, local screenings.

I’m personally very proud of Asifa-Hollywood’s choice of short film nominees this year. These were five films virtually ignored (or unable to qualify) for Oscar consideration. Friday night we will celebrate these films and filmmakers at the Annie Awards ceremony - and that’s what our award and organization is all about.

It should be noted that the current procedure, even though it had a huge glitch this year, is a big step forward for the legitimacy of the Annies. In the past, ASIFA members generally had no way to see the nominated work in most categories, and yet were free to vote anyway. The voting in many categories seemed to come down to a name-recognition contest.

Amid…great story and thank you to the ASIFA member that brought this to your attention. I can 100% promise to all your readers that the DVD of “Everything will be OK” that was sent to them by me was not defective in anyway because I was in full contact with their technical team and was told that is was a gross error on their part - nothing at all to do with the DVD. Not sure who else or what other “parties” could be blamed for this situation - “While one could argue that many parties could be blamed for this situation” - but at least full responsibility was taken for this negligent and unfortunate series of events. I hope this raises a red flag and assures that in the future all Annie Award films - shorts and features - are judged fairly.

I saw this film at Sundance 2007 where it won the Grand Jury prize for short films. It’s such a shame that Don’s brilliant film, probably his best work to date, was not treated fairly by the very organization that is supposed to stand up for the little guy of animation.

I too have dealt with the technical team of ASIFA in the past and have found them to be unreliable. Hopefully all of this will be cleared up soon so new animators can stand a fighting chance against the monsters crews of Pixar and Disney.

I’m looking forward to Don’s next film…in its entirety.

I’ve judged a number of film festivals internationally, including the Emmys and Oscars as well as the Annies. All I can say is that I’ve never yet seen one without some problems, that others will call unfair. Every system is a work in progress, and every system undergoes a thorough review afterwards. Like Kevin said, being able to judge on line is a great step forward for the Annies. Hopefully future shows will be free of such glitches.

I love both of these films mentioned, and I look forward to more works from these gifted people.

Wow now I feel bad even for voting on the incomplete shorts section. Throwing out the award would be a bit disingenuous as a reparation but including those shorts who were affect on next year’s ballot…? Anyway on with the show.

I’ll have to buy Don’s short to make it up to him! :D

I’m frustrated I didn’t even have the chance to finally vote for this catagory - I can’t even imagine how many people could have voted since it was suspended so often up until the last day. I believe I saw the shorts when they included the 13 minutes of Don’s film … but I wish they had at least ANNOUNCED that the problem was fixed on the last day - then I would have been able to finish voting. :(

I think the ASIFA should blame Bush for not properly getting Don’s “OK” up on their site. I find it funny that they would try and toss the blame to anyone else but themselves espcially since they put the 13-minutes up on their site to vote from and if there was actually an ‘error’ or the DVD was defective at all don’t you think any tech person with any experience would have said “hey maybe we should ask for another DVD” instead of posting the, as they say, error defective version on the site. I think ASIFA is trying to save face by coming up with a poor excuse and his comments only make them look worse. I feel bad for Don.

Yikes! That’s so unacceptable. So the president of ASIFA confesses to not showing 2 of the 5 nominees to voters until the very last day, yet “all the nominees were reasonably considered for the award”? Come again?

Sure, every award show has its problems, but you can’t admit them midstream, shrug, and still do nothing about it. That just tells the world you either don’t take the awards you’re handing out very seriously, or you’ve got no respect for the artists you’ve nominated.
If I was one of the other nominees, I’d be way embarrassed to “win” under these circumstances. It’s not fair to anyone.

Now I’ve got my fingers crossed that Don or Jennifer’s movies somehow wound up with the most votes anyway! Go independents!!

i didn’t even realize they were posted online. if i had, i may have actually voted.

At what point do a majority of working animators shrug off at the Annie awards more than they already do, and consider it a popularity contest among an incestuous group of filmmakers?

In fairness though, at what point does that more or less resemble the oscars, or any other industry awards ceremony.

It is an unfortunate case in Don’s situation, but only when ideally pegging the Annies as the utmost competition where all films made in a year can compete against one another on an even playing ground. Although subjective, I think most would agree that “Gladiator” probably wasn’t the best movie released in the year that it won the Oscar, but any number of less than ideal voting conditions gave it an award that it probably didn’t deserve. Any non-profit organization that gives recognition to animated films is a great thing, particularly shorts which are typically harder to see and benefit greatly from any promotion, but to hold the Annie’s up to a standard unrealistic for any judging process is betting on a losing horse.

I’ve always had high respect for ASIFA. I’m deeply disappointed that their judging process is so warped - erroneous, unfair, and dishonest.

GET IT TOGETHER ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD.

For what it’s worth, I had already seen Don’s short twice before voting (which I did on the last day, so I didn’t even know about the snafu until reading about it here). I do still miss the opportunity to see everything on a big screen — but since only a handful of us attended the screenings in the past, I can understand why the change was made, and overall it’s an improvement.

I would like to see some indication on each category of how long the related video is before hitting “play”, so you can plan your voting accordingly.

This is a shame. I am a big fan of Don Hertzfeldt and it certainly sounds like he’s getting the shaft.

I certainly know these sorts of shenanigans don’t happen at film festivals in India. My parting comments: Get it together ASIFA.

For certain, all three Disney shorts were up in their entirety?

Wow, I work as an editor a lot of the time and I’m unfamiliar with a glitch in a DVD that could prevent the film from being pulled correctly the first time and then subsequently be magically fixed through a “transfer”. It sounds like the person who pulled it from the DVD made a mistake, didn’t realize it, and then ASIFA tried to use technical jargon to cover their tracks. This is a real shame. I do love ASIFA, but the level of incompetence I’ve witnessed over the past year or two makes me cringe. For an organization that keeps trying to elevate their awards show to the level of other film organizations, they have done nothing but take steps backwards this year.

I wish I could have seen these on a big screen the way should be. Its rather hard to judge them honestly when the picture is so tiny.

Jeremiah: The first time around, Disney’s Shorty McShorts entry played halfway through and then started over again. Goofy and Your Friend the Rat played fine.

I think I logged in to vote for Short Subject around January 18th or 20th and I saw each of the five shorts in their entirety. Sounds like I was the exception.

“I wish I could have seen these on a big screen the way should be. Its rather hard to judge them honestly when the picture is so tiny.”

Yes, but it’s still better than not seeing them at all. I liked each one and like that with the new online voting system you are able to watch all the nominees. Hopefully the technical glitch doesn’t change the outcome but if it can be established that it did maybe all five nominees should win this time.