The Annie Award is an American award for accomplishments in animation. The Annies have been presented by the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972. Originally designed to celebrate lifetime or career contributions to animation in the fields of producing, directing, animation, design, writing, voice acting, sound and sound effects, etc., in 1992 it began to honor animation as a whole, and created the category of Best Animated Feature.

Memberships in the ASIFA-Hollywood consist of three main categories: General Member, Patron and Student Member. Joining ASIFA-Hollywood is open to professionals, students and fans of animation, for a membership fee. All members of ASIFA-Hollywood may vote for the winners.

The 39th Annie Awards ceremony took place on February 4, 2012, on the campus of UCLA.

In 2008, the Annie Award nominees for "Best Short Subject" included two Walt Disney cartoons, a Pixar short, and two independent films: Picnic Pictures' The Chestnut Tree, and Don Hertzfeldt's short, Everything Will Be OK. Official rules for the Annie Awards state that voting members must view all nominated achievements in their entirety before casting their ballot for a winner. Members are directed to view the nominated films on a secure website.

Phillip Bradley "Brad" Bird (born September 24, 1957) is a critically acclaimed American director, screenwriter, animator, voice actor and producer. He is best known for having written and directed Warner Bros.' The Iron Giant (1999), and Pixar's The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). He made his live-action film directing debut with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011).

All of Bird's films have received universal acclaim (or in the case of The Iron Giant, grown in popularity with time). On Rotten Tomatoes, his four films average a 95.75% rating, making him one of the most acclaimed living filmmakers, animated or otherwise.

Bird was born in Kalispell, Montana, the youngest of four children of Marjorie A. (née Cross) and Philip Cullen Bird. His father worked in the propane business, and his grandfather, Francis Wesley "Frank" Bird, who was born in Sligo, Ireland, was a president and chief executive of the Montana Power Company. On a tour of the Walt Disney Studios at age 11, he announced that someday he would become part of its animation team, and soon afterward began work on his own 15-minute animated short. Within two years, Bird had completed his animation, which impressed the cartoon company. By age 14, barely in high school, Bird was mentored by the animator Milt Kahl, one of Disney’s legendary Nine Old Men. Bird recalls Kahl's criticisms as ideal: Kahl would point out shortcomings by gently delivering thoughts on where Bird could improve. After graduating from Corvallis High School in Corvallis, Oregon in 1975, Bird took a three-year break. He was then awarded a scholarship by Disney to attend California Institute of the Arts, where he met and befriended another future animator, Pixar co-founder and director John Lasseter.

Winsor McCay (September 26, 1869 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator.

A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905–1914 and 1924–1927, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.

His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including creators such as William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Moebius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware and Bill Watterson.

McCay was the son of Robert McKay (later changed to McCay) and Janet Murray McKay; Robert at various times worked as a teamster, a grocer, and a real estate agent. Winsor's exact place and year of birth are uncertain — he claimed to have been born in Spring Lake, Michigan in 1871, but his gravestone says 1869, and census reports state that he was born in Canada in 1867. He was originally named Zenas Winsor McKay, in honor of his father's employer, Zenas G. Winsor. He later dropped the name Zenas.

Bruce Walter Timm (born on February 8, 1961) is an American character designer, animator and producer. He is also a writer and artist working in comics, and is known for his contributions building the modern DC Comics animated franchise, the DC animated universe.

Timm's early career in animation was varied; he started at Filmation, working on the layout of Blackstar, Flash Gordon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and its spin-off She-Ra: Princess of Power, and The Lone Ranger (Timm also did background work on G.I. Joe). He also worked for numerous other employers, including Ralph Bakshi, Don Bluth Productions, and attempted to find work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics, but without luck. In 1989, Timm joined Warner Bros. At Warner, Timm worked on Tiny Toon Adventures.

However, Timm is best known for his subsequent work on the animated series based on various DC Comics superheroes, popularly referred to as the "DCAU" (DC animated universe). Along with his Tiny Toons partner Eric Radomski, Timm co-created and produced Batman: The Animated Series, which premiered on September 5, 1992, and went on to co-create and produce Superman: The Animated Series (premiered in September 1996), The New Batman Adventures (premiered in September 1997), and Batman Beyond (premiered in January 1999). He also served as producer on the feature-length Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker before taking the helm as creator and producer of the animated version of Justice League, which debuted in November 2001. This series continued in the form of Justice League Unlimited. Timm actually had very little to do with the production of the Teen Titans animated series, though because of a mistake in the first season end credits he is often mistaken for an executive producer. Timm was also the producer and co-director of the direct-to-video Superman Doomsday.

Timothy Walter "Tim" Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Dark Shadows and for blockbusters such as Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Batman, Batman Returns, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Alice in Wonderland, which was the second highest-grossing film of 2010, and the tenth highest-grossing film of all time.

Burton is known for using recurring collaborators on his works; among them are Johnny Depp, who has become a close friend of Burton since their first film together; musician Danny Elfman, who has composed for all but five of the films Burton has directed or produced; and domestic partner Helena Bonham Carter. He also wrote and illustrated the poetry book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, published in 1997, and a compilation of his drawings, entitled The Art of Tim Burton, was released in 2009. Burton has directed 16 films and produced 12, as of 2012. His latest films are an adaptation of the soap opera Dark Shadows, released on May 10, 2012, and a remake of his 1984 short, Frankenweenie, scheduled to be released on October 5, 2012.