Animation Source Forums

Do you think Balto's song, "Reach for the Light" had the potentials of winning best original song?

Compared to the vast opus of popular music out there, spanning decades? Not hardly. Even Steve Winwood has other works which are better than that one song.

Win it in what, incidentally?

If you are referencing the Academy Awards - maybe, but probably not.

Balto was released in 1995, the same year as the winner in that category: Pocahontas (which won for "Colors of the Wind"). The other nominees were "Dead Man Walkin'" from Dead Man Walking, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman" from Don Juan DeMarco, "Moonlight" from Sabrina, and "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story.

Even now, almost 20 years later, most people - animation fans or not - probably remember "Colors of the Wind" and "You've Got a Friend in Me" by heart. Several movie buffs will know at least the films Sabrina and Dead Man Walking - that's 4 big ones right there.

So it's pretty obvious Balto had a lot of competition. Had the Best Animated Film category been in place at that point, it probably would have gotten a nomination - but only because it was one of the only animated films released that year. As far as Best Original Song....probably not, due to the competition. It's a great song, to be sure, but there were still other great ones that year as well.

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And on a similar note, how about "Best Original Score"? Well, for the Oscars honoring films in 1995, the Best Score category was split into two: A total of 10 nominees fought for "Best Original Dramatic Score" and "Best Original Musical or Comedy Score". The winner of the first was Il Postino, and the latter was Pocahontas.

Where would Balto have fit? Well, first of all, James Horner was in charge of the Balto score - but he WAS nominated that year for not one but TWO films: Apollo 13 and Braveheart (both of which are fabulous films, by the way). I'm sure the Academy would have been very hesitant to add his name yet a third time, even when there were 10 nominees that year instead of the usual 5. So that alone would have made it difficult for Balto to get nominated.

Had it gotten nominated, it would have been for "Best Original Musical or Comedy Score". Why? Because Balto, being an animated film, is considered comedy - that's just how it works within Academy guidelines. The ACTUAL nominees were Pocahontas (which won), Sabrina, The American President, Toy Story, and Unstrung Heroes. Four of those are instantly-recognizable films, even nowadays. Back then (not so much now), the Academy tried their best to pick nominees that they felt would be recognized in the future, in addition to their quality. To exclude, say, Toy Story from the list (one of the best-loved films of the year) and replace it with Balto (a film few had heard and even fewer had seen) would have been seen as a swipe.

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To top it all off, for a film to be eligible for an Academy Award of any kind, it must be sent, complete with paperwork, to the Academy. Balto was not submitted for consideration, for whatever odd reason, and thus no matter how much anybody would have wanted it to be recognized, it just could not happen.

Sorry, that's a bit more than my 2c worth, but I thought I'd shed some light on what kind of forces were at work.

Just goes to show what stiff opposition Balto was up against.

There is actually no basis for this in any of the official rules listings of the Academy. Not in their general rules, nor either their "Special Rules For The Animated Feature Film Award" (http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/86/rule07.html) or their "Special Rules for the Music Awards" (http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/86/rule15.html).

I see, however, where you probably surmised this from (albeit incorrectly). On the imdb.com page for the Balto movie, under "Awards" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112453/awards?ref_=tt_ql_4), you no doubt saw the listing of the movie as nominated in 1996 for the "Young Artist Award" for "Best Family Feature - Musical Or Comedy". The problem is that the "Young Artist Award" has no affiliation whatsoever with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences (which oversees and administers the annual "Oscars" awards). Their categorization of what constitutes an animated feature film has no bearing upon what the Academy categorizes an animated feature film (or what constitutes one). A simple analysis of the nominees and recipients of the Oscars over the years, since the official inception of the "Best Animated Feature Film", will show that there are animated feature films which have been nominated and/or won which are not officially listed or considered to be "comedies". Not even Balto, which was never nominated, is listed that way:





That was taken from the imdb.com page for the Balto movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112453/) which, as we can see, lists the movie officially as a "drama", which it is. And while dramas can have elements of comedy in them, that alone does not qualify them as "comedies".


Again...not according to the "Special Rules For The Animated Feature Film Award" on the Academy website. It reads, in relevant part:


"An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of more than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture's running time."


I don't see a single mention of the word "comedy" in there. Doesn't mean they don't consider animated feature films which are, predominantly, comedies. Not at all. But that also doesn't mean that an animated feature film, regardless of title, scripting, voice over work, direction and production must, fundamentally (or otherwise), be considered a "comedy". Nor does it mean that individual members of the Academy (or the collective membership as a whole) either interpret any animated feature film as a "comedy", or have any expectation that they must if they are submitting a vote upon it (or are submitting it for nominations in one or more categories).

The page also says:


"Except as indicated above, motion pictures in this category must meet all the requirements in Academy Awards Rules Two, Three and Four."


Those rules (http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/86/rule02.html) also make no mention whatsoever regarding what constitutes a valid animated feature film submission. And they certainly don't define it (or the Academy members' interpretation of it) as "comedy"...by either definition or individual interpretation.


The basis for that observation being...? Because, once again, I have seen several nominees which have at least seemed generally rather obscure (especially documentaries or foreign films). So I see no evidence whatsoever that this is a particular motivation.

Further, it's a no-brainer that, over the years, what the Academy decides and votes as recipients of individual Oscar Awards, for different categories, doesn't always jibe with how the public feels generally. There have been some very bone-headed decisions by the Academy for one category or another, from time to time, over the years. "Quality" and "familiarity" are relative terms. And I see no indication that either of those qualifiers are requirements of the selection and voting process.


Once again, I see absolutely no relevance to that statement, and it is utterly impossible to prove. Considering that the 1995 Balto movie was produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation Company, and considering that, even back in 1995, Steven Spielberg was considered one of the most powerful and influential men in the industry (and in Hollywood itself), that attitude you mentioned is ludicrous. In the extreme. He was still on top of his game in the 90s, and no Academy member in their right mind, who didn't have some personal axe to grind with him (perhaps for some perceived snub) would have singled out the Balto movie, WERE it nominated, as a necessary exclusion in order to make room for another animated feature film...even one as ground-breaking as Toy Story.

Considering how Balto grossed 1/6 of how much their first film, Feivel Goes West, which only grossed $65 mil. and even that is under performing considering the budget's for animated movie's, and the fact the company was going out of business, was there even any point? I get that it's a good song, but quite honestly Steve Winwood has done better songs. And 'Reach for the light' compared to 'Colors of the Wind' it's pretty obvious who would have won. (Plus Disney was pretty much putting out amazing films at this point that kept winning award's, TLK, Beauty and The Beast, etc.)

The music aside, the movie itself could easily have been a viable contender against the other animated movies of 1995. The simple fact is that it wasn't submitted, very strangely.

But yes, as I said earlier, Steve Winwood has had many far better songs in his career than "Reach For The Light" (most, actually, when he was with other bands...such as the Spencer Davis Group (which he joined, when he was only 14 years old, with his older brother Mervyn), Traffic (with soon-to-be rock legends Jim Capaldi and Dave Mason), and then Blind Faith (a rock supergroup of the 70s, with other music legends Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, both formerly of the 60s supergroup Cream).


Following his career since his early days as a teenaged lead singer in the 60s, doing lead vocals in each example below:

Spencer Davis Group--Gimme Some Lovin': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxA3atHD2QM


Spencer Davis Group--I'm A Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzN0mMx-sJg


Traffic--Dear Mr. Fantasy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxVlN-LzIks


Blind Faith--Can't Find My Way Home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDAttqJ3qcg


Of course, he also had a successful solo career from the late 70s onward through the 80s (some of his most well-known songs, though certainly not the best of his career, were done in the 80s). And he briefly re-united with the other members of Traffic in the 90s. But, as you can see from the linked examples, he had much better material...and he wrote the songs above (well, co-wrote the Traffic one).

Actually, I based that off of the fact that any time an animated film got nominated, when there were two categories, it was always nominated as "musical or comedy", regardless of its category. If I had to base it off of another awards show, I'd do it off the Golden Globe Awards (which is generally regarded as the second-highest awards show, after the Oscars). There have been two categories for "Best Picture": Drama and Musical or Comedy. Animated films have been nominated for Best Picture several times, and always for Musical or Comedy. The Academy is run by many of the same people within the entertainment business, and so it makes sense that they would follow much the same rules.

And as for the Academy's rules on Best Animated Film - that's for the category itself, which did not come into being until 6 years after Balto was eligible for anything. Before that, there were no "specific" rules on an animated film that would have separated them from a regular film. (However, animated films usually were passed over for bigger awards, specifically Best Picture, due to the fact that many within the Academy felt for years that they would not be taken seriously if so-called kids' films got top honors.) And even since 2001, the rules for Best Animated Film have changed a bit; for example, it used to be any film over 40 minutes was considered a full-length animated film, but as of 2012, it now has to be 70 or more.

Just thought I'd clarify.

Huh. And yet, I still see no evidence of that in anything I can find on the net about it (even on the Academy's official pages), much less have I ever seen or heard that referred to during any Academy Awards show over the years. Huh. Perhaps you could point to where it actually says that somewhere...officially. And again, we're talking about the Academy...not the Golden Globe people (to make reference to your statement about that organization).


Well, I never said that the rules apply to the Balto film or Pocahontas film specifically. You are misrepresenting what I actually said...which was that there is no indication in ANY of the official rules governing the Academy Awards pertaining to any animated feature film being considered, by the Academy or any of its members, officially, as "either a musical or comedy". If it's not there officially, and you can't produce some documentation to back up the claim, then it's not actually part of the process officially. Regardless of your interpretation of it.


Just thought I'd clarify.