Dolby Laboratories has all the reason to rejoice as its short animated film Silent won two Daytime Emmy Awards at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Daytime Creative Arts Emmys ceremony, held on Friday, 24 April, 2015, in Los Angeles, California. Created in conjunction with Moonbot Studios and CAA Marketing, a division of entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Silent represents the evolution of film technology from the silent-film era to the present day. The three-minute film celebrates how storytellers, inventors, and technology work together to create magic in the cinema.
Silent won a Daytime Creative Arts Emmy in the following two categories:
- Outstanding Special Class Animated Program (Executive Producers: William Joyce and Vince Voron; Producers: Lampton Enochs, Trish Farnsworth-Smith, and Angus McGilpin)
- Outstanding Directing in an Animated Program (Directors: Limbert Fabian and Brandon Oldenburg)
The Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards recognise outstanding achievement in all fields of daytime television production and are presented to individuals and programs in recognition of technical achievements, outstanding animated programs, online content, and guest acting.
“We’re elated that Silent was recognised so richly by the Academy, and we celebrate this achievement with our partners at Moonbot Studios and CAA Marketing,” said Dolby Laboratories, VP and executive creative director, Vince Voron.
Silent is an animated short film featuring Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios’ 2012 Academy Award winning short film The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. In Silent, Lessmore and his fellow street performer, The Kid, dream of bringing their picture-and-sound show to life. When they discover a magical contraption inside an old theatre, they embark on a cinematic adventure of sight and sound, traveling through movie history to find the audience they have always wanted.
Since 1989, Dolby has won 14 Emmys from NATAS, primarily in the audio engineering and technology categories, along with a Lifetime Achievement Award for founder Ray Dolby. These two Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Award wins mark a first in the creative category for Dolby, endorsing the storytelling power of original content and recognizing the creative achievements of sight and sound in the film.
Since it debuted at the Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony of the Academy Awards on 15 February, 2014, Silent has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in theaters, film festivals, and online via Vimeo, YouTube and Netflix. In addition to these Emmy wins, Silent also garnered a number of other awards in 2014 and 2015 including a Clio, a London International Award, two Epica Awards, two Cristal Festival Awards, a Communication Arts Illustration Award and was shortlisted in the animation category for the Andy Awards. The film has also screened at various film festivals including the San Francisco Film Festival, The Los Angeles Film Festival, The Napa Film Festival and The Savannah Film Festival.