Regina animator gets Oscar nomination
A filmmaker from Saskatchewan said he almost drove off the highway when he found out he was nominated for an Academy Award.
Animator Michael Thurmeier, who is from Regina but now works at Blue Sky Studios in White Plains, N.Y., received the nod for best short animated film on Tuesday morning.
Although he knew his film No Time for Nuts was on a short list, it still came as a surprise, he said.
After watching the live broadcast of nominations and failing to hear his name called, he got in his car to drive to work. While he was on the highway, his wife called him on his cellphone.
“I just about drove off,” Thurmeier told CBC. “I really didn’t think we had much of a chance.”
No Time for Nuts is a computer-generated animated spinoff of the popular Ice Age movies.
Thurmeier was nominated with Chris Renaud, his co-director on the film.
Thurmeier said his interest in art began when he was a child in Regina, but he never dreamed he would work on Hollywood films.
“I always had an interest in film and in drawing, but Ö it feels so far away when you are a kid in Saskatchewan,” said Thurmeier, who trained for his craft at Ontario’s Sheridan College. “It just ended up working out.”
The film is about Scrat, a sabre-toothed squirrel that finds a time machine while trying to bury an acorn.
Thurmeier described the movie as a six-minute throwback to classic Warner Brothers cartoons.
The Academy Awards gala will be on Feb. 25. Among those who will be cheering Thurmeier on that night is his delighted father, Regina’s Daryl Thurmeier.
“The rest of the day will be just sort of floating,” Daryl Thurmeier said on Tuesday, adding that he couldn’t wait to talk to his son later in the day.
Meanwhile, Michael Thurmeier said he’s eagerly anticipating the Oscar nominees’ lunch and is looking ahead to the big day.
“I’ll have to lose 10 pounds and go get a tux, I guess,” he said.
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