With an eye towards the future and all the new year will bring, we wanted to reflect on the year’s accomplishments and thank our loyal fans for your on-going support for Sgt. Stubby, Fun Academy, and independent family filmmaking!
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
We opened 2019 by being one of only 25 animated films eligible for an Academy Award, a thrilling achievement for our little studio to draw the attention of the powers-that-be in Hollywood and beyond. We also opened the film in France and were picked up by Sky TV in the U.K. and Ireland as well as HBO in the U.S. in the Summer, giving millions of subscribers a chance to discover Stubby’s incredible true tale.
Even a year removed from our initial release, the film continues to find new audiences and accolades, including Best in Show at the IndieFEST Film Awards and top honors at the Anaheim International Film Festival, Will Rogers Motion Picture Festival, and Miami Independent Film Festival.
Closer to home, our U.S. team has been expanding our reach across the rest of the Georgia film industry to meet new friends and peers in our own backyard. As the first film ever distributed nationwide from Georgia, Sgt. Stubby was featured at the Rome (GA) International Film Festival and Macon Film Festival in 2019, while our studio has also entered into a new partnership with the International Animation Society’s local chapter, ASIFA-South. One of our greatest joys is sharing our journey with our fellow filmmakers and fans!
While these plaudits are all wonderful, we couldn’t do it without YOU, our loyal Stubby Squad. You have championed our cause, making sure that our film remains relevant in a saturated family entertainment landscape and proving the desire for our brand of storytelling.
With this in mind, we’re ending 2019 by doing something completely new: we’re inviting you to join us for the ride in 2020. The new Stubby Squad website gives you a place to make your voice heard and take a virtual seat inside the studio as we continue work on future projects; your membership ensures that we are able to keep making the quality content that you crave.
Beyond new animated productions – including a Stubby TV series and two feature films – the Stubby Squad is host to a variety of premium content with more on the way! Currently on the site, we have a free-for-all web comic (Stubby & Friends) and our exclusive docuseries In the Pawprints of History, which takes viewers to the real-life locations visited by Stubby and his companions.
We also have a unique way for chefs of all ages to learn art of French cooking with Cooking with Gaston, and activities for kids of all ages in our Play & Learn section.
Looking forward to 2020, we will be launching more behind the scenes videos with our filmmakers as production ramps up on the rest of Stubby’s animated adventures and a new series, Amazing Animation, which will offer an interactive trip through over 20,000 years of art history from the earliest cave paintings to modern-day CGI.
Again, thank you for everything you have done to help us get to where we are today. We can’t wait to bring you more amazing content in the new year!