James Tancill and Jeffrey Lush, both instructors in the College of the Arts at UL Lafayette, received an ADDY award in a national category for their animated film “St. James Infirmary Blues, King Britt Remix.”
The award is for Special Effects in Video or Film for a collaborative animation between Tancill’s animation and video company Tanco Toons, and the Preseveration Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans.
The cartoon weaves its narrative through two characters, Ronnie Numbers and Mr. the Turk, wanted by the police. As the pair run from the police, Ronnie Numbers is also being haunted by the former Mardi Gras Queen; his dead girlfriend. The chase takes place amid visits to historic New Orleans landmarks such as Charity Hospital, Marie Laveau's tomb and the now defunct Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park among many others.
The project was directed and designed by Tancill and produced by Ben Jaffe, creative director of New Orleans’ Preservation Hall. The animation crew included former and current UL Lafayette visual arts students. Lush, of the local graphic design company Lush Graphics, was the graphic designer on the project.
Students include: UL Lafayette graduates- Jo Ellen Breakfield Tancill, Donald Gremillion II, Lantian Xie, Jeffrey Cross, Adam Folse and Tyler Broussard as well as current UL Lafayette students Johnathan Wilson, Chad Harwell, and Brittany Braud. Professor Jamie Baldridge, also acted as creative and technical consultant.
The ADDY Awards is the world’s largest advertising competition, bringing in over 60,000 entries each year. It is arguably the world’s toughest advertising competition with entries of all media types coming from anywhere in the world. It is conducted by the American Advertising Federation, a not-for-profit industry association that contains 200 member advertising clubs and 15 districts.
The award ceremony took place at the National ADDY Awards show on June 12 in Orlando.