AWN Oscar® Tour Travelogue: ICM

Oscar Showcase 10 Agencies Photo Gallery

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Ron Diamond leads the Q&A at ICM with The Lady and the Reaper's Javier Recio Gracia, Enrique Posner and Raul Garcia.

In L.A., the nominees visted agencies ICM, CAA and William Morris. Here are their visits in pictures.

Oscar Tour Meets ICM Agents

 

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The Lady and the Reaper's producer Raul Garcia, director Javier Recio Gracia, and exec producer Enrique Posner chat with ICM agents.

On the first day of the L.A. leg, the tour swung by agency ICM. Due to another special Irish screening Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty's director Nicky Phelan and producer Darragh O'Connell couldn't make the event, but The Lady and the Reaper's director Javier Recio Gracia, producer Raul Garcia, and exec producer Enrique Posner were on hand.

More than a dozen agents showed up to watch the nominated films. Agent Craig Bernstein said that agents look at shorts to find the next hot filmmaker. They want to see that a filmmaker can tell a story with a beginning, middle and end in a short period of time. This shows a real solid understanding of story. One of the agency's success stories is hooking Oscar-nominated student filmmaker Shane Acker up with the deal to transform his short 9 in a feature.

After the screening in chatting with the agents, Raul said that in Spain they have to make their films in English because it makes it much easier to get international distribution. Right now Kandor's productions cost around $30 million, but still need to compete with the Pixar and DreamWorks films with budgets five times the size.

Screenings Come to a Close at ICM

The filmmakers pose for a pic at the final screening location on the tour. © 2008 AWN inc.

The filmmakers pose for a pic at the final screening location on the tour. © 2008 AWN inc.

With a late 5 o’clock screening at ICM, many of the nominees couldn’t make it to the Q&A. Peter and the Wolf producer Hugh Welchman, Madame Tutli-Putli producer Marcy Page and her exec producer David Verrall were able to meet the agents. I Met the Walrus director Josh Raskin and his producer Jerry Levitan arrived right after the agents left because they went to the old ICM address by mistake.

Ron’s Pics from DreamWorks, Fox, the Academy, Disney & ICM

The group gathers for a photo op at DreamWorks. Don Hahn (l to r), Roger Allers, Katherine Sarafian, Chris Renaud, Gary Rydstrom, Marcy Page, Badgered director Sharon Colman, John Tarnoff, Torill Kove, Rick DeMott, Geza Toth and Lise Fearnley. © AWN Inc.

The group gathers for a photo op at DreamWorks. Don Hahn (l to r), Roger Allers, Katherine Sarafian, Chris Renaud, Gary Rydstrom, Marcy Page, Badgered director Sharon Colman, John Tarnoff, Torill Kove, Rick DeMott, Geza Toth and Lise Fearnley. © AWN Inc.

Here it is the long awaited gallery of select pics from Ron’s camera from the Oscar Showcase tour’s swing by DreamWorks, Fox, the Academy, Disney and ICM. There’s also a couple special pics at the end courtesy of No Time for Nuts director Mike Thurmeier.

Guess Whom the Nominees Ran Into at Disney & ICM?

The Disney leg of the Oscar Tour poses for a pic in front of the studio. Courtesy of Disney.

The Disney leg of the Oscar Tour poses for a pic in front of the studio. Courtesy of Disney.

Officially one week of the Oscar Tour is up and we’re nearing the home stretch. Today was less crazed than yesterday, but still wonderfully eventful nonetheless. The day was a home coming for Roger and Don. Every time we turned a corner someone was ecstatic to see them. After Tenny Chonin, head of artistic development at Disney Features, introduced the screening, Don took us on a special tour of the old animation building across the street from the new animation complex (you know, the building with the big hat on it). On the way, even, someone crossing the street lit up when he saw Don and pleaded him to come back to work soon. He has been like the Zen master of the group. His peaceful nature is just unforgettable. I had thought before that it must be a pleasure to work for him and after today I think many of the Disney employees confirmed my feeling.