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.

Looking down from the second floor bridge onto the Pixar atrium.

Written by Dan Sarto

If it’s Friday, it must be Pixar.  And as most would attest, a visit to Pixar is pretty special.  In no particular order, we met John Lasseter, crawled around the infamous Love Lounge, drank Scotch with Andrew Gordon in the Lucky 7 Lounge, met up with Oscar-winner Ralph Eggleston and his mending broken finger, had lunch with Roger Gould, screened the nominated films for 235+ staff, saw concept art, original models and other visual goodies from several films and talked to Bob Peterson.  And, we bought Girl Scout cookies in the Pixar lobby.  Quite the day indeed.

If it’s every animation fan’s dream to visit Pixar, then at the conclusion of our Friday visit, the fan in all of us was ready to die and go to heaven.  The pouring rain outside did little to dampen our enthusiasm as we piled out of the van and into the lobby.  There, our host, Michelle Radcliffe, coordinator for in-house education at Pixar University, greeted us warmly and after a few introductions, patiently marched us all over the main building, answering all our silly questions and making sure we had a good time. 

Pixar is living through a new golden age.  The string of hit films, the triumph of Up, the promise of the studio’s ambitious new projects, all fill the space with a glow.  I’ve visited Pixar before, and each time I’m aware that someday I’ll be telling people not yet born that, yes, I visited Pixar.

The main case of model figures from the Tippett foyer.

Written by Dan Sarto

Tippett Studio is a well-known cg studio that specializes in feature film visual effects and creature animation.  Legendary founder Phil Tippett is the creative force behind some of the most iconic animated creatures and characters in cinematic history, including the miniature chess scene in the first Star Wars movie, the animated robots in RoboCop, the breakthrough animated dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, the deadly arachnids of Starship Troopers and the transforming werewolves of the Twilight movies.  The studio is located in Berkeley, California, housed in a collection of small buildings nestled within walking distance of each other.  Our second day ended with a screening and highly anticipated tour of their main production facilities. We were not disappointed.

The tour members pose outside the Campanile Theater.

The Oscar Showcase tour came to an end on Friday with a visit to DreamWorks. The filmmakers were clearly tired from their long week and a half, but their excitement hasn't wavered. Ron invited Academy board member Rick Farmiloe to join us for the day to experience the tour with the filmmakers. The day was a bit of a homecoming for Farmiloe, who served as a story artist on the original "Shrek." At Disney, he animated classic characters like Lefou in "Beauty and the Beast" and Abu in "Aladdin."

The DreamWorks brunch is always a heavily attended event.

One of the yearly treats of the Oscar Showcase tour is DreamWorks' Saturday brunch. Check out who in the community came to celebrate.

David's photo op beside the skyline backdrop and the parking lot / floodable water tank.

By Dan Sarto

Our Paramount Tour started with coffee and sunglasses, our group basking in the welcome warmth of the sun after having spent the last few days in the cold, wind and sporadic Southern California drizzle. Like Sony and Fox, Paramount is a huge studio, complete with large soundstages and even larger cinematic and television history. As our electric cart motored off, our tour guide expertly peppered us with interesting studio facts and a brief rundown of some of the classic films made here at the studio.

We stopped at one point to take a picture with the iconic Hollywood sign balanced on the hills far behind us.  We drove past huge sound stages and production buildings, as well as a New York backlot that like Fox, you’ve seen in more shows and commercials then you realize. 

Here’s the first photo gallery from the 2008 Oscar Showcase tour. Witness the nominees posing for pics with the many wonders on display inside the doors of the premiere visual effects studio.

Kunio Kato (l) with Robot Communications Taki Tsuyoshi.

Congratulations to Oscar winner Kunio Kato, as well as everyone at Robot Communications, especially Taki Tsuyoshi. I’d also like to congratulate all the nominees on their wonderful films. Even though I only had a chance to follow the filmmakers on the L.A. leg this year, I believe the overall tour was again a success.

Oscar winner Suzie Templeton gets a chance to talk with My Love director Alexander Petrov. © 2008 AWN Inc.

The day before the Oscars DreamWorks hosts a brunch at Campanile. Look at the animation who’s who gallery.