Among the items set out for our visit, books of Jungle Book sketches caught everyone's attention.

Written by Dan Sarto

One of the highlights of the week was a morning spent at Disney's Animation Research Library (ARL).  Housed in the non-descript former feature animation studio, the library houses more than 65 million pieces of animation art representing over 80 years of work from Walt Disney Animation.  Formerly housed in the basement of the Animation department in the aptly named "Morgue," the library opened in its current location in 1989.  Complete with fire supression systems, climate controled vaults and state of the art scanning and database systems, the library serves both to preserve the company's heritage as well as to provide an inhouse resource for studio personnel needing access to the immense repository of Disney animation assets. If you love animation, or have any sense of animation history, then the Disney ARL is a little slice of heaven.  Actually, it's the whole pie.

"We're almost there." I don't remember which nominee said it, but it was very fitting, given that Walt Disney Animation Studios was the last stop yesterday on the L.A. leg. Of course, "Almost There," from The Princess and the Frog, summarizes the hopes and dreams of all the nominees. So, it was also very fitting that Princess and the Frog directors Ron Clements and John Musker were on hand to view the shorts and meet with the nominees.

Bob and I, standing on the far left of the first row, join in the dramatic pose while 3-D stereo pictures of the entire group are being taken in front of the main campus fountain.

By Cima Balser

In all our travels, we’ve always found animation studios to be great fun to visit.  UPA in its day had a bookcase filled with faux books, with carefully lettered titles on the bindings, such as “Brain Surgery Can Be Fun.” 

During the entire time Yellow Submarine was being produced there, the receptionist at the entrance never recovered from shock as each day he watched the Carnaby-clothed artists march in and out.  One day there was a serious complaint from the tenant downstairs, and soon after the crew was reprimanded by a shamefaced John Coates.  We heard that a very, very large billboard size poster with carefully lettered “POOP” was being lowered and waved across all the windows of the office below. 

So yes, animators have traditionally played and had fun, along with their real work. However, as Bob and I tagged along with Ron and Dan’s group to DreamWorks’s campus in Glendale, we found that the bar had been lifted higher than we could have ever imagined.

The famous Nominee Cake - 5 films, 5 images, all edible.

Written by Dan Sarto

No Oscar Tour would be complete without the famous Nominee Cake!  As the 2011 Tour winds down, so do the nominees and assorted guests, at least for one evening.  Held again this year at Ron's house, the party was fun, intimate and warm, despite the rainy weather outside.  And of course, we all got sugared-up feasting on the nominated films - literally!

Here are some more pics from the first stop on the L.A. leg of the Oscar Showcase tour - Sony Pictures Animation.

After a late screening in the Aidikoff Screening Room for the William Morris agents, the filmmakers had a chance to meet with a few of the agents. Like many people have said along the tour, the agents felt that this year is one of the strongest years for animated shorts in quite some time. Peter and the Wolf asked how an animation director or producer finds representation. Ken Freimann said that it depends on what the filmmaker wants. Based on their nominated work, he said it would be tough because it’s hard for them to sell less than mainstream projects to the studios. He added that their films prove what they can do, so coming to agents with projects worked out would be a great help in determining what an agent can do for an animator. Agent Danny Gabai, who represents many independent writer/directors, said that if you want to move into the mainstream then they could help, or they could help connect their projects with artists who could help getting the project made. Ken’s example was that if Tim Burton gets involved with a project, the studios would be more interested. For producers, Ken said that they would represent them on a project-to-project basis.

Ron Diamond has created as new Oscar tradition: his yearly tour of the major West coast animation studios by the nominees for Best Animated Short Film. In a few short years this has become such an established event that all of the nominated films are represented by their respective directors, producers or both. At studios, which include ILM, Pixar, PDI, DreamWorks. and Sony, all five of the nominated films are screened for crowds of enthusiastic employees. The nominees have a chance to meet their professional counterparts and see their facilities.

The second stop on the L.A. leg of the Oscar Showcase tour was on Tuesday, Feb. 19th at 20th Century Fox. So here are some more pics.

AWN would like to congratulate all the animation and visual effects Oscar nominees. This is the place for exclusive coverage of AWN Oscar Tour, where the nominees for Best Animated Short tour studios in Los Angeles and the Bay area. Hear from the filmmakers about their Oscar-nominated work right here. For now find out the facts about all the animated nominees at the AWN Oscar Showcase.

At the Sony Pictures Animation lunch, Madame Tutli-Putli director Chris Lavis talks about how they worked with actress Laurie Maher to inform their stop-motion animation and provide the eyes for their puppets.