Well, it’s that time of year again when AWN and the Animation Show of Shows hosts the Oscar Tour, where the animated short film Oscar nominees travel to the various studios in San Fran and L.A. on a whirlwind tour leading up to Oscar night. Above is my favorite picture from last year’s tour and it brings back a lot of great memories. That’s me in the upper right hand corner. Marcy Page (in the upper left hand corner) is coming back this year as the producer of Madame Tutli-Putli. We talked about returning to the tour and both agree that there will be no faking required when it comes to getting excited about the adventure.

Well, today is a travel day. I’m heading up to San Fran where Ron Diamond and I will meet up with the nominees for dinner at Trapeze.

Tour host Ron Diamond (l) shows Granny O'Grimm's Nicky Phelan his legendary artist sketch book.

written by Rick DeMott

Day 2 of the L.A. leg of the tour had a late start at CAA in the afternoon. As the agents and their clients settled in for the screening, the nominees went for a cup of coffee.

The Lady and the Reaper producer Enrique Posner told me that the British Health Services had contacted them about using their film as part of training EMTs that reviving every patient might not be in the best interest of the patient. He was amazed at how the information travels to places that would have never seen their film before the Oscars. He added that balancing all the press requests ever since the nominations has been a major challenge. They even received a letter from the president of Spain.

Having read the tour blog, Posner joked that we needed to spice up the material. So they want to start a rumor that the only other Spanish nominee Penelope Cruz has left Javier Bardem for their Javier — Javier Recio Gracia.

The entire assembled group. From left to right, me (Dan Sarto), Bastien's girlfriend Julie, Connie Siu, Bob Kurtz, Bastien Dubois, Ron Dyens, Max Lang, Jakob Schuh, Ron Diamond, Geefwee Boedoe. Everyone is quite animated because this was taken with a prototype 3-D stereoscopic camera. Image courtesy of DreamWorks Animation.

Written by Dan Sarto

Every year for more than a decade we’ve toured DreamWorks’ expansive Glendale campus with either the Animation Show of Shows, our Oscar Showcase tour, or both.  We’re always greeted with open arms and we’re always shown tasty morsels of upcoming films – last year, for example, Simon Otto showed us 20 minutes of How To Train Your Dragon well before it was released.  This year did not disappoint.  We scampered about all over the newly built-out animation building, over 100K square feet of offices, high-res monitors and talent.  Talking to people here, you can’t help but sense their enthusiasm as they discuss their work, the studio and DreamWorks’ string of successful films.  From Jeffrey Katzenberg’s lunchtime visit to our jaunt through the new motion-capture studio, our afternoon at DreamWorks left a tremendous impression on our assembly of animators and producers, and myself as well.

Overlooking Disney's Plaza of Legends.

By Zoe Chevat

Fresh from our morning at the ARL, we were greeted in the lobby of Disney’s whimsical animation building by Stephanie Morse, Talent Development Coordinator. Ms. Morse, who served as our tireless guide on a very tight schedule, ushered the nominees into the screening theater for a quick introduction. Then, leaving the lunchtime crowd to watch the nominated shorts, our band set out on a fast-paced tour of the neighboring Disney lot.

At the ILM Q&A, Madame Tutli-Putli director Maciek Szczerbowski and Peter and the Wolf director Suzie Templeton talk about the scale of their film’s puppets.

Conversation was brief on the ride over to PDI/DreamWorks. With the tour winding down, I think we were all winding down as well. When we arrived at the studio, the screening was already in full swing. With a bit of down time, we mingled around the lobby and cafeteria, where the draw of more ping-pong was irresistible for I Met the Walrus‘ Josh and James, who said that ping-pong is needed for animation productions to work.

Here they are — pics from the exciting Oscar day. Lots of winners, excitement and fun!

DreamWorks' Pierre-Olivier Vincent gives his POV on the How to Train Your Dragon designs.

written by Rick DeMott

For the third day of the L.A. leg, DreamWorks put together a full day of events for the nominees. Katie Koskenmaki, our host and artistic development coordinator for the studio, said that different departments were fighting to get a chance to meet the nominees. For the first time, French Roast director Fabrice Joubert joined the festivities.

First up, designer Pierre-Olivier Vincent, aka POV, ran through the visual development on DreamWorks' upcoming How to Train Your Dragon. The project began with the designs of the book, which was written and illustrated by Cressida Cowell. The designs and tone of the book was cartoony, but over the course of the film's development, which included three director changes, the script became more dramatic. For Cowell, she didn't mind the tone shift, but insisted that the core of the story remain the relationship between the main character Hiccup and his father Stoick.