Introducing myself to Oktapodi director Julien Bocabeille.

Wednesday I had the pleasure of joining Ron Diamond and the players in the traveling Oscar Tour on their visit to Sony Pictures Animation. The Oscar-nominated directors of the animated short films "Oktapodi," "La Maison en Petits Cubes," and "Lavatory Lovestory" had a chance to tour the studio and answer questions from the animation crew.

Tour host Ron Diamond (l) and Madame Tutli-Putli director Maciek Szczerbowski (r) run into John Lasseter on the Disney lot. © 2008 AWN Inc.

On Feb. 20th, the day belonged to Disney on the Oscar Showcase tour. Here is the photographic evidence.

At the beginning of our long ride to Skywalker Ranch, Marcy learned that the Oscar nominated shorts were written up in an extensive article in The New York Times. The piece was in conjunction with Magnolia’s theatrical release of the Oscar shorts in theaters. Josh said that Magnolia have been awesome, stating that they were willing to take the legal liability if rights issues were not worked out with the Lennon estate. In the future, Josh and James hope to turn their film into a book that goes into more detail about how Jerry Levitan made the Lennon recordings. Their idea is to make intricate handmade books that feature a DVD of the film. Hugh shared the advertising he had printed for the feature film he produced called Free Jimmy, which has been making the festival circuit and chronicles the adventures of a circus elephant that has heroin sown into its stomach. With Skywalker Ranch on everyone’s mind, the conversation turned to the animated Star Wars: Clone Wars, which it was just announced will be coming to theaters as a feature first before arriving on Cartoon Network in the fall. Chris coined the phrase inter-quel to describe it. Along the way, Hugh had us introduce ourselves for a video diary he is doing for Channel 5 in the U.K., which airs on Friday. So if you’re in England, set your TiVos, we want copies.

The second and final Friday of the Oscar Showcase tour began with a screening at Sony Animation. In an effort to get up a new photo gallery before I left, I didn’t leave enough time to get to screening, only making my journey a chore. I ended up arriving just as The Danish Poet was ending. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I’m sick of the films after seeing them so many times in a short span of time, but a trial separation might be good. Roger Allers said he can’t watch Little Matchgirl anymore. Like No Time for Nuts directors Mike Thurmeier and Chris Renaud, he keeps seeing things he wishes that he could change.

Okay, okay, I’ll get off my obsession with Skywalker Ranch. However, I did want to share some pics from the San Fran leg of last year’s Oscar Tour. Ron Diamond provided the images and they represent a great visual chronicle of the fun events the nominees get to experience. See whom they chatted with at lunch or who just happened to be at the Ranch when they arrived.

DreamWorks had a full day for the Oscar nominees when they came to visit. Here are their adventures in pictures.

Glen Keane, Brook Keesling, Bonnie Arnold and Shannon Gans

Written by Dan Sarto

Every year for many years now, on the Saturday before the Oscars, DreamWorks Animation hosts a fantastic brunch at the famous Campanile.  A lively mix of executives and creative riff-raff, the crowd feasted on delectable comfort food, boozing it up while speculating who the winners and losers would be the following evening.  Many noteables were in attendance. Check out some of the festivities.

Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare"

This year's group of Oscar-nominated animated short film directors exemplifies creativity and diversity in their approach to design, story and animation style.  In a series of in-depth and personal interviews, they share their insights and opinions about their films, from initial ideas to production techniques and challenges.  Read them all exclusively on AWN.com.

The nominees meet their latest Academy guest Bill Kroyer (r).

Well, the second to last tour stop brings the filmmakers to Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks. For Emud, it was a return to his workplace where he is on the Disney live-action/CG flick, "G-Force." He was thankful that Sony gave him ten days off to tour both in San Francisco and L.A.

We arrived and were greeted by a dapper looking Don Levy, marketing master for Sony, who had to leave us early to hand out an award at the publicist's awards that afternoon. For each stop of the L.A. leg, Ron invited a different member of the Academy board. At Sony, the filmmakers had the pleasure of meeting Bill Kroyer. FX was particularly impressed with meeting someone who worked on "Tron." Bill shared a story of "Ice Age" director Chris Wedge entering x-sheet data into the computer on the film. Bill said he was glad that Chris stuck with computers after the job.

On the evening of Feb. 19th, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences hosted a screening of the animated and live-action shorts. Check out the pictures from the star-studded event.