Well, I just got back from the Academy screening, which closed another whirlwind day on the Oscar Showcase tour. In addition, to Roger, Don, Marcy, Geza and Tamas, Gary Rydstrom, Lifted producer Katherine Sarafian (who we’d all meet at the Pixar screening), Torill Kove, The Danish Poet’s Norwegian producer Lise Fearnley, co-director of No Time for Nuts Chris Renaud and No Time for Nuts producer Lori Forte all joined the fun. Mike Thurmeier is back in New York with his wife and we’re happy to announce their new daughter has arrived. Her named is Katelyn Ivy. She was born on Feb. 18th at 2:23 in the afternoon. She was 21 inches long and a healthy 8lbs 10ozs!!!

Film history is a subject near and dear to the heart of ILM’s founder, George Lucas, which was evident in every aspect of ILM’s headquarters. The lobby itself can keep a film buff entertained for hours, with an extensive library of Star Wars books and magazines from around the world, life-size replicas of Darth Vader and Boba Fett, and an incredibly cool life-size statue of legendary special effects artist Willis O’Brien posing a model King Kong atop the Empire State Building. 

(From left to right) Marcy Page, Bonnie Thompson, Marc Bertrand, Patrick Doyon, Brandon Oldenburg and Lampton Enochs.

Dolby Digital in San Francisco and Karl Cohen hosted the last Bay Area Oscar Tour screening for ASIFA San Francisco members.  The filmmakers greeted ASIFA members in the lobby and talk about their films before the screening began. Marcy Page, producer of Wild Life, joined us for the evening. It was a wonderful event and a great end to the trip.

(From left to right) Ron Diamond, ARL expert guide Fox Carney, Tim Reckart, Fonhdla Cronin O'Reilly and me.

By Dan Sarto

We met up Tuesday morning at Disney’s Animation Research Library, known as the ARL.  Located in a non-descript building that housed Disney Feature Animation until unit moved to the current Burbank studio space, the ARL houses over 65 million pieces of original production artwork, from pencil sketches on napkins to painted glass panels used in the giant two-story multi-plane cameras. Everything animation art-related that can be found is brought here for cataloging, digitizing, databasing, storing and in some cases, restoring.  Our host, Mary Walsh quickly turned us over to Fox Carney, resident historian, archivist and librarian, who took us through the facility, sharing stories and history on some of Disney’s oldest, dearest and most amazing work.

Our first stop was a long table playing host to a selection of works Fox pulled on behalf of Tim and Fondhla.  This included watercolors, pencil drawn character designs, storyboards, rough animation drawings, and concept art from films like Snow White, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and Lady and the Tramp.  I was particularly taken with two background paintings, one from Sleeping Beauty, one from Peter Pan, as well as some concept art sketches of Scar from The Lion King. It must be nice to have talent.  Sadly, I’ll never know.

Directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski talks about the inspiration for the train in their film Madame Tutli-Putli at the PDI/DreamWorks Q&A.

After screening at Sony, the next stop of the tour was 20th Century Fox. After Ron Diamond, publisher of AWN, introduced the filmmakers to the studios execs in the audience, the group took the chance to walk around the back lot and grab a couple of coffee.

Suzie Templeton, director of Peter and the Wolf, has taken some time to answer The Six Questions. Like many of the other nominees, she is passionate about filmmaking, not about receiving awards. However, she hopes the Oscar experience gives her a chance to expand the scope of her work.

While you wait for more details from the San Fran leg of the tour. Here’s some more pics to check out from Skywalker Ranch and Pixar, courtesy of Ron.

SF’s Dolby Laboratories in Potrero Hill hosts tonights screening of the Oscar-nominated shorts for SF’s ASIFA chapter.  As if I’d had any doubts that I was among serious animation fans,  chapter president Karl Cohen’s next announcement, that the Balboa Theater will be screening some Gumby shorts in honor of the recently-deceased Art Clokey earns an audible gasp from the audience.  This group loves animation, and lives animation.

The Walt Disney Family Museum. And some cars.

Written by Dan Sarto

Like intrepid but warmly dressed explorers venturing into mysterious but GPS-identified territory, our group set forth into the crisp morning air in search of our first tour stop, the new Walt Disney Family Museum.  We caught a break – the rain had stopped, at least for a few hours, leaving behind a beautiful sunny sky.  No traces of the hail that had pounded our motel earlier that morning. Max Lang, Jakob Schuh, Geefwee Boedoe, myself, Ron and his daughter Sara (who is also my niece and our photographer) all drove together.  Teddy Newton drove separately and met us later in the day at Skywalker Ranch.