I sent out six questions to the nominees and producers of the nominated shorts. I’m hoping everyone will have time to answer them before the Tour begins, however I know how unbelievably busy they are at the moment. Marcy Page, producer of Madame Tutli-Putli and Oscar Tour alum, has written back and here is what she had to say about the Oscar experience, as well as the eye-catching stop-motion film that she worked on. (Okay, that was a pun I couldn’t resist).

Well, we have safely arrived in San Fran. Ron and I happened to be on the same flight with Little Matchgirl director Roger Allers, who waited for us to get off the plane. Sadly, he’s battling a bad cold and was more worried about infecting others than his own discomfort. So Roger and producer Don Hahn (who had to stay at a different hotel then the rest of us,

because ours was not an approved Walt Disney lodging) decided to stay in this evening to rest up for our busy day tomorrow. I was surprised to receive a phone call from Don in my hotel room giving his regrets for not coming to dinner with the rest of us. It’s not too often I get a call on my cell from the producer of legendary films and former president of Disney Feature Animation saying he’s sorry that he won’t be making it to dinner because he’s just getting over bronchitis. I didn’t even know he had my number. I must say, both Roger and Don are so kind and welcoming

, not a shred of Hollywood self-importance at all.

We were only able to take a few pictures and none of the work directly. Just to the left of the group, off camera, is the long table where staff had graciously laid out some pre-tour requested artwork.

By Zoe Chevat

Thursday morning found our traveling band of Oscar short animation nominees and AWN staff trekking eastward for a morning at the Animation Resource Library (ARL). The definitive, company-owned archive for all Disney production materials, ARL is something of an in-house secret, appropriately hidden from prying eyes in a low-slung concrete building surrounded by warehouses.

Inside is a different story. The unassuming exterior plays host to over 60 million pieces of original production artwork, from clean-up drawings to rare painted-glass backgrounds used on the (now-defunct) massive multi-plane setup. The collection covers everything surviving from Disney's early days, up through present shows, with sketches from the "Alice" shorts of the 1920s holding the title of oldest artifact.

The tour members are welcomed to PDI by Eric Darnell and Gail Curry and some champagne.

Check a few shots from the stop at PDI/DreamWorks in Northern California.

Madame Tutli-directors Chris Lavis (l) and Maciek Szczerbowski (2nd r) share a laugh with Maciek's mother and the head of the NFB Tom Perlmutter. © 2008 AWN Inc.

The night before the Big Night was a chance for the animation community to come together for the 18th annual Chocolate Fosca party, which was hosted by Marilyn Zornado and Libby Simon at the home of Renate Kempowski and Paul Demeyer. The annual event was originally started by Mike Gribble, the co-founder of the Spike & Mike festival, as a way to celebrate the animated shorts nominees. Originally called the Chocolate Oscars, the event was renamed after Fosca, a character from Marv Newland’s Anijam, after the Academy objected to the creation of chocolate Oscars. View the fun that was had by all.

At the ILM Q&A, director Josh Raskin explains where I Met the Walrus’ interview with John Lennon originated from.

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.