AWN Oscar® Tour Travelogue: Oscar® Tour 2011

Oscar Showcase 11 DreamWorks Brunch Gallery

OscarTourEditor — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:10:14 -0800

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.

The Annual AWN - Acme Filmworks Oscar Party

OscarTourEditor — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:38:36 -0800

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!

Oscar Tour LA Day 4: We’re Going to Disney

OscarTourEditor — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:22:58 -0800

The final day of the 2011 Oscar tour was the busiest of all – morning at the Disney ARL, lunch, 2 screenings and several tours throughout the afternoon, followed by the AWN-Acme Oscar party Friday evening. You could sense the animators were getting a bit antsy, greeting the same questions with the same answers for the umpteenth time, their smiling faces showing traces of exhaustion and anxiety as they silently counted down to the Oscars on Sunday. No rest for the weary however as things really were just getting started.

Oscar Tour LA Day 3: Fox Trot

OscarTourEditor — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:05:39 -0800

The third day of the LA Oscar tour actually began with a morning stop at CAA in Century City before a small gathering of agents and producers in their lavish screening room.

Oscar Tour LA Photo Gallery: Disney Animation Research Library (ARL)

OscarTourEditor — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:58:58 -0800

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. 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.

Oscar Tour LA Day 2: A Dreamy Day at DreamWorks

OscarTourEditor — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 05:19:59 -0800

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.

L.A. Bound: SoCal Leg Begins at Sony

OscarTourEditor — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:58:35 -0800

The Los Angeles leg of the tour picked up on Tuesday, Feb. 22 at Sony. Jakob Schuh and Max Lang were back for the second round; while Bastien Dubois, the director of Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage, his producer Ron Dyens, and Michael Rose and Martin Pope, the producers of The Gruffalo, joined them for the first time.

Oscar Tour Day 3: A Pixar Tour de Force!

OscarTourEditor — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:58:42 -0800

If it’s Friday, it must be Pixar. And as most would attest, a visit to Pixar is pretty special. In no particular order, we met John Lasseter, crawled around the infamous Love Lounge, drank Scotch with Andrew Gordon in the Lucky 7 Lounge, met up with Oscar-winner Ralph Eggleston and his mending broken finger, had lunch with Roger Gould, screened the nominated films for 235+ staff, saw concept art, original models and other visual goodies from several films and talked to Bob Peterson. And, we bought Girl Scout cookies in the Pixar lobby. Quite the day indeed.

More Oscar Tour Day 2: The Fantastic Digs of Tippett Studio

OscarTourEditor — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:10:50 -0800

Tippett Studio is a well-known cg studio that specializes in feature film visual effects and creature animation. Legendary founder Phil Tippett is the creative force behind some of the most iconic animated creatures and characters in cinematic history. Our second day ended with a screening and highly anticipated tour of their main production facilities. We were not disappointed.

Oscar Tour Day 2: PDI/DreamWorks and Some Funky Berkeley Coffee Shop

OscarTourEditor — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:50:07 -0800

Day 2 of our tour started exactly as Day 1 ended – everyone sleeping snugly in their rooms at the Skywalker Ranch Inn. Soon, we'd be off in the pouring ran in search of PDI...Dan Sarto continues the northern California leg of the 2011 AWN Oscar Tour with a trip to PDI/DreamWorks and a funky nameless Berkeley cafe.