This Way Up's producer Charlotte Bavasso, writer/producer Chris O’Reilly, director Adam Foulkes, and director Alan Smith.

One of the highlights of the tour is always the public screening at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. This year the Academy not only hosted a night highlighting the shorts, but also the animated features. Check out the pics for both events.

The Oktapodi crew poses for a pic with their fan, legendary animator Eric Goldberg.

The tour's stop at Disney has an exciting day. This gallery shares some of the highlights.

Boba Fett and Darth Vader join the filmmakers in the ILM lobby for a photo op.

ILM had a photographer follow the Oscar tour around their facilities and we'd like to share some of the great pics.

I was lucky enough to be included in part of the Oscar Showcase tour this year. Every year the nominees for animated short films are given a tour and luncheon at some of the animation studios here in the Los Angeles area. The organizer of these celebrations, Ron Diamond, invited me to join them at DreamWorks on the last day of the tour. Ron and I are on the Executive Committee of the Short Films/Animation Branch of the Academy, and see scores of animated shorts every year. There is always a wide range of styles and ideas presented in various mediums. It’s always interesting to see which ones will make the final cut for the Oscar nominations. This year the field was exceptionally strong, with every film being quite unique and different from the rest. Meeting the filmmakers and hearing about their thought process and methods of getting it on the screen was extremely interesting and inspiring.

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.

Kunio Kato (l) with Robot Communications Taki Tsuyoshi.

Congratulations to Oscar winner Kunio Kato, as well as everyone at Robot Communications, especially Taki Tsuyoshi. I’d also like to congratulate all the nominees on their wonderful films. Even though I only had a chance to follow the filmmakers on the L.A. leg this year, I believe the overall tour was again a success.

The tour members pose outside the Campanile Theater.

The Oscar Showcase tour came to an end on Friday with a visit to DreamWorks. The filmmakers were clearly tired from their long week and a half, but their excitement hasn't wavered. Ron invited Academy board member Rick Farmiloe to join us for the day to experience the tour with the filmmakers. The day was a bit of a homecoming for Farmiloe, who served as a story artist on the original "Shrek." At Disney, he animated classic characters like Lefou in "Beauty and the Beast" and Abu in "Aladdin."

The nominees check out Jungle Book and Alice in Wonderland art selected by Oktapodi director Julien Bocabeille (m) to view.

More amazing pics from the nominees experience at Disney's Animation Resource Library, where the history of Disney animation art is housed.

The Oscar tour poses for a shot in front of the giant Luxo Jr. statue outside Pixar.

Time to take a quick trip back in time for some great additional pics from the Pixar visit in the Bay Area last week.

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.