written by Bill Desowitz
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. However, the most memorable part was discussing animation over coffee with the directors. Bastien Dubois (Madagascar, carnet de voyage) divulged that he rotoscoped himself for the various characters, and how he came upon the idea of shooting stop-motion for the cars section after discovering a group of small kids playing with toy cars. He then hit the toy store and set up a course for them to play in while he shot two cars per kid. Meanwhile, when I asked Jakob Schuh (The Gruffalo) what he's learned from his studio visits, he divulged that the 3-D demo at DreamWorks made him rethink the whole concept of stereoscopic moviemaking. If they could make a photograph dramatically pop out, then there are some definite possibilities worth exploring, he suggested.
We then headed over to Fox, where we were given a brief tour of the lot. Wouldn't you know it: first we ran into Carlos Saldanha, who was rushing to prepare a final screening of Rio, (opening April 15). He told us that he has three days to finish his film, but, even so, was interested in seeing the Oscar-nominated shorts. Then we bumped into Matt Groening, who wished the directors well, and said it was fun satirizing animated Oscar contenders in the most recent episode of The Simpsons (with Randy Newman crooning, "You Got an Enemy," among other parodies).
First, we were shown the legendary sound stage, Studio 1, where Shirley Temple shot all her famous films and Julie Andrews performed The Sound of Music. We learned that Shaun Tan (The Lost Thing) plays a mean bongo. Then we were shown the wardrobe department, which in one small room showcased such delights as Dr. Zaius' mask and costume from Planet of the Apes; one of Kate Winslet's gowns from Titanic, Wolverine's costume from X-Men: The Last Stand, Maureen O'Hara's gown from The Black Swan and Tyrone Power's uniform from Pony Solder. But in the larger warehouse, there were a lot more legendary costumes, including Moulin Rouge, which is going on the road in an exhibit.
As a final surprise, we visited the set of the popular sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, and, during a rehearsal break, met Josh Radnor (Ted Mosby), Jason Segel (Marshall Eriksen) and Alyson Hannigan (Lily Aldrin), who was playing Angry Birds on her portable device, which was fitting because there's a special version of Angry Birds tied to Rio.