journal page 16

march 27, 2001
sore neck
11:26pm
so the big show is finally behind us and we are recovering slowly. everyone had a good time. michael won the award and i found myself leaping up and patting him on the back as his name was announced. everyone said that was all quite sporting of me though my mind was honestly blank at the time, maybe just really relieved i didn't have to go up in front of a billion people and say something. did you enjoy my tuxedo? it was cool to see bjork. john williams stepped on my foot. my mother ended up drinking an entire bottle of champagne on her own at the ball and was unable to finish all of the chocolate presented to her.

the new film is a monster of work looming ahead. i've been slowly plugging away at it all this time and now it's literally right back to the drawing board; i'm looking forward to seeing things settle again after all of this. should have all sorts of pictures to share with you this week.

i ordered a pizza last night and today they called me back to say thank you for ordering a pizza. i thought that was nice of them but i hope they don't start using my number freely like that all the time. "hi, don. it's just us again. are you hungry?" it's really warm tonight and sort of breezy.

don

here are rob's thoughts on the awards show:

rob says: Still in recovery. After training seven hours a day for the last month (not including my five mile run every morning and my two hours with "Abs by Jake") when the big day arrived my opponent was no where to be seen. I'd sized him up, taken in his body of work, and was ready to deliver a firm thrashing. alas Kenneth Brannah was no where to be seen. Our battle became a moot point as Mr.. Du Wit walked away with both the award and that damn wide screen TV. The academy awards were both nothing and everything I had imagined. The nerves, the glamour and excitement were all there, but who knew the nominees would walk away with a pop-up book detailing the history of film making? Weird. Rejected has traveled along on one hell of a ride. The coolest part has been meeting and hearing from everyone that was excited or pissed off by the film. Either way, thank you all for your kind words of encouragement. Thank you to my family and friends who stood up and screamed for this film despite the fact it is a "bleeding" film. I Love it!!! I urge anyone who's just coming on board to catch the Classic festival later this spring. Thank you again.

robert

march 24, 2001
"i will use oils if necessary"
sleepy
late am thanks to our friends at the new orleans film fest who sent us the secret lucky voodoo charms. they will be very much needed i think

well, my bow tie is more or less fully operational and i am feeling squirrely. all of us animation nominees are sitting together in the same section... how can i possibly not cause trouble? i am looking forward for somebody to come and wish us luck so that i can stare at them in surprise and say, "you mean this thing is COMPETITIVE?" meanwhile, rob has been training all week and is pumped and ready to call out kenneth branagh. he's in top form. it's inspiring. i don't think any of that competing-film stuff matters any more, he just really wants to attack and take down kenneth branagh.

well, this will probably be my last chance to update this thing before the big show so i wanted to say thank you again to everyone who's written or sent us happy things and wished us well throughout all of this silliness. i am doing my very best to write back to all of you and if you haven't heard from us yet it doesn't mean we have no love. we're not going to win, so i also extend happy thanks to all the people i would have thanked if we did - - you know who you are. everybody have a good weekend and be sure to wave at the tv

march 15, 2001
arbitrary time
5:e6pm
actually found time to take a walk to the beach the other day to see the sun set which i was really happy about because the weather is nice again and it was breezy and warm and there were lots of interesting bugs everywhere. and found time today to continue animating a little bit. ah, time. i'm using this new kind of eraser that is extremely crumbly and there are chunky eraser crumbs everywhere and i'm not sure how i feel about that. upon upgrading my tuxedo i decided that all of those clip-on bow ties everybody sells look kind of cheap and it took a little while to find a real one to buy. then spent the afternoon struggling with practicing tying the stupid thing properly and yelling at it but i was able to get a somewhat decent-looking knot out of it maybe one out of five times and felt rather accomplished. so i am now man enough to tie a bow tie. sort of. so if you see me on the red carpet and my bow tie is all bunched up and lopsided and dangly, just smile and pat me on the head and remember that at least it's a real one

march 12, 2001
night
today i met ang lee and tom hanks. jennifer and i were easily the least-likely people at the academy luncheon but we felt really welcome nonetheless. and it was kind of fun to pull up to the curb among all the limos, bmws, and flashbulbs in my stupid, scraped-up little red car. the valet guy whisked it out of there super fast. so at the academy i learned the secret handshake, received the wool sweater and the hat with the moose antlers, and was fully initiated into the cool kids club.

march 10, 2001
not for me
not what i wanna be
12:02am
just read about the guy they are going to execute in georgia's electric chair. they are planning on video taping his electrocution in order to determine whether or not his electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment. somewhere somebody thinks this makes sense.

we recently got thirteen inches of rain and it's going to rain some more all weekend. i was really happy to find a little time to resume animating the new film a few days ago, which means the phone is slowly ringing less. i have a full slate of interviews to do all weekend, including some big thing for spanish television (everyone is hoping they dub us with beautiful deep voices), but i think i am finally back on top of it all. i don't think i will be able to answer questions about "rejected" again for a very long time. everyone on the phone says my voice is sounding much better. i spent 12 hours in meetings in los angeles two days ago -- the agents have been happy with the good news, which will give these feature film scripts extra boosts i guess, so i've been having to find extra time to rewrite and patch them up to get them quickly moving again. my left eye was really hurting that day. i need to buy a new tuxedo shirt. i have not dry cleaned my suit since cannes, 2 years ago. really all i want is for one of the fashion reporters on the red carpet to say, "hi! who are you wearing?" so that i can loudly reply, "his name is mister tuxedo! and this here's captain pants and oooold man suspenders!" so the odds are even right now that i can get thrown out of the event before rob can.

speaking of which, we unfortunately still have yet to see the other nominated films, though it recently came to rob's attention that kenneth branagh did the voices for the german film. so it's pretty much rob versus kenneth branagh. i really hope those two don't run into each other at any of the events because i'm pretty sure that there's going to be trouble. competitive words are exchanged, kenneth throws his drink in rob's face, rob tackles kenneth, trouble. something is definitely in the air tonight because i just sat here and devoured this entire box of strawberries.