The Nominations Are In!

This morning was one of the biggest moments of the year for Hollywood. At 5:30 a.m., the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 85th Annual Academy Awards. The Academy Awards — also known as the Oscars — are the most prestigious honor handed out to movies in America.

Oscars are awarded in 24 categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. These awards usually go to grown-up movies, but there's a category for movies kids have probably seen, too. This is the Best Animated Feature award. This year, the five nominees are Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, and Wreck-It Ralph.

As it turns out, Kid Reporters have written about all five of these movies! Revisit their stories on the Scholastic News Kids Press Corps website, then let us know what movie you think should win the Best Animated Feature Oscar!

The Oscars will be awarded on February 24. 

Photos: (from left to right) A still from Brave (Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.); a still from The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Aardman Animations for Sony Pictures Animation); a still from ParaNorman (LAIKA, Inc.); a still from Wreck-It Ralph (Disney. All Rights Reserved.); a still from Frankenweenie (Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

—Editor Dante A. Ciampaglia 

A view inside the mind of Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro is one of the most imaginative directors working in movies today. His movies, like Hellboy and Hellboy II, are full of creative creatures and unique stories. When you watch a movie directed by del Toro, you immediately know it.

But del Toro is also a producer. He has produced numerous movies, including Megamind, Puss in Boots and Kung Fu Panda 2, as well as the soon-to-be-released The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Like the movies he directs, most of del Toro’s projects are infused with his love for comic books and the comic book imagination.

His latest producing credit is Rise of the Guardians, which hits theaters on November 21. At a recent press event for the movie in New York, I had the opportunity to interview del Toro about Rise of the Guardians, making movies, and what comic books he recommends for kids like me!


Kid Reporter: What was it that interested you about Rise of the Guardians?

Guillermo del Toro: It was the fact that it was a movie that looked like an illustrated book. It was very beautiful to look at, but also that it felt like a timeless tale. It didn’t feel hip, super-modern. It felt classic, and I felt it was important to make it. When you watch the classic movies, like Pinocchio or Sleeping Beauty, you get a nostalgia for a movie that is actually earnest and romantic about what it’s doing, and this movie has that spirit.

You’ve become more involved as a producer of family films, films more aimed at children. How is working on these films different from the films you direct?

First of all, it’s a different part of my brain that works. I really like working on these films because they can tell beautiful stories in a beautiful way. Visually, Kung Fu Panda, Puss in Boots, [Rise of the] Guardians, Megamind – they’re very beautiful movies, but you can create crazy creatures, crazy adventures, crazy action moments. They give you a lot of freedom.

How is this movie different from the all the other animated films you have worked on?

What is similar between Kung Fu Panda, Puss in Boots, and this one is the three of them were not ironic, they were not post-modern. Puss in Boots really wanted to be a spaghetti western. Kung Fu Panda wanted to be a great martial arts movie. And this one wanted to be a classic tale of timeless appeal. So that is what is similar. What is very different is the visual style and the quiet moments. This movie has quiet moments that are very beautiful, like the kid talking to his stuffed rabbit, Jack emerging from the frozen waters, Jack in Antarctica. Moments that are a lot more dark, but a lot more beautiful, too.

The fantastic Ms. Streep

Recognizing a movie star on the street — or any place other than onscreen — can be a thrill. But being recognized by a movie star — when you're just a regular kid — is a different story.

I went to Carnegie Hall on June 1 to cover the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and interview some of the winners.  I also had the opportunity to interview three-time Academy Award winning actor Meryl Streep, who was the special guest speaker. I was so excited!

Ms. Streep had been my first interview ever three years ago as a new Scholastic News Kid Reporter, covering the red carpet premiere of the film Fantastic Mr. Fox in New York City. I was 9 years old at the time and had no idea that a red carpet assignment is pretty much the opposite of glamorous.  You're assigned to stand for hours in a space the size of a Kleenex — usually on a busy sidewalk in the snow or 100-degree summer heat — while an army of adult reporters and camera crews keep shoving you just so they can get a better shot or shout "Who are you wearing?!" to every star who walks past. As a kid reporter, you're always the smallest person in the press line — easily trampled and frequently ignored.

But at the Fantastic Mr. Fox red carpet, Ms. Streep walked right over to me, shook my hand, gave me great quotes, complemented me on my interview questions, and then rushed off to get inside the theater for the premiere of her movie. She only spoke to a few reporters, and I was the last of them, so all the adults in the press line who had been shoving me minutes earlier were suddenly super friendly, asking to "borrow" my quotes and urging me to take their business cards.

I owed that first journalistic success to the graciousness of Meryl Streep, but I didn't expect her to remember me now, three years later, backstage at Carnegie Hall.

But once again, I was pleasantly surprised — shocked, really — by Meryl Streep. Waiting outside her dressing room, I saw her step out of the elevator, surrounded by helpers and publicists telling her who I was and what I was there for. She swept them aside and came straight toward me.

"It's nice to see you again," she said warmly, smiling at me. She remembers me? I thought. Suddenly, my excitement turned to nervousness. Seeming to read my mind, Ms. Streep put her arm around me just like a mom, calmed my nerves, and steered me toward the dressing room where our interview would take place.

She pulled out two chairs for us, but before I could sit down, she said, "Hang on a moment. You've grown."

"I'm wearing heels," I replied, blushing.

"You've still grown," she insisted. She was right — I'm about four inches taller now than when we first met.

I had been told beforehand that I would only have five minutes with Ms. Streep. I got nervous again. What if I said the wrong thing? What if I took up too much of her time? What-ifs whirled around in my head. Calm down, I told myself sternly. You'll only make her uncomfortable if you keep stalling.

I asked my first question. Somehow, the words came out in the right order and sounded fine. She answered thoughtfully. I surprised myself by forgetting my nervousness, becoming absorbed in the interview, and asking follow-up questions with ease. It all ran smoothly. At the end of the interview, I asked her to describe in one word how she felt to be there that night.

"Nervous," she said. What? I thought. Meryl Streep, world-renown, award-winning, famous actor is actually nervous?

"Why?" I asked her.

"I'm going on stage at Carnegie Hall!" she exclaimed, referring to the speech she was about to make. "It's nerve-wracking!"

I was surprised. "But you've been in so many films with so many stars," I said.

"I know! You'd think it'd go away!" she exclaimed, smiling.

After the formal interview was over, Ms. Streep talked with me for a few more minutes, about my reporting and her movies. I realized I had been there for much longer than five minutes. Yikes! I stood up to leave and Ms. Streep said the nicest thing a Kid Reporter can ever hope to hear: "It was great seeing you again. I'm sure I'll be seeing you forever and ever."

I smiled, thanked her again, and hoped she was right.

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Meryl Streep laughs during her interview with Kid Reporter Grace McManus before the 2012 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards celebration at Carnegie Hall. (Photo: Dante A. Ciampaglia) 

Actors in real life at the Hugo press conference

When you see actors in movies, they almost seem unreal, up on a big screen, usually playing fictional characters.

But when you see actors — movie stars! — at a press conference, they’re sometimes very different. And sometimes, what they say is really interesting because it’s unscripted. 

I covered the press conference for the new movie Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. The story centers on a 12-year-old orphan named Hugo who lives through an adventure in the 1930s in a Paris train station.

When I walked into the press conference, I was shocked at how many chairs were set up for reporters (and how many were already filled). "Are there really going to be that many reporters here?" I wondered. I felt pressured. What if I don’t get to ask any questions? What if the stars don’t notice me because I’m just a kid? 

What-ifs chased each other round and round in my head.

When the stars finally arrived, I felt ecstatic. There they were, right in front of me! Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Asa Butterfield. They looked so different in real life — no make-up and, in the case of Hugo, no “period” costumes.  And of course, Asa and Chloe are a bit older now. 

A reporter asked Asa, as an actor, to describe his relationship to Hugo, the orphan he played in the movie. In other words, was it difficult for a non-orphan to play an orphan?

“I found it quite hard to relate to him because of all the hardships he’s gone through in his life,” Asa said. “So I just had to come up with a false past for him that was similar to mine and relate to him in that way.” 

Relating to a character was also a challenge for Sir Ben Kingsley, who played the role of Georges Melies, the film’s mean and dour shopkeeper with a secret past who is saved from sadness by Hugo (Asa Butterfield). Unlike the film’s fictional characters, Melies was a real person, a star actor, dancer, and director of early silent films, whose brilliant career was ultimately crushed and forgotten.

Sir Ben was asked by a reporter how he got into Melies’s character?

“In a sense, I worked in reverse,” he explained. “What I focused on was how glorious his life was, and then I had an appreciation of the loss of that glory. So my preparation was in his body, how his body had to let go of being basically an athlete and a dancer." 

Finally I was called on to ask a question to American actress Chloe Grace Moretz, who also plays a child orphan in the film.  When she tried out for her role, Chloe had faked a British accent and fooled director Martin Scorsese into thinking that she was British — and therefore perfect for the role. I asked her how she was so convincing.  

“I was fully British from meeting Marty to the end of the audition, where I went back to my American accent,” she explained. “The whole time he totally thought that I was a British actress because he had never seen any of my other movies. So by the time that I left, I was like, ‘Okay, thanks, Marty. See you.’  He was like, ‘Whoa.’  He was, ‘So you’re American?’” Chloe also told me that when she worked on her British accent, she tried to mimic Asa, who actually is British.  It paid off. “You fooled me, kid,” Scorsese said. 

All-in-all, it was a good press conference for a great movie.

Check out Kid Reporter Grace McManus' report from the red-carpet premiere of Hugo! 

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Director/Producer Martin Scorsese (center) discusses a scene with Asa Butterfield (left, as Hugo Cabret) and Chloë Grace Moretz (right, as Isabelle) on the set of Hugo, from Paramount Pictures and GK Films. (Credit: Jaap Buitendijk, © 2011 GK Films, LLC. All Rights Reserved.)

Inspired to create at the 2011 Art & Writing Awards

It was the second time I was at Carnegie Hall covering the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards at Carnegie Hall, and I was bouncing off the walls. 

Every year, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards honors teenagers from around the country for their art and writing. But they also present the Alumni Achievement Award, which honors older writers for what they have accomplished in their lifetime. It's one thing to see the art of a well known artist, and another to meet the artist himself. And on Tuesday night, I actually got to interview the artist, an experience I found very interesting.

This year's Alumni Achievement Award recipient was John Baldessari. He's a world renowned conceptual artists whose work includes painting, photography, and film. When he was a teenager, he won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award, and now at 80, he has won the Alumni Achievement Award. My favorite piece of art that he's done is a photograph called "Beethoven's Trumpet".  His art is full of wonderful, whimsical ideas. For example, "Beethoven's Trumpet" is a giant ear with a big funnel connected to it. The ear is Beethoven's, and the funnel is his trumpet. The piece of art hangs on the wall, and the viewer can walk up to it and shout into the trumpet. But because the ear and trumpet are so large, it makes the normal-sized person look very small. Works like these have sold for millions of dollars.

When I sat down with him, I was pleasantly surprised. He was very down to earth, as well as being a kind, gentle, man, willing to share the high points in his career with me. It was like talking to an old friend.

"Your only competition is yourself," he told me, his voice sounding like an oboe. "And all of art history."

I also met and talked to Victoria Ford, a high school senior from Memphis, Tennessee. She won two gold medals for her poetry and nonfiction writing. One of the things that struck me about her was her childhood. It wasn't as a childhood should be. Her mother had been convicted of drunk driving three times and was in prison. Her father, a former state senator, had been charged of taking a $55,000 bribe and was also in prison. Her home was going to be foreclosed on, and she and her three siblings were about to be placed in foster care. But at the last moment, an extremely kind aunt saved them. 

When asked how she felt when she writes, she told me her feelings were mixed. "Sometimes I am crying," she revealed.

I get inspired by stories like Victoria's and thinking of all she had been through. The hardest thing in my life is my math homework. But the hardest thing in her life is much bigger than that. When I look at these artists and how much they have been through and achieved, I am more determined to create something, or make something happen. Whether that means putting another painting in the world or writing an essay, I want to be make the world a better place, just like these artists have.

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Kid Reporter Grace McManus interviews artist John Baldessari backstage at Carnegie Hall, May 31, 2011. (Photo: Scholastic)

From the Editor: Art, Writing, and Skateboards

Last night, nearly 1,500 middle- and high-school kids from across the country -- along with their parents, teachers, and friends -- packed into Carnegie Hall for the annual Scholastic Art & Writing Awards national ceremony. These students were among the 2011 national Art & Writing Award winners, and they were recognized at the event for their creativity and work as artists and writers. They all wore silver or gold medals (some had more than one!), and 16 high school seniors were recognized as Gold Portfolio winners (those kids won awards that included $10,000 scholarships).

Kid Reporter Grace McManus was at Carnegie Hall and spoke with Gold Portfolio winners Victoria Ford and Leonardo Laurenceau as well as artist John Baldesarri, who won an Art & Writing Award around 1948. Grace's story about the event will hit the Kid Reporter website later this week. But for now, here's a little taste of the event -- Tony Hawk, who judged the competition's video game design category, skateboarding down the aisle before taking the stage to speak to the students!

           (Photo: Stuart Ramson/Insider Images for Scholastic) 

Do you paint, take photos, sculpt, or do other artistic things? Do you have a favorite artist or writer? Let us know in the comments below!

                                                        --Scholastic News Kids Press Corps Editor Dante A. Ciampaglia