Getting animated about the Oscars

DARRAGH O'DONNELL, producer of Oscar-nominated ' Granny O'Grimm', on his Academy Awards week

WHEN YOU'RE nominated for the Academy Awards, you get a letter followed by a pack telling you what you have to do and where you have to go. This sounds ungrateful, but it actually came at a bad time for us because we were so busy. We're working on a new project, The Octonauts, and Nicky [Phelan, director of Granny O'Grimm] was supposed to be in India at this time; in order for him to attend the Oscar luncheon that they had for nominees last month, we had to change his flights to get him to LA and then on to India – he's literally been around the world twice in the last couple of weeks.

Cathal Gaffney, the managing director of Brown Bag Films, and Kathleen O'Rourke, who's the voice of Granny O'Grimm, came over for the lunch too. It was mad, like being at a wedding where everyone is famous. We met Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney. My old college friend and Oscar nominee Richie Baneham was there too and he introduced us to James Cameron. And they mix up the tables, so we were sitting with the producers from Up who were saying that they were big fans of our show Olivia, which is on American television. Of course, we were saying how much we loved Up. We've had a busy week. There have been meetings with Sony, Dreamworks and Disney. We've met with Mel Gibson's company and Tom Hanks's company. That it's our second nomination [the first was for Give Up Yer Aul Sinsin 2002] means that people will take a meeting at short notice. Normally it's very difficult in Oscar week. The first time we were nominated, we just enjoyed it all and didn't really know how to exploit it. Because this is our second nomination, I suppose people know we're not a flash in the pan. Olivia is already a top-rating show here, so they're sitting up and taking notice.

Of course, at every meeting everyone loves talking about the Oscars, who will win, who’s been nominated. They’re all Academy members so it’s good to get the inside track. With five nominees out of 100, Ireland really is punching above its weight and they’re all asking what’s in the water.

There have been a few parties. There was the Irish Film Board party on Wednesday night and the Oscar Wilde party on Thursday, where JJ Abrams got an award, and there was a party in the mayor’s house. On Friday there were animation parties and tonight are the chocolate Oscars for animation nominees, where everyone gets an Oscar made out of chocolate – so no-one loses.

There’s an entourage of about 50 over. My parents arrived this week and I’m here with my wife Lina and our nine-month old Dexter. Nicky’s mum has arrived over with his three sisters. For the awards, Nicky and I each got plus-one invites, and we managed to swing another two. But there’s so many coming over that we had to raffle the tickets in the end – it was the only way to be fair. But there will be a big party in an Irish bar across the road from the Kodak theatre on the night.

I'm not sure what my expectations are for the awards. The other four films are all brilliant so I can hardly say that whoever wins shouldn't have got it, but to be down to the last five from hundreds is already fantastic. On Tuesday night there was the Academy screening of all the live-action and animation shorts, and a QA session. Kathleen got a big standing ovation and Granny O'Grimmwent down a storm. It got the laughs – we'll see if it gets the Oscar.

In conversation with Shane Hegarty