Suzie Templeton among Oscar winners

At the Oscars last night, the writing awards went to Diablo Cody (Best Screenplay for Juno) and Joel and Ethan Coen (Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country For Old Men, from the book by Cormac McCarthy).

British animator Suzie Templeton won the best animated short film with her version of Peter And The Wolf (co-written with Marianela Maldonado). She told BBC News about the challenge of writing the script.

"Writing to music meant the script was incredibly difficult to write. For me, it felt like writing backwards. Normally you have a concept and it all grows from that one place, it find its own shape, but a piece of music like that has its own complex shape already.

"Prokofiev's story is actually very simple, which is great in a performance with a narrator, because so much is left to the imagination. But in a visual piece everything needs to be told, and you don't want to fill it with just padding. Everything needs to make sense and have meaning. It was the hardest thing I have ever written in my life."

If you've not seen Templeton's film (shown on Channel 4 in the UK), it's well worth seeking out.



Update (26.02.08): In The Times, Ronald Harwood (nominated for his script for The Diving Bell And The Butterfly) gives his impressions of the ceremony.

The theme on the red carpet this year was bosoms. I've never seen so much décolleté. Bustlines were slashed to the navel. I saw a lot of Heidi Klum, for example. Her stylist complimented my wife Natasha on her Armani outfit. Many actresses might just as well have been nude.