23rd Annual Art Directors Guild Awards Winners

Last Saturday, February 2nd the guild announced winners o fits 23rd Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards in 11 categories of film, television, commercials, music videos and animation features during an award ceremony hosted by David Alan Grier and presided by ADG President Nelson Coates and Art Directors Council Chair Mark Worthington.

The theme for this year's Gala was Landscape of the Imagination and the Cinematic Imagery Award went to Rob Marshall; Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented to: Jeannine Oppewall, Ed Verreaux, Jim Fiorito, and William F. Matthews.  Benjamin Carre was inducted in the ADG Hall of Fame.

A special tribute was presented to long time Hollywood orchestra leader Johnny Crawford honoring his final year performing at the ADG Awards.  His Orchestra, featuring the Starlite Sisters have been part of the ADG Awards Gala for two decades.

The Favourite won top award for Period Film and Roma did not; but, even do Roma has incredibly good art production, it was not easy to win against The Favourite absolutely impeccable production design, sigh. Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians won in Fantasy and Contemporary categories.

The Favourite and Black Panther become Oscar frontrunners as Crazy Rich Asians does not have an Oscar nomination; still, Roma do have an Oscar nom, so there is always hope a non-ADG winner cold get the Production Design Oscar this year, sigh.

Winners are in *BLUE.  To check winners in all categories go official site here.

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1/8/19
Yesterday the Art Directors Guild (ADG) announced the nominations for the current edition and for a huge change there are no surprises as truth is that guild's category classification doesn't allow much confusions.

For the ADG Awards, live-action features are divided into three (3) categories: period, fantasy and contemporary.  Non-confusing and easy, isn't?

On the contrary, there is no clear correlation between guild's and Oscars winners as for the past five (5) years three (3) Oscar winners came from Period Film, one (1) from Fantasy Film and one (1) from Contemporary Film ADG's categories.  So in theory, this year Oscar winner could come from any category.

Know it's too early as this is only the fourth guild I do BUT have to mention that I'm extremely pleased to see Roma being honored by the guilds, especially when many guild members are AMPAS members who can -and hopefully will- vote for Oscar nominations and winners.  This is another tech category where Roma is outstanding but here has strong competition as have to admit that Black Panther, The Favourite, and perhaps also Mary Poppins Returns have great production design.  It is an open race that surely when Oscars names its nominees will narrow the participants to maybe these four plus one more (Crazy Rich Asians?) to fill the five slots.

Will share here some thoughts about a nominated period film that even do has some remarkable production design is a film that either you like it or you hate it, extremes.  First, let me be clear I am a fan of Queen and Freddie Mercury (I'm so crazy that even like Queen with Adam Lambert but that's a different story) so anything related to the band will call my interest.  My true problem with the film is not the music, not the songs, not the period they chose to portrait, not Rami Malek performance (love him in I Robot), it is Rami Malek's make-up and prosthetics which I found hideous and absolutely bother and distract me (a lot) when trying to watch film.  So, I said it. Sigh.

So, let's go back to the businesses of the ADG. These are the Nominees

Period Film
Aaron Haye for Bohemian Rhapsody
Nathan Crowley for First Man
Eugenio Caballero for Roma
Jess Gonchor for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
*Fiona Crombie for The Favorite

Fantasy Film
*Hannah Beachler for Black Panther
Stuart Craig for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
John Myhre for Mary Poppins Returns
Adam Stockhausen for Ready Player One
Jon Hutman for The House With A Clock in Its Walls

Contemporary Film
Jeffrey Beecroft for A Quiet Place
Karen Murphy for A Star is Born
*Nelson Coates for Crazy Rich Asians
Peter Wenham for Mission: Impossible-Fallout
Stefan Dechant for Welcome to Marwen

Animated Feature Film
Colin Stimpson for Dr. Seuss' The Grinch
Ralph Eggleston for Incredibles 2
*Paul Harrod and Adam Stockhausen for Isle of Dogs
Cory Loftis for Ralph Breaks the Internet
Justin K. Thompson for Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

To check nominees in all categories, including TV and others, go to official site here.  Awards ceremony will be at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown on February 2nd.