Oscars 2015: Art Directors Guild Nominations
ADG announced their nominations this morning. This would be for the corresponding category of Best Production Design, which I feel is a more encapsulating term than Art Direction, even though I grew up with this category being called Art Direction.
I also feel like I make this known every time this category comes up — I love it. I love Production Design, because it’s a very tactile category. I love thinking about all the thought that went into things that are on shelves, and the type of wallpaper they chose to make the set feel more real.
Anyway, here are your nominees for the ADG Awards:
Period Film
Bridge of Spies
Crimson Peak
The Danish Girl
The Revenant
Trumbo
Nice to see Crimson Peak get some love here. Bridge of Spies makes sense (remember Spielberg won this category last time out with Lincoln). Danish Girl also makes sense. Revenant is surprising, but cool to see. And Trumbo — sure.
Interesting not to see Brooklyn or Carol here. I can’t think of what else would go here off the top of my head, but those are the two that immediately leapt to mind.
Fantasy Film
Cinderella
Jurassic World
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Tomorrowland
These all make sense. Mad Max and Star Wars seem like the two biggest possibilities to make the final category. Cinderella maybe I’d think would have a better shot in a different year, but those other two are real heavy hitters. I’d be a little surprised to see Cinderella make it over those other two. (Though Dante Ferretti is no joke.)
Contemporary Film
Ex Machina
Joy
The Martian
Sicario
Spectre
So the 90s is contemporary? Good to know. Art Directors love them some space movies. Also interesting The Martian wasn’t considered Fantasy like Gravity was.
My gut right now is telling me your major contenders (both nominated here and not) for the Oscar category are:
- Bridge of Spies
- Brooklyn
- Carol
- Cinderella
- Crimson Peak
- The Danish Girl
- The Hateful Eight
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- The Martian
- The Revenant
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Hateful Eight, Brooklyn and Carol weren’t nominated here, but the latter two are very period heavy and (you’d think) would be favorable to the Academy (though Carol’s really not landing with the guilds so far, is it?), and Hateful Eight is all about the production design, and I think that could sneak in a couple of technical nominations even if the film doesn’t get a lot of love overall. So in my mind, your category is gonna be from this set of films. (I hesitate not putting Ex Machina on there, but I don’t think they’d extend that a thought, considering how small that movie is. I’ll gladly be wrong, though.)
P.S. Very sad I cannot also include Steve Jobs and Room here, because this branch just doesn’t seem to care at all about contemporary movies.
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