Art directors, California university choose winners

Two more prizes were announced today. Beginning with the Art Directors Guild, they chose winners in three different categories (much like ACE did yesterday). The winner in the Period Film category was The Great Gatsby, right now the favorite to that home this category at the Academy Awards. For Fantasy Film, the art directors were most enamored by Gravity. And then the Contemporary Film award went to Her (you would think Gravity was the more contemporary film and Her the fantasy film, but hey, we don’t pick these). There is not much to take away from this, other than 12 Years A Slave not winning doesn’t help it in the Best Picture race, but then Gatsby was expected to win here in the same category Slave was nominated, so there’s that.

But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t good news for 12 Years A Slave today, because the USC Scripter awards went to Steve McQueen’s film this year. Honoring the authors and screenwriters of the best screenplay adapted from a literary source, this bolsters the film’s already excellent chances in the Adapted Screenplay category for the Oscars.