By Robert Goldrich
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. --Bradford Young–an accomplished cinematographer whose lensing of Denis Villeneuve's Arrival earned an Oscar nomination in 2017–has now also gained recognition from a different set of peers for his directorial talent, winning the DGA Award in the Commercials category during a gala ceremony at the Beverly Hilton on Saturday night (3/12).
Young–whose production company affiliations are Serial Pictures in the U.S. and Somesuch in the U.K.–scored the DGA Award for his U.K. Channel 4 Paralympics promo spot “Super. Human.” out of agency 4Creative, London. The spot shows that this special breed of athlete is not only “super” but deeply “human” as Young delves into what the pursuit of the Paralympian dream entails–the adversity faced, the sacrifices made, the doubts behind the strength.
While Young couldn’t be on hand for the DGA Awards proceedings at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, he still contributed to history as just the second person of color to win the DGA honor for commercialmaking–the first being Melina Matsoukas of PRETTYBIRD who received the award last year.
Young topped this year’s field of nominees which also consisted of: Steve Ayson of MJZ; Kathryn Bigelow of SMUGGLER; Henry-Alex Rubin, also of SMUGGLER; and Ian Pons Jewell of RESET.
Young, Bigelow and Jewell are first-time nominees in the Commercials category. However, Bigelow overall has three career nominations–the other two coming in the theatrical feature competition. She became the first woman to win the marquee DGA feature honor for The Hurt Locker in 2010. Three years later she was again nominated for Zero Dark Thirty.
Ayson meanwhile has garnered four career DGA nominations for his commercialmaking–the first coming in 2013, then in 2019 and again last year.
Jez Oakley served as Young’s first assistant director on “Super. Human.”
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More