DGA Award Winners Reflect On Their Work
Guillermo del Toro arrives at the 70th annual Directors Guild of America Awards at The Beverly Hilton hotel on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Insights from Guillermo del Toro, Jordan Peele, Reed Morano, Matthew Heineman and Martin de Thurah
  • BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.
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If history stays true to course, it’s most likely that the Best Director Oscar will take the “Shape” of the DGA Awards which recently bestowed its coveted Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film honor upon Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water. All but seven of the DGA Award winners since 1948 have gone on to garner the corresponding Academy Award. In terms of recent history, 13 of the past 14 DGA Award winners have wound up garnering Oscars for directing, including last year’s winner, Damien Chazelle for La La Land. (The one departure from that norm during this span came in 2013 when Ben Affleck won the DGA Award for Argo in 2013 while Ang Lee scored the Academy Award for Life of Pi.)

Further bolstering del Toro’s current prospects and those for The Shape of Water in general are other recent indicators such as the film winning the Producers Guild Award—and topping this year’s Oscar tally with 13 nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Director.

In accepting the DGA Award, first-time nominee del Toro choked back some tears as he thanked his mother and father, the latter who has been ill. The director said that The Shape of Water is “full of many reasons why it shouldn’t work and they are the reasons that it works.” He added that the DGA recognition is a reaffirmation of sorts, relating, “And for you to tell me today to keep doing these insane fables that I’ve believed in for 25 years means the world to me.”

Earlier in the evening Richard Jenkins, a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee for The Shape of Water, observed that del Toro’s legacy is that he brings a distinctly different vision to cinema. Jenkins observed that del Toro asks, “Why can’t the creature get the girl,” a reference to the love story at the center of The Shape of Water in which a mute woman falls for an underwater creature. Jenkins said that del Toro’s legacy entails showing us that what is conventionally feared is something that should be “embraced,” providing a fresh perspective on life and love. 

During the Meet the Feature Directors symposium held earlier in the day and setting the stage for the evening’s DGA Awards ceremony, del Toro asserted that attention to every detail, every role to be cast, is essential. He said of directors, “What we do is symphonic. One wrong note can ruin a movie.”

Del Toro topped a field of DGA nominees which consisted of Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird (A24), Martin McDonagh for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Fox Searchlight), Christopher Nolan for Dunkirk (Warner Bros.), and Jordan Peele for Get Out (Universal Pictures).

Peele’s work on Get Out was honored in another DGA Award category, winning for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director. In his acceptance remarks, Peele affirmed, “This has been the best year of my life, hands down,” citing the success of Get Out as well as he and his wife welcoming a beautiful baby into the world. At the same time, though, Peele said he had to balance this joy with what he regards as “not a good year for this country and not a good year for many of us,” alluding to the impact of the Trump administration. Peele said that the stories being told by DGA members can shed light on humanity, spark empathy for others and push back against hate and bigotry. He assessed that Get Out gives a voice to “victims of oppression” while “reaching out to people who might not have experienced” racial prejudice and injustice but through the movie get to “walk in the shoes” of those who are living through that experience. Peele called on the filmmakers in the DGA audience to continue to “use your voice,” which is “the most powerful weapon we have against evil.”

During the aforementioned daytime DGA symposium—during which it was noted that the five marquee feature film category nominees all wrote what they had directed—Peele said that while words are important, “ideas are crucial.” And making discoveries along the way can give a director a better handle on how he wants to tell a story—and/or what he can tap into in order to better tell that story and the ideas behind it. Plus there are inspiring ideas to be had during the process. For example, Peele recalled that he saw in rehearsal that Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams “didn’t feel like a couple in love” during the first couple of readings. At the same time, though, Peele could see that they shared a strong sense of humor, making one another laugh. For the purposes of Get Out, Peele went with that shared humor as something Kaluuya and Williams could build upon as a dynamic that attracted their characters to one another, sparking their falling in love.

Reed Morano, another first-time DGA nominee, won dramatic TV honors for her helming of the pilot for The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu). In her acceptance remarks, Morano thanked her producers and Hulu for being “the rare people who were seeking the opportunity to work with women instead of fearing it.”

Earlier during last year’s Emmy season—which saw her earn the Emmy for best director of a dramatic series for the same pilot episode (“Offred) of The Handmaid’s Tale, Morano told SHOOT that among her prime challenges on the project was “finding the right tone” for the show. “My natural instinct used to be to gravitate to what is most real, authentic and grounded. But for The Handmaid’s Tale, another dimension was needed. To tell the story and connect with an audience, the experience had to be made more epic and not one that just totally drags the viewer down. You can’t just strike one note all the way through. You have to create more of a roller coaster ride. For me the goal was to find a balance between realism and heightened elements here and there.”

Helping with this heightening was cinematographer Colin Watkinson whom Morano described as simply “spectacular.” She and Watkinson looked to bring new life to what can be visually mundane voiceover and flashback sequences. Of course, the beautiful and poetic writing of Handmaid’s Tale author Atwood imbued the voiceover with a stirring spirit. Morano and Watkinson in turn worked to make the point-of-view story of greater visual interest. “We thought,” shared Morano, “if everything we do with the camera is psychologically driven, getting into the mind of the character, then these sequences could be all the more engaging.”

Engendering gender reform
Morano was one of several female winners during the evening; others including Beth McCarthy Miller who won in the comedy series category for HBO’s Veep; and Niki Caro who took the children’s program competition for an episode of Anne with an E (Netflix). Gerwig meanwhile earned her nomination for Lady Bird. And Alma Har’el of Epoch Films was nominated in the commercials category. The latter is one of a select few women directors to gain Guild recognition in the spotmaking competition—the first being Amy Hill as half of the directorial duo Riess/Hill in 1999; followed by Katina Mercadante as half of the team known as The Mercadantes in 2015. That same year, Lauren Greenfield also received a nomination, making her the first individual female helmer to earn that DGA distinction in commercials. Har’el becomes the second solo woman director to be nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials since this category was established in 1980.

DGA president Thomas Schlamme kicked off the awards ceremony calling for more opportunities for women, greater ethnic diversity and overall inclusion. He said strides have been made—noting that more than half of the Guild’s national board consists of women—but much more must be done. Schlamme also tackled the sexual misconduct issue, saying, “Today we are witnessing a historic cultural shift in our industry and hopefully our society as well. Our Guild has been outspoken about our commitment in the drive to more respectful and inclusive workplaces, which includes a world where our members and others can show up for work without any fear of sexual harassment.”

Schlamme further noted that the DGA has joined the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, an industry-wide coalition wich has set goals to lead the entertainment community toward alignment in achieving safer, fairer, more equitable and accountable workplaces. The Commission is under the aegis of  law professor Anita Hill who brought the sexual harassment issue to the national stage in 1991 when she testified during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thnomas.

Documentary, commercials
Winning the DGA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary was Matthew Heineman for City of Ghosts (Amazon Studios) which introduced audiences to a group of citizen journalists who came together after ISIS took over their land. Heineman came on stage to affirm, “In the era of fake news where facts seem to be malleable and journalism is under fire, it’s important to celebrate groups like RBSS (Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently) that are courageously speaking truth to power.” (Heineman is handled for spots by Superprime Films.)

Speaking of commercialmaking, taking the DGA Award in that discipline was Martin de Thurah of Epoch Films. It’s the second career DGA win for de Thurah who this time around earned best spot director of 2017 on the basis of three entries that exhibited a mix of humor and cinematic acumen: StubHub’s “Festival” and “Machines” for Goodby Silverstein & Partners; and WealthSimple’s “Mad World” from the client’s in-house agency. 
De Thurah topped a field of nominees which also consisted of his Epoch colleague Har’el; the Hoffman/Metoyer duo from MJZ; Miles Jay of Smuggler; and Isaiah Seret of Biscuit Filmworks.

In brief acceptance remarks, de Thurah said he was deeply honored by the award and by being in the company of such talented fellow nominees. He then gave a shout-out to Har’el, sharing that he thought she was going to win the award based on her high-caliber work. He also cited her efforts to open up opportunities for women directors, a reference to the Free The Bid program she launched a little more than a year ago. The non-profit initiative, which has picked up widespread industry momentum, asks ad agencies to include a female filmmaker on every triple-bid project, production companies to sign more woman directors, and marketers to seek one woman’s bid on each of their commercial productions. 

De Thurah additionally thanked Epoch Films and his support team which included first assistant director Charles Connor on the two Stubhub commercials, and first assistant director Jey Wada and second assistant director Custis Smith who worked on the WealthSimple entry.

De Thurah first won the DGA Award in 2014 for two spots he directed in 2013: Hennessy’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Slow Down” for Droga5, and Acura MDX 2014’s “Human Race” for Mullen L.A.

Among the other DGA winners this year were Glenn Weiss for directing The 89th Academy Awards (ABC), Don Roy King for helming the Jimmy Fallon-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live (NBC), and Brian Smith for helming an episode of reality show MasterChef (FOX).

Special honors
Director and past DGA president Michael Apted received the DGA Honorary Life Member Award  in recognition of leadership in the industry, contribution to the Guild and the profession of directing, and outstanding career achievement.

Dwight Williams was the recipient of the 2018 Frank Capra Achievement Award for career achievement in the industry and service to the Guild. 

And Jim Tanker received the 2018 Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award in recognition of career achievement in the industry and service to the DGA. 

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