Guilds-a-palooza: More honors for La La Land, Moonlight, Arrival, and... Suicide Squad
Monday, February 20, 2017 at 4:32PM 
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and Eric Heisserer (Arrival) each won a WGA last night. But they're in the same category at the Oscars.
Last night's Writers Guild Awards were a good sign that Moonlight will take Adapted Screenplay. Competing in Original with WGA (Oscar's writing branch put it in adapted) it blocked La La Land or Manchester from taking that prize. With less fearsome competition at the Oscars it should be able to win... although to do that it will have to fend off the surging Lion and the well regarded Arrival which took home the WGA prize for Adapted and is up for the same prize at the Oscars.
Extensive writing and makeup guild honors after the jump...
WRITERS GUILD AWARDS
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Moonlight
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Arrival
DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY Command and Control
DRAMA SERIES The Americans
COMEDY SERIES Atlanta
NEW SERIES Atlanta
LONGFORM ORIGINAL Confirmation
LONGFORM ADAPTED American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson
ANIMATION Bojack Horseman "Fish Out of Water"
EPISODIC DRAMA This is Us "The Trip"
EPISODIC COMEDY Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt "Kimmy Goes on a Playdate"
It's curious that they have prizes for drama and comedy series and then also prizes for individual episodes, yes? But Kimmy Goes on a Playdate was such an amazing amazing episode. That Anna Camp wasn't nominated for a Guest Emmy is just further proof that that great idea for a category has super lousy execution each year. It needs to be decided by a specialty panel within the Academy or something.
DAYTIME DRAMA General Hospital
COMEDY VARIETY TALK SERIES Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
COMEDY VARIETY SKETCH SERIES Saturday Night Live
COMEDY VARIETY SPECIAL Triumph the Primary Election Season 2016
QUIZ AND AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION Hollywood Game Night
CHILDREN'S LONGFORM Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas
CHILDREN'S EPISODIC Gortimer Gibbons Life on Normal Street "Mel vs The Night Mare of Normal Street"
DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT - CURRENT EVENTS [tie] Frontline "The Choice 2016" and Frontline "Inside Assad's Syria"
DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT -OTHER THAN CURRENT EVENTS Jackie Robinson, Part One
TV NEWS SCRIPT - REGULARLY SCHEDULED 48 Hours "Muhammad Ali: Remembering a Legend"
TV NEW SCRIPT -ANALYSIS FEATURE OR COMMENTARY CBS Sunday Morning "Sunday Morning Almanac June 12th, 2016"
SHORTFORM NEW MEDIA -ORIGINAL The Commute "The Party"
SHORTFORM NEW MEDIA -ADAPTED Fear the Walking Dead "Passage" Pt 4
ON AIR PROMOTION (TV, NEW MEDIA, RADIO) - CBS On-Air Reel
RADIO DOCUMENTARY Chernobyl: 30 Years Later
RADIO NEWS SCRIPT - REGULARLY SCHEDULED "World News This Week" Aug 26th, 2016
RADIO NEWS SCRIPT - ANALYSIS Morley Safer: A Journalists Life
TELEVISION GRAPHIC ART AND ANIMATION - "The Real History of Cinco de Mayo"
VIDEO GAME WRITING: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
We continue to be weirded out that promotion of regular programming also wins awards. This seems like a redundacy at best and why people hate awards at worst. They also do that at the makeup and hairstylists awards which follow...
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLISTS GUILD
Motion Picture Winners
CONTEMPORARY MAKE-UP
Nocturnal Animals Make-Up Artists: Donald Mowat, Malanie J. Romero, Elaine Offers
CONTEMPORARY HAIR STYLING
La La Land Hair Stylists: Barbara Lorenz, Jackie Masteran, Frida Aradottir
PERIOD AND/OR CHARACTER MAKE-UP
Suicide Squad Make-Up Artist: Alessandro Bertolazzi
PERIOD AND/OR CHARACTER HAIR STYLING Hail, Caesar! Hair Stylists: Cydney Cornell, Pauletta Lewis-Irwin, Matt Danon
SPECIAL MAKE-UP EFFECTS Star Trek Beyond Make-Up Artists: Joel Harlow, Richie Alonzo
With only two of these films up for the Makeup Oscar (Suicide Squad and Star Trek Beyond facing off against Man Named Ove it's hard to know what film might win.
Television Series and New Media Winners:
CONTEMPORARY MAKE-UP Westworld Make-Up Artists: Christien Tinsley, Elisa Marsh, Rolf Keppler<
CONTEMPORARY HAIR STYLING Dancing With the Stars Hair Stylists: Kimi Messina, Gail Ryan, Dean Banowetz
PERIOD / CHARACTER MAKE-UP Game of Thrones Make-Up Artists: Jane Walker, Kay Bilk
PERIOD / CHARACTER HAIR STYLING Game of Thrones Hair Stylists: Kevin Alexander, Candice Banks
SPECIAL MAKE-UP EFFECTS Westworld Make-Up Artists: Christien Tinsley, Georgia Allen, Hiroshi Yada
Mini Series or Movie Made for Television Winners:
CONTEMPORARY MAKE-UP The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Lets Do The Time Warp Again Make-Up Artists: Julia Valente, Pip Ayote
CONTEMPORARY HAIR STYLING American Horror Story: Roanoke Hair Stylists: Michelle Ceglia, Valerie Jackson
PERIOD / CHARACTER MAKE-UP The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story Make-Up Artists: Eryn Krueger Mekash, Zoe Hay, Heather Plott
PERIOD / CHARACTER HAIR STYLING The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story Hair Stylists: Chris Clark, Natalie Driscoll
SPECIAL MAKE-UP EFFECTS American Horror Story: Roanoke Make-Up Artists: Eryn Krueger Mekash, Michael Mekash, David Anderson
Commercials and Music Video Winners:
MAKE-UP American Horror Story: Roanoke - Promo Make-Up Artists: Kerry Herta, Jason Collins, Cristina Waltz
HAIR STYLING Dior J'adore "The Absolute Femininity" Feat. Charlize Theron Hair Stylist: Enzo Angileri
I still don't understand how American Horror Story can compete in both series categories and commercials for itself categories. I think it won this prize in previous years too
Theatrical Productions Winner
MAKE-UP A Chorus Line Make-Up Artists: Vanessa Dionne, Donna Levy, Romain Markus Myers
HAIR STYLING Amadeus Hair Stylists: Laura Caponera, Melanie Hinchee
Children and Teen Programming Winners
MAKE-UP So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation Make-Up Artists: Tonia Green, Danielle Rush
HAIR STYLING So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation Hair Stylists: Dean Banowetz, Cory Rotenburg, Kimi Messina
Daytime Television Winners:
MAKE-UP The Real Make-Up Artists: Melanie Mills, Kevin Haney, Brian Penikas
HAIR STYLING The Young and The Restless Hair Stylists: Regina Rodriguez, Adriana Lucio
Reader Comments (13)
One thing I don't understand about Moonlight's Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination: if it's adapted (as it's based on a play), then why is Tarell Alvin McCraney, the playwright, nominated with Jenkins? If the play is the source from which the film is adapted, shouldn't it just be Jenkins who got the nomination?
Anyhow, I think Moonlight will win Adapted at the Oscars and I guess that means Lonergan will be OK in the Original category.
Aren't the promos (& opening credits) more or less divorced from the show itself, i.e., no actual scenes or performers involved, like Nip/Tuck in its day?
@Edward L - the Oscar nomination has 'Story by' Tarell Alvin McCraney and screenplay by Jenkins.
In this case the 'story' is an unproduced play. So by this logic, is any film with a 'story by' credit adapted in the Academy's eyes because it is adapted from that story?
They need to sort out some clear rules for this category and stick to them!
I would have given it to " Hell and High Water"
Take a look at Kumail Nanjiani's intro to the Adapted award... so effin' funny.
Steve G: Exactly - I'd have thought that qualifies Moonlight for the Original category rather than Adapted. It would be clearer to me if they had just nominated Jenkins, for having written a screenplay adapted from McCraney's original story. Unless McCraney had a hand in the screenplay too - but the Moonlight credits don't seem to suggest that is the case, if I remember rightly. A bit odd. Anyhow, if Moonlight wins the Oscar, I believe it will become the first screenplay to win the WGA award in one category and then the Oscar in the other category.
Steve & Edward -- it does seem like these category definitions are getting murkier and murkier. There will always be some gray areas (Moonlight is definitely one depending on how you define adapted) but I think the fact that they've let studios game the system so often in the past twenty years has created even more confusion. I still can't get over all the shenanigans in 2002 with Gangs of New York and My Big Fat Greek Wedding trying to clear the way for nominations / wins and avoid competition.
also it seems to me that adapted did not used to cover "based on characters created by..." which it now does. You could write a super original captain america story and if it was great they would still say you were adapted.
Nathaniel: Indeed. I mean, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was based on a produced play; Gangs of New York and Syriana were based on books. But all were Original Screenplays according to Oscar.
Re: "based on characters created by", I feel perhaps a bit more ambivalently about this than you do. I know it's something you've raised before, and it does seem odd when, say, Toy Story 3 is an Adapted Screenplay. But I guess the Academy's reasoning is that the characters weren't original to the screenplay in question, and so there's an element of adaptation involved (Before Sunset and Before Midnight, both Adapted Screenplay nominees, being two other, similar examples, taking their characters from Before Sunset). At the same time, and with your Captain America example, the original elements would so far outweigh the adapted element that to call it Adapted seems somewhat unjustified.
I think the category titles back in the 1980s were more helpful, in a way: Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen and Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Seems like there were fewer confusions back then. Now it's just Original Screenplay and Adapted Screenplay, and seems somewhat more open to interpretation.
WOO HOO!!!!
I mean, I'm excited for Moonlight and Arrival (and Hail, Caesar! too) and everything but...
MY COUSIN WON at the Makeup/Hairstylist Guild!!!!!! I was so thrilled when Danielle got the job on So You Think You Can Dance, and even more when I saw the Facebook posts over the weekend from the ceremony with her holding her award. I'm so happy for her - I know it's been a long journey for her to get where she is now, and this means a lot to her. YAY!!!!!
I don't understand how the Writers Guild considered Moonlight an original. All the production notes mention Tarell's play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue”. The whole movie consists in one-on-one scenes, which is explains the workshop origin.
Taylor Sheridan, the writer of Hell or High Water, is super hot. Nathaniel, go get an interview.
After reviewing the Writers Guild's own rules and definitions for various credits (available here: http://www.wga.org/uploadedFiles/writers_resources/credits/screenscredits_manual10.pdf), the guild's classification of Moonlight makes quite a bit more sense. From my amateur interpretation, the key for distinguishing between Adapted and Original screenplays when it comes to unpublished/unproduced work (such as McCraney's play) is in whether the original writer is a "professional writer". In the language of the guild, story material purchased from a non-professional writer is entitled to a "Based upon..." credit - and that original writer, then, is not given official authorship credit for the final screenplay.
In Moonlight's case, if McCraney was considered a professional writer when film rights to his play were purchased, he was then entitled to a "Story by" credit at minimum for a contribution "distinct from the screenplay and consisting of basic narrative, idea, theme or outline indicating character development and action." Additional collaboration with Jenkins might have resulted in a different credit, but the "story by" would have existed for having established the characters and thematic concerns of the story regardless of what changes occurred in the adaptation. Such byzantine credit systems make sense in the context of a guild whose primary aim is to protect, fiscally AND creatively, their professional writer membership - and, indeed, to construct a definition of authorship itself.
The WGA and Academy have different goals and missions. I guess I'm more surprised at the Academy's willingness to "correct" a guild decision?
RJ: Thanks for this - it does help explain the WGA's position a bit better. Though the Academy's position also feels reasonable, given that the screenplay was based on a pre-existing play. As you say, the two organisations have different goals and missions. Thanks again.
For once, I'm with the Academy.