Costume Designers and Cinema Audio Society Hand Out Annual Awards

Two more guilds announced the results of their annual awards voting as the Costume Designers Guild and Cinema Audio Society both gave out their top honors on Saturday night, February 22, and the two top Oscar best contenders continued their run of the precursors with Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave and Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity each taking top honors.

The Costume Designers Guild gave Patricia Norris its award for Excellence in Period Film for 12 Years a Slave (beating both American Hustle and The Great Gatsby) while Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine and its costume designer Suzy Benzinger won for Contemporary Film. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire‘s Trish Summerville won the award for Fantasy for her futuristic outfits for the blockbuster hit.

On the television side, “Downton Abbey’s” Caroline McCall was awarded for its Fantasy/Period costumes while Netflix’s “House of Cards” and Tom Broecker won the corresponding award for Contemporary costume design. “Behind the Candelabra’s” Ellen Mirojnick also received an honor from the guild for the mini-series.

Over at the Cinema Audio Society (CAS), Alfonso Cuaron’s space drama Gravity continued its run of technical awards taking “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture – Live Action,” while Walt Disney’s runaway hit Frozen took the corresponding award in the animated motion picture category.

HBO’s “Behind the Candelabra” was also honored for its sound mixing with “Game of Thrones” and “Modern Family” winning awards in the hour-long and half-hour television categories.

As far as the tightly-contested Oscar Best Picture race between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave, the two movies having tied for the Producers Guild’s top award, Gravity already has a win from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Art Directors Guild, but more importantly, Cuaron won the Directors Guild award which is a strong precursor. 12 Years a Slave won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (over Gravity) as well as winning the top prize at the Critics Choice awards, although it lost the Screen Actors Guild ensemble award to David O. Russell’s American Hustle.

You can read the full press release from the Cinema Audio Society below:

It was an out-of-this-world evening for GRAVITY and the Sound Mixing Team of Production Mixer Chris Munro, CAS; Re-recording Mixers Skip Lievsay, CAS, Niv Adiri and Christopher Benstead; Scoring Mixer Gareth Cousins; ADR Mixers Chris Navarro, CAS and Thomas J. O’Connell; and Foley Mixer Adam Fil Mendez at the 50th Annual CAS Awards. The space drama won Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture – Live Action.

Taking the top honors in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture – Animated was FROZEN and the Sound Mixing Team of Original Dialogue Mixer Gabriel Guy, Re-recording Mixers David E. Fluhr, CAS and Gabriel Guy, Scoring Mixer Casey Stone and Foley Mixer Mary Jo Lang.

Held in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s famed Crystal Ballroom and hosted by Doug McIntyre, the program also celebrated the professional contributions of Re-recording Mixer Andy Nelson by honoring him with the CAS Career Achievement Award. A two-time CAS and Academy Award® winner for Les Misérables and Saving Private Ryan, Nelson was feted by Academy Award® winning composer John Williams, Twentieth Century Fox President of Feature Post Production Ted Gagliano and CAS President, David Fluhr. “Receiving this award from the CAS is such an honor because it’s from my peers…” said Nelson, “people who love this craft as much as I do, and I am humbled by their generosity and commitment to excellence.”

Among other highlights, Academy Award® winning producer Edward Zwick (Shakespeare in Love), was presented with the CAS Filmmaker Award. Zwick and CAS Career Achievement Honoree Nelson collaborated on Zwick’s CAS and Oscar® nominated Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai, as well as, Love and Other Drugs, Defiance and Courage Under Fire. Presenting his award were Anna Behlmer and Jeffrey S. Wexler, CAS

During the evening, there was a poignant tribute to Ray Dolby, inventor and founder of Dolby Laboratories. Dolby Exec David W. Gray presented the tribute that included archival footage of Ray Dolby accepting the CAS Life Achievement Award at the 1989 CAS Awards.

Celebrating their 50th year, the CAS chose to have eight past presidents of the CAS present awards in the various categories: James A. Corbett, Michael Minkler, Gary Bourgeois, Edwin J. Somers, Robert Deschaine, Steve Hawk, Melissa Hofmann and Edward L. Moskowitz.

Other winners this evening included:

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Television Movie or Mini-Series:

BEHIND THE CANDLELABRA and the Sound Mixing Team of Production Mixer Dennis Towns, Re-recording Mixer Larry Blake, Scoring Mixer Thomas Vicari and Foley Mixer Scott Curtis.

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series – One Hour:

GAME OF THRONES: The Rains of Castamere and the Sound Mixing Team of Production Mixers Ronan Hill, CAS and Richard Dyer, Re-recording Mixers Onnalee Blank, CAS and Matthew Waters, CAS and Foley Mixer Brett Voss.

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series – Half Hour:

MODERN FAMILY: Goodnight Gracie and the Sound Mixing Team of Production Mixer Stephen A. Tibbo, CAS and Re-recording Mixers Dean Okrand and Brian R. Harman, CAS.

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Non Fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials:

HISTORY OF THE EAGLES – Part One and the Sound Mixing Team of Re-recording Mixers Tom Fleischman, CAS and Elliot Scheiner.

The winners of the 10th CAS Technical Achievement Awards:

PRODUCTION: Sound Devices, LLC – 633 Mixer/Recorder

POST-PRODUCTION: iZotope – RX 3 Advanced

The Cinema Audio Society was delighted to have (in alphabetical order): Richard Grieco, Bethany Joy Lenz, Michael O’Neill and Penny Peyser on hand to present awards to the evening’s winners.

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