Okay, so we now have some real predictive guild awards for categories besides Best Picture to deal with. First up it's the Annies, where How to Train Your Dragon 2 dominated, taking six statues, which I honestly think gives it a huge leg up in that Animated Feature race at the Oscars. The Annies are normally a pretty good precursor for that, and even though they actually awarded the first HTTYD back in 2010, they went all in for the sequel this year too. I'd bet on that one now for sure.
- Animated Effects in Animation: Big Hero 6
- Animated Effects in Live-Action: Edge of Tomorrow
- Animated Short: Feast
- Character Animation in Live-Action: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
- Character Animation in Animation: How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Voice Acting: Ben Kingsley, The Boxtrolls
- Storyboarding: How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Production Design: The Boxtrolls
- Music: How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Editing: How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Writing: The Lego Movie
- Directing: Dean DeBlois, How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Best Animated Feature: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Meanwhile, over at the USC Scripter awards, which gives out its prize to the adapted screenplay and the source material it's based on, they chose Graham Moore's script for The Imitation Game and Andrew Hodges' biography of Alan Turing. I expected that, so I'm not surprised, and the scripter is a very good predictor of Adapted Screenplay, although Imitation Game's biggest competition, American Sniper and Whiplash, weren't nominated here, but that's still a boost for it. Finally, the Art Directors Guild announced tonight for production design as well.
Contemporary Film: Birdman
Period Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Fantasy: Guardians of the Galaxy
This one is harder to use as an accurate predictor, because they separate into genres, but frankly that production design award is one of the easiest to call- it's going to Grand Budapest Hotel, no question.
