Costume Designers Guild Winners

COSTUME DESIGN (Period Film): 12 Years a Slave- Patricia Norris
COSTUME DESIGN (Contemporary Film): Blue Jasmine- Suzy Benzinger
COSTUME DESIGN (Fantasy Film): The Hunger Games: Catching Fire- Trish Summerville

Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylist Guild

CONTEMPORARY HAIRSTYLING: Lee Daniels' The Butler
PERIOD/CHARACTER HAIRSTYLING: American Hustle
CONTEMPORARY MAKE-UP: Prisoners
PERIOD/CHARACTER MAKE-UP: Dallas Buyers Club
SPECIAL MAKE-UP EFFECTS: Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

Visual Effects Society

When it comes to Visual Effects for the 2013 calendar year, there's Gravity and then there's everything else and this year it will just have to be a honor to be nominated for everything other than the grand space opera.  To the surprise of no one, Gravity led the field with six wins from the Visual Effects Society onward to it's forthcoming inevitable Oscar win.

OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A VISUAL EFFECTS-DRIVEN MOTION PICTURE
Gravity

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING VISUAL EFFECTS
The Lone Ranger

OUTSTANDING ANIMATED CHARACTER   
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug- Smaug

OUTSTANDING CREATED ENVIRONMENT
Gravity- Exterior

OUTSTANDING CREATED ENVIRONMENT (Animated Feature)
Frozen- Elsa's Ice Palace

OUTSTANDING VIRTUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
Gravity

OUTSTANDING MODELS
Gravity- ISS Exterior

OUTSTANDING FX AND SIMULATION ANIMATION
Gravity- Parachute and ISS Destruction

OUTSTANDING COMPOSITING
Gravity

OUTSTANDING COMPOSITING (Animated Feature)
Frozen- Elsa's Blizzard  

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: John Dykstra
VISIONARY AWARD: Alfonso Cuarón

Art Directors Guild Award Winners

EXCELLENCE IN PRODUCTION DESIGN (Period Film)
The Great Gatsby- Catherine Martin

EXCELLENCE IN PRODUCTION DESIGN (Contemporary Film)
Her- K.K. Barrett

EXCELLENCE IN PRODUCTION DESIGN (Fantasy Film)
Gravity- Andy Nicholson

ACE Eddie Award Winners

The American Cinema Editors announced their choices for the best in film editing for the 2013 movie year.  The tricky splicing of a feature film, the what that separates the movies from real life, the sometimes (but certainly not always) invisible art form that sculpts a movie.  The Best Film Editing Oscar is usually synonymous with Best Picture and the ACE Eddies can be accurate gauges of how the race may eventually turn out.  And other times, they're not; that's the way it goes.

BEST FILM EDITING (Drama)
Captain Phillips- Christopher Rouse

"I am the captain now."

Rouse previously earned the ACE Eddie Award and the Academy Award for Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum, one of a handful of cases where the Editors went their own way rather than placing a bet on a probable Best Picture winner.  Can it happen again?  It appears to be a fierce race for the Best Picture Oscar for Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle, but is Captain Phillips (which has no shot at the big prize) rallying to spoil in a few areas-- it's surprise WGA win and ACE Eddie prize point to plausible surprises on Oscar night.

BEST FILM EDITING (Musical or Comedy)
American Hustle- Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers & Alan Baumgarten

"You're nothing to me until you're everything."

Cassidy and Struthers won the same award last year and were up for the Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook (they lost to Argo, which won the ACE Eddie for Drama.)  All three are up for the Oscar again for American Hustle.

BEST FILM EDITING (Documentary)
20 Feet From Stardom- Douglas Blush, Kevin Klauber & Jason Zeldes

Searching For Sugar Man won the ACE Eddie last year for Documentary Feature before winning the Documentary Oscar prize-- could this back-up singer story have the same fate?

BEST FILM EDITING (Animated Feature)
Frozen- Jeff Draheim

TELEVISION
MINI-SERIES OR MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra- Mary Ann Bernard (Steven Soderbergh)
ONE HOUR SERIES (Commercial TV): Breaking Bad- "Felina"- Skip MacDonald
ONE HOUR SERIES (Non-Commercial TV): Homeland- "Big Man in Tehran"- Terry Kelley
HALF-HOUR SERIES: The Office- "Finale"- David Rogers & Claire Scanlan
TV DOCUMENTARY: The Assassination of President Kennedy- Chris A. Peterson

GOLDEN EDDIE AWARD: Paul Greengrass
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Richard Halsey

American Society of Cinematographers

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Gravity- Emmanuel Lubezki

ONE HOUR TELEVISION SERIES: Game of Thrones- Jonathan Freeman ("Valar Doharis")
HALF HOUR TELEVISION SERIES: Drunk History- Blake McClure ("Detroit")
TELEVISION MOTION PICTURE: Killing Lincoln- Jeremy Benning

ASC INTERNATIONAL AWARD: Eduardo Serra
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Dean Cundey

Writers Guild Award Winners

Her solidifies itself (YAY!) as the real deal for Original Screenplay (warding off that Oscar nomination giant that is American Hustle) while Captain Phillips surprises in the Adapted race, a call that surely be seen as consolation prize as 12 Years a Slave was deemed ineligible for the WGA award.

MOTION PICTURE

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Her- Spike Jonze
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Captain Phillips- Billy Ray
DOCUMENTARY: Stories We Tell- Sarah Polley

TELEVISION

DRAMA SERIES: Breaking Bad
COMEDY SERIES: Veep
VARIETY SERIES: The Colbert Report 
NEW TV SERIES: House of Cards
EPISODIC DRAMA: "Confessions"- Breaking Bad- Gennifer Hutchison
EPISODIC COMEDY: "Hogcock"- 30 Rock- Jack Burditt & Robert Carlock 
ANIMATION: "A Test Before Dying"-  The Simpsons- Joel H. Cohen

SCREEN LAURAL AWARD: Paul Mazursky
PAUL SELVIN AWARD: Alex Gibney, We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wiki-Leaks

PGA Awards

FILM
MOTION PICTURE (tie): 12 Years a Slave; Gravity 
DOCUMENTARY: We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wiki-Leaks
ANIMATED FEATURE: Frozen
STANLEY KRAMER AWARD: Fruitvale Station

For the first time in its history, the Producers Guild Association came to a tie.  Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave and Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity shared the top prize in a move that will not only surely make this years Oscar race sled into hyper-drive but also drive the pundits and obsessives into an utter state of panic.  In recent history, the PGA (which began handing out prizes in 1990) has been an accurate bellwether for the eventual Best Picture victor; the last time the group disagreed with the Academy was in 2007 when the Producers went for Little Miss Sunshine, while the Academy selected The Departed.  Since the Academy adjusted the rules and squeezed in more titles, the voting procedures for the Oscar and the PGA are nearly identical and thus a consensus merged between the two groups.  This tie thing is the kind of bat-shit wrench that will likely thrust this into being one of the most competitive and eagerly (but hopefully not bitterly) fought races in recent memory.

What does it all mean?  
Well the DGA may serve as tiebreaker and Cuarón and his technical wizardry may prevail in the end tipping the scale to Gravity, which co-lead the Oscar nominations tally shared with American Hustle.  Or perhaps McQueen, with a nod to history on its side will take the DGA and 12 Years a Slave will hold true to the all frontrunner fuss since premiering at Telluride last September.  Or, an even crazier notion, is that two will split themselves and the SAG victor American Hustle will win on consensus because all its hairstyling and actorly bravado is just so pleasant to watch.  Or, I and perhaps a few of you out there will have a incessant headache until March 2nd, over-thinking this damn thing to death.  At the very least, the 2013 awards season is legitimately interesting and there's no Argo-train effect of any kind.  And for that, we should be happy, even if its torture.