Unit production manager Kathleen McGill and associate director Mimi (Marian) Deaton will receive special DGA Awards recognizing their contributions to the guild at the 71st annual DGA Awards on Feb. 2, it was announced Thursday by DGA president Thomas Schlamme.
McGill will receive the DGA’s 2019 Frank Capra Achievement Award, which is given to an assistant director or unit production manager in recognition of career achievement in the industry and service to the guild.
Deaton will receive the DGA’s 2019 Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award, which is given to an associate director or stage manager in recognition of service to the industry and to the guild.
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“Kathy and Mimi embody the type of leadership, dedication and distinguished commitment that these special awards were designed to celebrate,” Schlamme said in a statement. “Even with active, successful careers, they have both devoted countless hours in service to the DGA representing their fellow members and advocating on their behalf, strengthening our guild and reinforcing our mission to protect and promote the economic and creative rights of our members.”
McGill, who began her entertainment career as a production accountant before joining the guild as a UPM in 1995, has worked on such films as Brian DePalma’s Snake Eyes and Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon and A Beautiful Mind. Since 2012, she has worked as the UPM on the X-Men franchise, including Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse, and is currently at work on Simon Kinberg’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix.
McGill’s service to the DGA began when she was first elected to the Eastern AD/UPM Council in 2000, and she has since served 10 terms on the council, including being elected council chair from 2014-2017. Currently a DGA national board member, McGill was first elected to the board in 2003 as an alternate and has since served eight consecutive terms.
Deaton has been a member of the DGA for more than three decades. She has served on the Western AD/SM/PA Council for 21 years, including spending the last four as second vice-chair of the council. In 2017, she was elected as a second alternate on the DGA national board.
Deaton began her associate director career working on classic sitcoms. Her extensive experience in the multicamera genre includes 119 episodes of Martin, 92 episodes of The Facts of Life, 80 episodes of Reba and more. Her other work includes episodes of such sitcoms as The Neighborhood; Bizaardvark; Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn; Melissa & Joey; The Soul Man; and Carol & Company.
