Inside The MacGuffin Awards Which Celebrate The Unsung Artistry Behind Screen's Most Important Props

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The MacGuffin Awards brought together guild members, filmmakers, and industry leaders for a celebration of the creative contributions and craftsmanship of property masters across film and television over the past year.

On Saturday, September 12, members of the Property Masters Guild gathered to celeberate the third annual MacGuffin Awards. Across 11 categories spanning film, television, and commercials, the MacGuffin Awards—so named after one of the most iconic props in Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 "The 39 Steps"—recognize the people responsible for every object an actor picks up, relies on, or is defined by on screen. The only awards ceremony dedicated specifically to the craft of property masters, the MacGuffins are still relatively young—but three years in, there is already a sense of momentum around the event and, more importantly, a growing recognition of just how much storytelling can be hidden in props.

Inside the Paramount Theater in Hollywood, that recognition was palpable. This was, above all, a room full of artists celebrating each other, with one idea returning throughout the evening: props may not always announce themselves, but they do so much invisible work. Few winners demonstrated that better than the first announced winners of the night, “One Battle After Another” prop masters Matthew Cavaliero and Robbie Duncan, who took home the award for Contemporary Feature Film. For Cavaliero and Duncan, the film offered plenty of opportunities to make those seemingly small details carry enormous narrative weight.

“It really gives me pride in knowing that I worked on Paul Thomas Anderson's best picture of the year,” Duncan told The Set Set in a pre-ceremony interview. “I think a lot of the time props are unseen and unheard, and in this film they were alive on the screen.” One of the clearest examples was the portable DNA kit used by Sean Penn’s Stephen J. Lockjaw, which becomes crucial to the film's suspense in its third act. “We had to really come up with it, knowing that the answer of what that DNA kit is going to do is, it's going to allow the character to go one of two different ways: live or die,” Duncan explained. “And I think we pulled that one off, and just got that suspense for everyone in the scene.” Duncan won a second award in the Short Form category for Ariana Grande's “Brighter Days Ahead” music video, making him one of the evening's clearest demonstrations of the breadth of the property master role.

Meanwhile, Christopher Geggie, who won for “Frankenstein” in the best Period Feature Film category, showcased the craft of building an entire visual world around a particular era, while Brad Elliott and Melissa Spicer took the Fantasy/Science Fiction Feature Film award for “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” another reminder of the sheer range of work that falls under the property department.

That range became particularly apparent across the television categories. Sarah Snyder won for “The 'Burbs” in One-Hour Contemporary Television, while “Spider-Noir” prop master Nicole Ruby took the Period Television award. For Ruby, the latter presented a particularly unusual challenge: the show had to work in both black and white and colour. As she noted in her acceptance speech, she went back to the old methods of monochromatic filmmaking to understand how different colors would read on screen, while simultaneously making sure those same props would work when seen in color. It is the kind of technical consideration that audiences are unlikely to register—and precisely the sort of invisible craft that the MacGuffins exist to celebrate.

For “Fallout” prop masters Brad Einhorn and Andy Siegel, who won One-Hour Fantasy/Science Fiction Television, the challenge was scale. The property's aesthetic stretches from a retro 1950s vision of America into a sprawling post-apocalyptic world, requiring an enormous variety of objects to populate its competing factions and environments. The team built robots, designed props for the different armies, and navigated the show's constant collision between vintage Americana and a ravaged future.

Over in the Half-Hour categories, “Widow's Bay” prop master Morgan Kling won Single Camera, to an especially enthusiastic response from the room, while “Vampirina: Teenage Vampire” took Multi-Camera. For prop master Addison Ellison, the win carried particular significance because so much of the work on the show is deliberately designed not to call attention to itself. “I am incredibly grateful that props is starting to get recognised for what really does sometimes feel like invisible work,” Ellison told The Set Set. "When executed effectively, the physical form of a prop isn't as important as the form of it being an extension of revealing to an audience who a character is and quietly adding to that visual storytelling." That understanding—of the prop as an extension of character rather than simply an object—was echoed throughout the evening by her peers and fellow winners.

For Jane Gulick, Matthew Cornelius, Nick Komornicki, and Alvin Cabrinha, prop masters for “Chief of War," which won the Television Miniseries award, offered perhaps one of the clearest examples of props functioning as a crucial part of historical storytelling. There was a collective emphasis from the production on authenticity, particularly in accurately telling the history of Hawai’i. The property department was therefore instrumental in establishing that specificity, helping to make the show's world feel not simply convincing but rooted in the history it was depicting.

The evening's final categories demonstrated just how far the property craft extends beyond traditional film and television. “The Muppet Show” prop master Theresa Corvino won in the Variety, Reality, Game Show or Television Special category, with Corvino—a longtime leader within the Property Masters Guild and the MacGuffin Awards—having a particularly personal connection to the trophy itself. Corvino recalled having one of the 3D-printed mock-ups of the designs that were being tested for the MacGuffin Award. She kept it as a point of motivation: one day, she wanted to take home the real thing. With “The Muppet Show,” she finally did.

Alongside the competitive awards, the ceremony also recognised three individuals whose contributions extend beyond the traditional property master role. Food stylist Luis Castro received the Humanitarian Award for his work supporting neurodivergent individuals and creating opportunities through culinary arts. Trish Reilly received the President's Award for her contributions to the property craft as a food stylist, with credits including “Obi-Wan,” “Rebel Moon,” and ”American Horror Story.” Barry Wilkinson received the Lifetime Achievement Award, honouring a property-department career spanning more than four decades and more than 70 films, including “Titanic,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “GoldenEye,” and the “Harry Potter” films.

During the ceremony PMG President Jeffrey Johnson used his time on stage to reflect on the Guild's continued growth. This evening’s event is a shining example of how we can do anything we can imagine,” Johnson said, while MacGuffin co-chairs Corvino, Elliott, and Lauren Shell put the purpose of the ceremony plainly: “Property masters create character, build the worlds in which our stories play out, and oftentimes our props drive the narrative itself.” After three years, the MacGuffins appear to be making good on that mission. The evening was ultimately about the collective pride of a community of artists getting to celebrate what they do.

Check out the full list of winners from this year's Prop Master Guild's MacGuffin Awards below.

CONTEMPORARY FEATURE FILM

"Happy Gilmore 2" — Tim Wiles
"Now You See Me: Now You Don't" — Federico Ciommo
"One Battle After Another" — Matthew Cavaliero, Robbie Duncan
"The Accountant 2" — JP Jones
"Weapons" — Mike Scherschel

PERIOD FEATURE FILM

"Deliver Me From Nowhere" — David Gulick
"Frankenstein" — Christopher Geggie
"Marty Supreme" — Michael Jortner
"Sinners" — Douglas L. Ware
"The Phoenician Scheme" — Mike Drury, Sandy Hamilton

FANTASY / SCIENCE FICTION FEATURE FILM

"Avatar: Fire and Ash" — Brad Elliott, opens in new tab, Melissa Spicer
"Bugonia" — Ben Hopwood
"How To Train Your Dragon" — David Cheesman
"Tron: Ares" — Dean Eilertson
"Wicked: For Good" — Jamie Wilkinson

ONE-HOUR CONTEMPORARY TELEVISION SERIES

"Daredevil: Born Again" Season 2 — Katie Clinebelle
"Pluribus" Season 1 — Mark C. Hansen
"The ‘Burbs" Season 1 — Sarah Snyder
"The Morning Show" Season 4 — Jane Gulick
"Your Friends & Neighbors" Season 2 — Jackie Wertz, Ryan Gargiulo

ONE-HOUR PERIOD TELEVISION SERIES

"IT: Welcome to Derry" — Jim Murray
"Monster: The Ed Gein Story" — Cameron Lowande
"Palm Royale" Season 2 — Parker Swanson
"Spider-Noir" Season 1 — Nicole Ruby
"The Gilded Age" Season 3 — Peter Gelfman

ONE-HOUR FANTASY / SCIENCE FICTION TELEVISION SERIES

"Fallout" Season 2 — Brad Einhorn, Andy Siegel
"Foundation" Season 3 — Radim Cvancara, Jiří Macke
"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" Season 2 — Michelle Hendriksen
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 3 — Emily Hyde
"Twisted Metal" Season 2 — Emily Hyde

HALF-HOUR SINGLE CAMERA TELEVISION SERIES

"Abbott Elementary" Season 5 — Brad Elliott
"Hacks" Season 5 — Jane Gulick
"Murderbot" Season 1 — Nick Whelan
"TED" Season 2 — John Harrington
"Widow's Bay" Season 1 — Morgan Kling

HALF-HOUR MULTI-CAMERA TELEVISION SERIES

"Happy's Place" Season 2, Julie Heuer Jones
"Shifting Gears" Season 2 — Jeremy Armstrong
"The Upshaws" Season 7 — Charles Faithorn
"Vampirina: Teenage Vampire" Season 1 — Addison Esson
"Wizards Beyond Waverly Place" Season 2 — Lindsay Tomlinson Forrest

TELEVISION MINISERIES

"Black Rabbit" — Max Sherwood
"Chief of War" — Jane Gulick, Matthew Cornelius, Nick Komornicki, Alvin Cabrinha
"Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy" — Jim Murray
"DTF St. Louis" — Katrina Rice
"Task" — Susannah McCarthy