1st AD Gregory G. McCollum will become the 40th recipient of the Frank Capra Achievement Award, which will be presented at the DGA Awards ceremony on February 7, 2026. The Capra Award is given to an Assistant Director or Unit Production Manager in recognition of their career and service to the industry and the DGA.
McCollum joined the DGA in 1985 as a Second AD. His service to the Guild began in 2009 when he was chosen to serve as a member of the DGA’s Commercial Negotiating Committee, a role he would go on to continue for every negotiations cycle since. He was first elected as an Alternate member of the Western AD/UPM Council in 2018 and has served in that role for seven consecutive terms. He also currently serves as the Chair of the Council’s Commercial Committee and is only the second member working in commercials to receive the Frank Capra Achievement Award.
McCollum recalls the factors that promoted him to become more involved in service to the Guild.
“A group of commercial 1st ADs were upset over capping out in the pension plan and encouraged a fairly large group of commercial ADs to attend an AD/UPM Council meeting one night. I had never attended a meeting before, and that meeting did intrigue me. Later on Capra Award recipient Lee Blaine, who was Chair of the Western AD/UPM Council Commercial Committee, encouraged my 2nd AD John Elmore to get me to come to a Commercial Committee meeting. I did, and never stopped attending to this date.”
He counts among his proudest achievement in his DGA service as, “changing the culture at the Guild so that commercials and people who work on them get the recognition/representation they deserve.”
McCollum encourages his fellow members to follow in that path to service and advises them to, “get involved, make change, don’t just complain. The Guild is member-driven and somehow that always gets lost until you get involved and learn how things happen.”
Throughout his long career in commercials, McCollum has served as a 1st AD on countless Super Bowl spots and over a thousand projects for brands across consumer categories from automotive, lifestyle, financial services, sports, electronics, and more. Several of these projects have gone on to receive Emmy Nominations.
Beyond his work in the commercials sphere, McCollum’s First AD credits include features and short films such as Gary McKendry’s Everything In This Country Must (2004), Tenney Fairchild’s The Good Humor Man (2005) and Vikes (2017), Ericson Core’s Point Break (2015), Jim Jenkins’ I Can Change (2020) and David Shane’s television pilot Driven (2021).
In a career that has seen so many high points, McCollum counts being selected as the newest Capra recipient as the proudest achievement in his profession but noted, “being the AD on the Academy Award-nominated short Everything In This Country Must and multiple Emmy Award-nominated commercials would rank second.”
Asked how he felt about being honored by his peers as the latest Capra recipient McCollum said, “This Guild and this career have given me more than I could ever give back. Not just opportunities, but life lessons. I never set out for recognition, which makes this moment all the more humbling. To be included among people like Joe Reidy, Duncan Henderson, Marie Cantin, and Cleve Landsberg is overwhelming. I’m deeply grateful to everyone I’ve worked with behind the camera and at the DGA who believed I was deserving. And to think I’m only the second person from Commercials to receive this honor, well that is still sinking in, that it’s actually happening.”
Past recipients of the Frank Capra Achievement Award:
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