Last weekend, the Screen Actors Guild anointed their own, cementing the foregone conclusion that Christoph Waltz (“Inglourious Basterds”) and Mo’Nique (“Precious”) will take their winning streak to the Oscars as supporting actor and actress respectively. Jeff Bridges (“Crazy Heart”) has become front runner as Best Actor after his SAG win, many considering his win as more career achievement than his work on the little-seen film. However, the Best Actress race between the pre- Oscar dueling divas isn’t as clear. While many consider SAG winner Sandra Bullock the emerging front runner, it’s not a lock; Meryl Streep could earn her third Academy Award for “Julia & Julie.” “Inglourious Basterds” received recognition as Outstanding Performance by a Cast of a Motion Picture.

The Producers Guild of America also announced its best producers of last year, awarding critics’ favorite “The Hurt Locker” for film. Other categories included documentary, TV and animation. Prior to the ceremony, eight producers of the ten nominated films’ producing teams gathered for the now-annual nominees breakfast. Moderated by film and TV veteran, and PGA President, Marshall Herskovitz (“thirtysomething” and “The Last Sumarai”), the panel consisted of producers Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) and Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air”), both of whom also directed their films.

Identifying the biggest challenges to getting their movies made was on everyone’s mind. Bigelow, whose film is about bomb detonators in Iraq, discussed how she “faced an insurmountable hurdle trying to get pyrotechnics, black powder and prop guns into Jordan,” a country preferring to maintain its neutrality while surrounded by states that may support terrorism and one that has ample supplies of what she needed to get into Jordan, adding “except the country’s guns were real.” Seemingly seconds before filming began (and after drinking more tea than she ever had in life), the royal family and government granted her the permission she needed.

Reitman credited his father Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters”) for his “home and on-set schooling in filmmaking” yet that was still not enough preparation for the amount of locations and airports he had to endure. He profusely thanked his location manager and marveled how he arranged to work within the TSA’s strict policies post-9/11, filming in restricted gate areas.

Producer Lawrence Bender (“Inglourious Basterds”) faced the plug being pulled on the film almost as soon as he and writer/director Quentin Tarantino arrived in Germany for casting. Bender painfully described how very early into casting Tarantino realized he had written a role that was simply uncastable and had decided to quit while he was ahead. Bender urged his partner to hold off and soon after they met the unknown German actor Christoph Waltz who auditioned using English, French and German. According to Bender, “Waltz single-handedly saved the film.”

Producers of the animated film “Up” (PGA’s animation winner) and the fast-approaching number one movie of all time, “Avatar,” shared the horror they experienced pitching their stories to get studios to finance their films. “Avatar’s” Jon Landau remembers how to position a film about “blue people” while “Up’s” Jonas Rivera tried to convince the studio that “a film about a crotchety old man whose wife dies leaving him devastated and alone after a life of not being able to have children, while taking place all in the first few minutes of the film, can be compelling and marketable.” “Invictus” producer Lori McCreary spoke about the arduous process of getting the life rights from all the people depicted in the film including Nelson Mandela, his family and the rugby players. One of Mandela’s daughters held out until the very last minute. And after watching his daughter’s every reaction to the film at the premiere, McCreary received her blessing after the credits rolled. Listening to the producers’ recalling their nightmarish obstacles makes quoting veteran producer Lynda Obst all the more relevant: “Films are not made; they are forced into existence.”