Creative Emmy Awards 2012: Game of Thrones picks up six prizes

Fantasy series Game Of Thrones has dominated the Creative Emmy Awards, which recognize arts, craft and technical work on television shows.

The HBO programme picked up six prizes including best visual effects and best costumes – the latter of which went to British designer Michele Clapton.

BBC nature show Frozen Planet took home four awards, led by the trophy for outstanding non-fiction series.

And actress Kathy Bates won a prize for her impersonation of Charlie Sheen.

The Oscar-winner was a guest star on sitcom Two And A Half Men, from which Charlie Sheen was fired in 2011, playing the ghost of his character, Charlie Harper.

Kathy Bates, who revealed last week she had had a double mastectomy, was not able to collect her award in person, but proved a popular winner with the audience in Los Angeles.

She was one of a handful of guest actors honored at the technical awards, which precede next week’s Primetime Emmys.

Chat show host Jimmy Fallon won the prize for best guest actor in a comedy series, in recognition of his appearance on long-running sketch show Saturday Night Live.

Actress Martha Plimpton was named best guest actress in a drama for her recurring role in legal drama The Good Wife. She plays Patti Nyholm, a conniving lawyer who has used her pregnancy and, in recent episodes, her baby to win sympathy from judges and juries.

In what was described as a “major upset” by The Hollywood Reporter, Jeremy Davies won best guest actor in a drama, for his role in crime drama Justified.

Jeremy Davies, who beat the likes of Jason Ritter, Michael J Fox, and Mark Margolis, seemed as surprised by his victory as the press were.

“Is this is actually happening and is it officially too late for a recount?” he asked reporters backstage.

British series Downton Abbey, which returns for its third series in the UK tonight, scooped two awards – for hairstyling and original dramatic score.

As temperatures outside the Nokia Theater reached 36 Celsius (97 Farenheit), Glasgow-born Downton composer John Lunn joked: “How do you live in this heat? The ovens in Scotland don’t get this hot!”

Political thriller Homeland won its first ever Emmy award, for outstanding casting in a drama series, perhaps an indicator that acting prizes will be in store for Claire Danes and Damian Lewis at next week’s Primetime ceremony.

Director Martin Scorsese also received one of the coveted statuettes, which depict a winged woman holding an atom, for his documentary on former Beatle, George Harrison.

George Harrison’s widow, Olivia, told reporters the guitarist had been planning his own documentary before his death in 2001.

“After the Beatles Anthology came out, he started filming and was filming for several years to do his own story,” she said.

“I think he would be very happy with the award and the reception.”

The biggest upset of the night was for critics’ darling Mad Men. The 1960s advertising drama, an Emmy favorite, failed to win any of the awards it was shortlisted for.

It is still in the running for the top award at the Primetime Emmys, which will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on 23 September.