Oscar-nominated production designer Joe Alves, best known for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the three Jaws films, will receive the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) Lifetime Achievement Award atthe 24th Annual ADG “Excellence in Production Design” Awards. A true veteran of Hollywood’s studio system, Alves is a master artist, art director, production designer, producer and director. The 2020 ADG Awards will return to the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown in the Wilshire Grand Ballroom on Saturday, February 1, 2020. This is the first of four Lifetime Achievement Awards to be announced by the Art Directors Guild.
“The breadth and depth of Joe Alves contribution to the art of visual storytelling can hardly be overstated; he has been involved with helping to create many of the most iconic feature films and television shows of the last 65 years. It is difficult to imagine a more deserving recipient of this honor,” said Mark Worthington, Art Directors Council chair.
Alves’ motion picture career began as a young visual effects Disney animator assigned to the 1956 MGM classic, Forbidden Planet. His confidence and creative growth were nurtured by many challenging television and feature film experiences, a filmography rich in its diversity. Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, Free Jack and Geronimo are all productions masterfully designed by Alves’ imagination and talents. Alves has designed three features for Steven Spielberg, including Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for which he earned an Oscar nomination. He made his directing debut with Jaws 3-D. Alves created a memorably derelict Gotham City for John Carpenter’s science-fiction adventure Escape from New York and served as visual consultant on Carpenter’s Starman.
Alves was an innovator and advocate for in-camera practical and visual effects solutions. A 64-year career that transverses analog-to-digital filmmaking, his design leadership on Close Encounters and Jaws are both analog examples of how to walk through the fires of adversity in order to meet the challenges inherent in pre-digital filmmaking.
ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards are presented to outstanding individuals in each of the guild’s four crafts: Art Directors (AD); Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists (STG); Set Designers and Model Makers (SDMM); and Illustrators and Matte Artists (IMA). Previous recipients include AD: Jeannine Oppewall (2019), Norm Newberry (2018), René Lagler (2017); STG: Jim Fiorito (2019) John Moffitt (2018), Albert Obregon (2017), Bill Anderson (2016); SDMMs William F. Matthews (2019), James J. Murakami (2018), Cate Bangs (2017); and IMA: Ed Verreaux(2019), Marty Kline (2018), Joe Musso (2017).
The producer of this year’s ADG Awards (#ADGawards) is production designer Scott Moses, ADG. Online nomination voting will be held November 18–December. 6, 2019. Nominations will be announced December 9, 2019. Online balloting will be held December 18, 2019–January 30, 2020 and winners will be announced at the dinner ceremony on February 1. ADG Awards are open only to productions when made within the U.S. by producer’s signatory to the IATSE agreement. Foreign entries are acceptable without restrictions.
Additional honorees for Lifetime Achievement Awards, Cinematic Imagery Awards and new inductees into the Guild’s Hall of Fame will be announced at a later date.
NFL sees increased viewership for wild-card round, eyes more for divisional games
After double-digit increases in its regular-season and wild-card playoff round ratings, the NFL is looking for another large bump in ratings during this weekend's division round. The league and Nielsen said last weekend's six wild-card games averaged 32 million viewers, a 13% jump from last year. It was also the most-watched opening weekend of the NFL playoffs since the field expanded to 14 teams in the 2020 season. Overall, it was the most-watched wild-card round since the 2015 season and the fifth highest since average viewer numbers started being tracked in 1988. Five of the games saw increases compared to the same time frames a year ago while the sixth game was even. The regular season averaged 18.7 million viewers per game, a 10% increase. It also was the second-highest average on record. Some of the increase can be attributed to a change in the way viewers are counted. Nielsen began using its Big Data + Panel methodology for all events last September with the start of the current television season. Earlier this year, Nielsen began measuring out-of-home viewers for all states but Hawaii and Alaska, along with including data from smart TVs along with cable and satellite set-top boxes. Nielsen previously measured only the top 44 media markets, which covered 65% of the country. "It was a great weekend of football all around," said Hans Schroeder, the NFL's executive vice president of media distribution. "Every year, there's a new set of stars and players emerging. You have (New England's) Drake Maye, who's a potential MVP and on the other end you have an established star like (Los Angeles Rams QB) Matthew Stafford, who may be the other MVP favorite playing a heck of a game with the fourth-quarter comeback." Last year's four divisional... Read More