Oscar-nominated Production Designer Joe Alves, best known for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jaws will receive the Art Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual “Excellence in Production Design” ADG Awards.

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 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual “Excellence in Production Design” 2020 ADG Awards. A true veteran of Hollywood’s studio system, Alves is a master artist, art director, production designer, producer and director.

Joe 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, Freejack 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.

Mr. 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.

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 this year. 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. The producer of this year’s ADG Awards is Production Designer Scott Moses.

ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards are presented to outstanding individuals in each of the guild’s four crafts: Art Directors; Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists; Set Designers and Model Makers; and Illustrators and Matte Artists. Previous recipients have included Jeannine Oppewall (2019), Norm Newberry (2018), René Lagler (2017), Jim Fiorito (2019) John Moffitt (2018), Albert Obregon (2017), Bill Anderson (2016), William F. Matthews (2019), James J. Murakami (2018), Cate Bangs (2017), Ed Verreaux(2019), Marty Kline (2018), and Joe Musso (2017).

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