Four-time Academy Award -nominated production designer Jeannine Oppewall, best known for her work on L.A. Confidential, Pleasantville, Catch Me If You Can and Seabiscuit, will receive the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) Lifetime Achievement Award at the 23rd Annual “Excellence in Production Design” Awards. The 2019 ADG Awards, themed “Production Design: Landscape of the Imagination,” will be held at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown in the Wilshire Grand Ballroom on Saturday, February 2, 2019.
Nelson Coates, president of the ADG, said, “Jeannine is one of our most treasured production designers whose 40-year career continues to flourish, right up to the current Best of Enemies. She is a most deserving recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Award. We are proud to honor her outstanding career and cinematic contributions.”
Oppewall has received four Academy Award nominations for Best Production Design–for L.A. Confidential, Pleasantville, Seabiscuit and The Good Shepherd. This is a remarkable achievement for someone who has concentrated on films set in the 20th century. Other memorable films she designed include Wonder Boys, Rules Don’t Apply, Snow Falling on Cedars and Bridges of Madison County. In all, she has designed more than 40 films.
Her very first film was Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar. Tender Mercies starring Robert Duvall was her earliest movie as production designer and remains one of her favorites. Oppewall began her career working for the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, best known for their now iconic furniture, where she helped organize and design museum exhibits.
ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards are awarded to outstanding individuals in each of the guild’s four crafts: Art Directors; Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists; Illustrators and Matte Artists; and Set Designers, Model Makers and Previs Artists. Honorees in the other crafts will be announced shortly. Previous recipients include production designers Norm Newberry (2018), René Lagler (2017), Patrizia von Brandenstein (Amadeus) (2016) and Jim Bissell (Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation) (2015).
The producer of this year’s ADG Awards is production designer Scott Moses, ADG. Online nomination voting will be held December 5, 2018-January 4, 2019 and nominees announced on Monday, January 7, 2019. Final online balloting will be held January 8, 2019, and winners will be announced at the dinner ceremony on Saturday, February 2, 2019. ADG Awards are open only to productions when made within the U.S. by producers signatory to the IATSE agreement. Foreign entries are acceptable without restrictions.
