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.
Ex-OpenAI engineer who raised legal concerns about the technology he helped build has died
Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26.
Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI's strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products.
"We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones during this difficult time," said a statement from OpenAI.
Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26 in what police said "appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation." The city's chief medical examiner's office confirmed the manner of death to be suicide.
His parents Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers, describing their son as a "happy, smart and brave young man" who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends.
Balaji grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and first arrived at the fledgling AI research lab for a 2018 summer internship while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned a few years later to work at OpenAI, where one of his first projects, called WebGPT, helped pave the way for ChatGPT.
"Suchir's contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn't have succeeded without him," said OpenAI co-founder John Schulman in a social media post memorializing Balaji. Schulman, who recruited Balaji to his team, said what... Read More