Oscar®-nominated art director and production designers William J. Creber, best known for his work on the Irwin Allen disaster flicks The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno and the first three Planet of the Apes movies, and Roland Anderson, best known for his work on Breakfast at Tiffany’s, White Christmas and Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra, will be inducted into the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) Hall of Fame for their extraordinary contributions to the visual art of storytelling at the 24th Annual Art Directors Guild’s Excellence in Production Design Awards. The 2020 Awards will be held Saturday, February 1, returning to the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown.
ADG president Nelson Coates said, “Bill Creber was the man who designed and then flipped cruise ships, burned skyscrapers and created an entire ape culture. He was also a distinguished past ADG president and leader of the guild. Roland Anderson worked on some of the most iconic film sets for Cecil B. Demille. We are honored to celebrate both of these legendary artists for their inspiration, talents and contributions to the art of narrative design in motion pictures.”
Creber (1931-2019) is a three-time Oscar®-nominated production designer. He is perhaps best known for his work on the first three Planet of the Apes movies, particularly the iconic scene showing the Statue of Liberty protruding out of the sand. His Oscar® nominations came for The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).
Creber got a boost in the business from his father Lewis, an art director back in the ‘30s and ‘40s. He was hired as an assistant art director on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He also worked on the ABC Television series adaptation and earned an Emmy® nomination for his work. Other Creber credits include Islands in the Stream, Yes Giorgio, Rio Conchos, Caprice, Justine, The Detective, the Domino Killings, Street Fighter and Spy Hard. He was a recipient of the Art Directors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award and was a former Guild president.
Anderson (1903–1989) was a legendary art director and production designer whose career spanned more than five decades and garnered 15 Academy Award nominations. Initially hired as a sketch artist in the 1920s, Anderson worked in the Paramount art department until his retirement in 1969. His first Oscar nomination for art direction was for 1932’s A Farewell to Arms, a nomination he shared with Paramount’s legendary supervising art director Hans Dreier. A frequent collaborator of DeMille, Anderson was art director on such DeMille epics as Cleopatra, The Buccaneer, Union Pacific and North West Mounted Police. He also worked with many other celebrated directors, including Frank Borzage, Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Michael Curtiz, Frank Tashlin, Frank Capra, and Blake Edwards.
During his remarkable tenure at Paramount, Anderson designed more than 90 films including The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The Major and the Minor, Road to Utopia, The Big Clock, Son of Paleface, White Christmas, The Country Girl and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. His final Oscar nominations came in 1963, when he was nominated for his work on both the black-and-white film Love with the Proper Stranger and the color production Come Blow Your Horn. This was the third time that Anderson had been honored with two nominations in one year. A founding member of the Society of Motion Picture Arts Directors, Anderson was also a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The ADG established a Hall of Fame to honor contributions of legendary production designers and art directors of the past. Last year’s ADG Hall of Fame inductees were production designers Anthony Masters and Ben Carré.
As previously announced, Chuck Lorre, award winning television producer, writer and director, will receive the esteemed Cinematic Imagery Award, honoring his prestigious spectrum of extraordinary work over the past 20 years. Syd Mead, the “visual futurist” and concept artist known for his design contributions to science-fiction films such as Star-Trek: The Motion Picture, Aliens, and Blade Runner, has been named the recipient of the William Cameron Menzies Award, which will be presented posthumously. The ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented to outstanding individuals in each of the guild’s four crafts. Joe Alves will receive the ADG Lifetime Achievement Award from the Art Directors Council (AD), Denis Olsen from the Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists Council (STG), Stephen Myles Berger from the Set Designers and Model Makers (SDMM) Council, and Jack Johnson from the Illustrators and Matte Artists (IMA) Council.
The producer of this year’s ADG Awards (#ADGawards) is production designer Scott Moses, ADG. Online balloting will conclude on January 30 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.
DirecTV calls off acquisition of rival Dish, possibly ending a yearslong pursuit
DirecTV is calling off its planned acquisition of rival Dish after the offer was rejected by bond holders at that company.
The deal was reliant on Dish bond holders agreeing to trade in the debt they held for debt in the new company, a swap that would have cost them about $1.6 billion, collectively.
The retreat by DirecTV this week may end a years-long effort by the company to acquire both Dish and Sling after it announced the bid in September.
DirecTV was looking to acquire Dish TV and Sling TV from its owner EchoStar in a debt exchange transaction that included a payment of $1, plus the assumption of approximately $9.8 billion in debt. The deal was contingent on several factors, including regulatory approvals and bondholders writing off debt related to Dish.
"While we believed a combination of DirecTV and Dish would have benefited all stakeholders, we have terminated the transaction because the proposed exchange terms were necessary to protect DirecTV's balance sheet and our operational flexibility," DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow said in a statement.
The prospect of a DirecTV-Dish combo has long been rumored, and reported talks resurfaced over the years. And the two almost merged more than two decades ago — but the Federal Communications Commission blocked the deal valued at the time at $18.5 billion deal, citing antitrust concerns.
The pay-for-TV market has shifted significantly since. As more and more consumers tune into online streaming platforms, demand for more traditional satellite entertainment continues to shrink.
DirecTV says that it will continue to invest in next-generation streaming platforms and offer new packaging options while integrating content from live TV alongside direct-to-consumer... Read More