Joe Alves
Birth : 1936-05-21, San Leandro, California, USA
History
Joe Alves (born 21 May 1936, San Leandro, California) is an American film production designer, perhaps best known for his work on three of the Jaws films. He directed Jaws 3-D.
Alves has designed three features for Steven Spielberg, firstly for The Sugarland Express. He designed the three mechanical sharks for the movie Jaws (1975) with mechanical effects man Bob Mattey supervising their physical construction in Sun Valley CA. After the sharks were completed, they were trucked to the shooting location, but unfortunately they had not been tested in water causing a series of delays that have become quite legendary over time.
He was nominated for the Academy Award and won the BAFTA for Best Art Direction for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Alves worked on Jaws 2 (1978) in the capacity of both production designer and as second unit director. After John D. Hancock, the initial director of Jaws 2, was sacked, it was suggested that Alves co-direct it with Verna Fields (who edited the original Jaws). Jeannot Szwarc was hired, however, to complete the film.
The model of New York he created for John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981) has been described as "memorably derelict", and he was visual consultant on Carpenter's Starman (1984).
Self
A brand new retrospective documentary produced by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures and featuring interviews with writer Nick Castle, cinematographer Dean Cundey, composer Alan Howarth, production designer Joe Alves, special visual effects artist/model maker Gene Rizzardi, production assistant David De Coteau, photographer Kim Gottleib-Walker, Carpenter biographer John Muir, visual effects historian Justin Humphreys, and music historian Daniel Schweiger.
Self
After three decades, Jaws continues to intrigue, thrill and frighten viewers. This documentary focuses on the many ways in which Jaws has helped to shape popular culture.
A look at how Dial M for Murder (1954) was produced for 3-D viewing.
Self
A documentary film on the making of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'
Production Design
The sailor is "persuaded" by a princess to help her rescue her kingdom from something fishy.
Production Design
When an EPA representative is murdered in a small Appalachian community, EPA undercover agent Jack Taggart is sent in—posing as a handyman working with a Christian relief agency—to determine what happened.
Production Design
Bobby Bishop is a special assistant to the President of the United States. Accidentally, he meets his friend professor Pochenko on the street. Pochenko has time to tell Bishop about some conspiracy in the White House but then immediately gets killed by an assassin. Now bad guys are after Bobby as the only man who knows about a plot. Bishop must now not only survive, but to stop the conspirators from achieving their goal. And he doesn't know whom to trust.
Self
A documentary on the making of one of the greatest films ever made, filled with trivia, interviews from cast and crew and never-before-seen footage.
Production Design
A daring prison break from an airliner at 30,000 feet leaves U.S. Marshal Pete Nessip mourning a brother and gunning for revenge. After being ordered to turn in his badge, he seeks out Jessie Crossman, a noted skydiver, and offers to sponsor her crew for the annual Independence Day parachuting show in Washington, D.C., if she trains him. Meanwhile, the mastermind behind the mid-air jailbreak is planning a daring computer theft on Independence Day.
Production Design
The Apache Indians have reluctantly agreed to settle on a US Government approved reservation. Not all the Apaches are able to adapt to the life of corn farmers. One in particular, Geronimo, is restless. Pushed over the edge by broken promises and necessary actions by the government, Geronimo and thirty or so other warriors form an attack team which humiliates the government by evading capture, while reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.
Production Design
Louisiana football star Gavin Grey had it all. He was an All-American champion who married his high-school sweetheart, homecoming queen Babs Rogers, and who was a hero to his hometown. Yet after a failed professional career, Gavin realizes that fame and success have passed him by and that he no longer is the hero everyone keeps reminding him he should still be. His dissatisfaction with his life leads to strains in his marriage, and Gavin begins to wonder who he is, if he's not a hero anymore.
Second Unit Director
When an alien takes the form of a young widow's husband and asks her to drive him from Wisconsin to Arizona, the government tries to stop them.
Director
This third film in the series follows a group of marine biologists attempting to capture a young great white shark that has wandered into Florida's Sea World Park. However, later it is discovered that the shark's 35-foot mother is also a guest at Sea World. What follows is the shark wreaking havoc on the visitors in the park.
Production Design
In the future, crime is out of control and New York City's Manhattan is a maximum security prison. Grabbing a bargaining chip right out of the air, convicts bring down the President's plane in bad old Gotham. Gruff Snake Plissken, a one-eyed lone warrior new to prison life, is coerced into bringing the President, and his cargo, out of this land of undesirables.
Production Design
Police chief Brody must protect the citizens of Amity after a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters.
Production Design
After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.
Production Design
When an insatiable great white shark terrorizes the townspeople of Amity Island, the police chief, an oceanographer and a grizzled shark hunter seek to destroy the blood-thirsty beast.
Art Direction
Married small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and resolve to do whatever it takes to get him back. Lou-Jean gets Clovis out of jail, and the two steal their son from his foster home, in addition to taking a highway patrolman hostage. As a massive dragnet starts to pursue them across Texas, the couple become unlikely folk heroes and even start to bond with the captive policeman.
Art Direction
A sculptor hires young college girls to take care of his elderly mother and his supposedly insane sister, both of whom live in the old family mansion with him.
Art Direction
A scheming wife lures an insurance investigator into helping murder her husband and then declare it an accident. The investigator's boss, not knowing his man is involved in it, suspects murder and sets out to prove it.
Art Direction
A small-town sheriff is confronted with the deaths of local senior citizens and strange goings-on in his town.
Art Direction
Kidnappers making a ransom demand dial a wrong number and reach a struggling actor instead. He decides to cut himself in for some of the money.
Art Direction
After his wife is murdered, a veteran cop quits the police department and becomes a priest. Several years later he is assigned to a parish where he meets the man who killed his wife -- and discovers that the killer was gunning for him instead. The first of two feature-length pilots for the series "Sarge."
Art Direction
An adventurous young gambler searches for the owner of a mysterious fortune.
Assistant Art Director
Dr. John Carpenter takes the job of running a health center in a low-income district. He enlists three women to help out who — unbeknownst to him — are actually nuns in street clothes. The church wants to improve the neighborhood but fears that nuns in full habit would not be well received. Unaware of her unavailability, John falls for Sister Michelle, serenading her with his guitar — which, luckily for him, effectively wears away at her religious resolve.
Art Direction
Frank Capua is a rising star on the race circuit who dreams of winning the big one - the Indianapolis 500. But to get there he runs the risk of losing his wife Elora to his rival, Luther Erding, and strains the relationship with his stepson.
Self
A documentary about the career of legendary production designer Joe Alves and his four decades in Hollywood.
