#59 Close Encounters with Jaws and Joe Alves

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:15

All right, Bruce, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You got the show going each and every week, and this week is no exception. Welcome, everybody, to Episode 59 of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. excited to have you here special episode we're celebrating the movie Jaws. That's right. jaws duden didn't hit the theaters June 20 1975 just celebrated its 46th anniversary. So what do we have on the show? We have Joe albs. That's right, Joe, as our director, production designer, the guy who designed the shark, the one that scared the bejesus out of all of us is here, we're going to talk about the book Joe elves designing JAWS and Joe is going to take us through basically an oral history of how the movie JAWS came to be. From just an idea, his sketches production to everything that we know and love. Today, we cover a lot of amazing topics. And if you're a fan of JAWS, or just movie trivia, in general, you're gonna be blown away.

Joe also was the art director production designer on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He's worked with Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney Rod Serling, he's made such an impact in the world of movies. He was the recipient of the art directors Lifetime Achievement Award. It's amazing to have them here. And that's coming up in just a few minutes. You know how much I love jobs, and I know how much you love jobs. Just a reminder, after listening to Joe, you can dive into Episode 26, where I talked to Carl Gottlieb, author of the JAWS log he wrote the script for the movie Jaws. We talked a lot about the movie during the interview, including the Indianapolis speech and the origin of you're going to need a bigger boat. So definitely check that out. That's Episode 26 with the amazing Carl Gottlieb

While you're in the mood for checking things out, don't forget to check out my YouTube channel link of course is in the show notes. Just search the Jeff Dwoskin show on YouTube subscribe. Watch my live show I do every Wednesday at 9:30pm eastern time called crossing the streams me and a bunch of my friends we watch a ton of shows and we tell you what you should be streaming sometimes what you shouldn't be streaming last week we talked about mayor of Eastwood abducted in plain sight and a bunch of other shows. So check out that that was Episode 2828 hours of television and movie streaming suggestions awaits you. Also check out Jeff is funny.com that's the podcast website where you can link to any of your favorite podcast apps and subscribe follow like the podcast so you get notified every time a new episode comes out. It's completely free to subscribe or follow or like the podcast Also, while you're at Jeff is funny comm sign up for our mailing lists. We send out emails weekly to remind you of all the goodness that awaits you at live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show thank you all for your constant support. It means the world today. And don't forget to tell your friends word of mouth is the greatest marketing technique in the history of the world. Next time you're at the supermarket, just peer into someone's cart and go oh, I see you love frozen hotdogs. I bet you'd also Love Live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show as they look at you funny just stare at them confidently and slowly walk away. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of you so much.

And now it's time for the social media tip!. All right, this is the part of the show where I share a little bit of my social media knowledge with you to make your social media lives that much better. You're welcome. All right, today Twitter lists. That's right. Hop on Twitter, make a list. Jeff, what's a Twitter list? I didn't even know you can make lists on Twitter. I know it kind of buried under one of those little dot dot dot things. So anyway, find that where you can create a Twitter list set up a Twitter list. Here's why it's great. You can follow a bunch of people or sites and then when you click on that list, your feed your Twitter feed is just posts or retweets from those accounts. How cool is that? It's like creating your own version of Twitter. I know amazing. But here's the best part. You don't have to follow the folks that you put on a list. You can put anyone on a list. Oh, here's my favorite actors. Oh, here's my favorite news sites everyone. can be its own list. You can set it private if you don't want Scott bayo to know that you have mana list, stuff like that. It's all super easy to do. Go set up a list, create your own variants of the Twitter timeline, make Twitter your own, and you'll enjoy it a ton. And that's the social media tip!

I do want to thank everyone for supporting the sponsors week after week. It means the world to me when you support the sponsors you're supporting live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. It's how we keep the lights on this week sponsor JAWS inspired fish sticks and patties by Gordon foods. That's right. Are you tired of being bitten by sharks? Well, now it's your turn to do the biting jaws inspired fish sticks and pattys come in tons of great shapes such as the Orca, a shark fin, partially eaten surfboard, and everyone's favorite person with just one leg. if you're hungry. It's time to reach for Jaws fish sticks and patties. They're great... white flavored and available in your freezer section. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm hungry. I guess it's time to get out there and get some JAWS fish sticks and baddies.

All right. Well, while we're on the mood for JAWS and we got the interview with Joe Alves coming right up. Figured I'd do a little jaws trivia for all of you. Since we're all in the jaws mood. We all know Robert Shaw was an amazing Quint. But did you know Lee Marvin was considered for the role? I didn't know that either. I did not know that. Peter benchley, the author of the book JAWS, makes a cameo in the movie as a reporter on the beach. Don't think I knew that did not realize that Steven Spielberg's dog Elmer starred as chief Brody's pet dog in Jaws, and also went on to star in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Steven Spielberg's movie 1941 that some interesting trivia, so I hope you're now in the jaws frame of mind and you're ready for my conversation with Joe as Joe dives into his career will lead him to the movie JAWS. The book Joe Alve's designing JAWS is referenced a few times. It's an amazing book. I own a copy. Ladies, gentlemen, my conversation with Joe Alves.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited to welcome my next guest to the show, production designer and director Joe alz. Joe, welcome to the show. Well, nice being here. Great to have you here. For those listening, Joe is most well known for one of his big things is if you've ever had, like the fear of going into water and thinking there's a shark about to attack you anytime you're in a pool, and you hear that noise Joe designed the shark Joe is thinking that is put that visual in our head for all eternity. So thank you for that Joe thought a good place to start was what is a production designer?

Joe Alves 7:51

Well, production designer is the same thing as an art director, the credit production designer started many years ago. And it was pretty much just for big films, there would be a whirlwind cameras messy started back and Gone with the Wind. But very few people got production design credit until the 70s. It was an art director because the way the system were, you know, we have to go back to the studio system. We have a 67 year old karma Warner Brothers, and they all had department heads. So if you worked in the art department or camera or whatever, your staff guy, there was very few independent things. So you were an art director and the head of the art department would give you a script. And that's how you identify a few prestigious films, they gave the title to as production designer, and then they had an art director work under the production designer or assistant and that went on and then now is pretty much just production designer. But before I'll just go quickly, if you start in the art department, you either start as an illustrator or a set designer. In other words, you do the technical architectural drawings, and then you could spend your career working on the board. If you're fortunate enough, you become an assistant art director. And that's what I got chance to work with Hitchcock and then become art director and then proceed anyway, that was a long story to answer your question.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:11

No, it's fabulous. Let's pivot. What was it like to work with Alfred Hitchcock? That's incredible.

Joe Alves 9:16

interesting guy. Let me just say that was 1965 Jr. system was quite different. Anybody that wasn't working like on the drawing boards or septic, you're a jacket and a tie. And the executives wore black suits. We call them the suits. And Hitchcock always wore a black suit and black tie. So it was weird to be because directors now directed t shirts or whatever, whether it's a certain formality there. We would meet every morning at our wedding fragaria who was the art director, I was the assistant and there was a production designer Hein heck Roth who he brought in just to do the ballet sequence and he was from Germany. Very, very nice guy, but Frank and I did designed the sets And I'll tell you what a production designer does. He's responsible for everything visual. In other words, he gets a script, he breaks it down, I'll get back to Hitchcock. He breaks it down. So you're responsible for finding locations. Now they have locations, guys, you know, I'll go into that how you drive forever looking for locations, and you do whatever illustrations and storyboards. In other words, if it's small movies like jaws was a small movie, I did the storyboards and the drawings on a bigger picture, you have an illustrator and set designers to draw that. So you're responsible for everything that's a visual, you consult with the costume people, so you get the colors, correct, the rooms going to be blue. So maybe you want to contrast in colors of yellow or something for the wardrobe. So that's your responsibility is to get whatever is needed visually. So now, Hitchcock was a very visual guy. He used to be an art director when he was in England, we would meet for coffee in the morning with the production manager, or the art director myself, and he would tell very unfunny jokes. And we were supposed to know when to laugh. I remember he was saying, it was so cold in the fjord that Mr. Newman had to eat his asparagus with gloves, his caucus wouldn't know how to die. Anyway, that was supposed to be funny. But I do have a Hitchcock story. Peggy was his assistant. And Peggy called me and said, Mr. carpets to see the more advanced people, the director of photography, or producers would call it a hitch, but I had to call it Mr. Hitchcock. Hitchcock wants to see I said, Well, what about Fred, what about No, no, he wants to see you. So okay, I go to his office, and he gets out of pencil when he starts telling me drawing he drew like, but he never lifted a pencil off. It was like a worm crawling around the page. He said, Mr. Hitchcock runs down here runs down the stairs. There. Mr. Whitlock, who's met artists would do a background on that. And then he comes over to the registration desk and he leaves and I said, Okay, so he said, you know, you build the stairway and you build registration desk. And I said, Well, what about the reverse shots? What about you know, over here? No, no, you just build. So that's Hitchcock. We would build half sets for him. What was unique about that is really the wise way to make movies. He believed in a lot of storyboards. So everybody knew what they were going to shoot. He would come in and check the storyboards, where so many directors I have worked with in the past, build it all for me that I'll decide what I'm going to shoot, which is a total waste of money. If you plan it first. Then you walk in the other director that could do this pretty well. I did them for because of a budget was john Carpenter on Escape from New York with half sets because that's what he wanted. So anyway, but Hitchcock was he liked the planning of a movie. I think that's worth his big effort, was it we spent a lot of time it'd be in the art department look at the storyboards and wouldn't say much you've just got a job and that was a unique thing I think about Hitchcock. He knew what he wanted before we got on the set so that when he got on the set was like boring to them

Jeff Dwoskin 13:16

right because he knew everything he was going to do at Radio it was just it was just plug and play must have been amazing to work with such a talented kid and you must have learned so much from your from Alfred Hitchcock my goodness to be able to play that out in your head like it

Joe Alves 13:29

was such a different time you know, the studio system and who you're working with a Stanley Kramer I get a little thing for some mad mad world. You know, I did a lot of droids for them. Whatever came up probably my biggest break was getting Night Gallery night care when I was a young art director then and we would do it was such a unique show that wasn't like a regular TV show where you have standing sets. And you just I would do maybe 20 sets a week because it'd be two or three different episodes. But that was a real development for my career. Rod Serling was incredible writer, you know,

Jeff Dwoskin 14:05

you know, I'm embarrassed. I'm a biggest fan of The Twilight Zone, my entire bookshelf and one half of one thing it's all Twilight Zone. And I love Rod Serling. And I feel it sometimes I even think there's a whole concept of how he would write and twist at the end is is kind of how I learned that sense of even being a comedian. I know if they weren't comedies, but like just the whole idea of being able to shift a narrative at the end of something I always think back like that's where I think I first learned that whole concept. I never saw a Night Gallery. It was never on TV. I'm embarrassed because I know it's a bit you did three seasons of it, but I'm a huge fan of fraud. surly.

Joe Alves 14:39

Yeah. And it was a really, really good show. So we had some really good actors, I remember but I built a big set was off the lot was it and was Borneo. It was your work was the director who I worked with and he directed jaws to I got him the job on job too because he fired the first director but I'm sitting there with with rod and you know And we're about the same size. 556 not too tall. I turned to him. And I said, right. I don't know how you do it. You write all these great things, you know, and he talked to me and I'll never forget this. He says, I write them, but you make them happen. And I said, What? He said, Yeah, you make them happen. I write the script, but obviously you make the statements and you know, all that stuff. So that was one of the biggest compliments I think I've ever gotten. That's amazing. Yeah, so you know, you don't forget things like that he died too young. I think he was like, 50 or something way too young.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:33

I grew up a huge fan, right? Certainly because the Twilight Zone was always on my love for Rod Serling was always connected to that I've always known about it, I just I gonna have to hunt it down. I'm gonna have to work a little harder. Now they know the art director. Okay, so Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Serling, these are just the first of two huge, huge names to work with. And then you also you were with Walt Disney.

Joe Alves 15:54

Want us to call them Walt. I was so fortunate to get a job at Disney's I was 19. I went to college. It says a state in Northern California. I remember thinking was interesting. I always wanted to design movies. I didn't quite know what it was American in Paris, so that when I was 14, Gene Kelly Leslie curl. I remember going to the theater, Little Theater down town. It was an early evening, Saturday evening, and we were coming back and surely I was sort of dancing music. So I got that. And then I found out the movie wasn't made in Paris at all. It was all made in the United States. Cedric Gibbons was the head of the art department and was all MGM. And I thought oh my God, what a great job. That would be I could always draw started learning drafting in high school. So I majored in architecture and minor did drama. And I was in a play friend of mine directed to play. In any case, I kept driving to that as a and there was a side to LA and this is somebody I'm going to turn left and go to anyway, I ended up coming down to LA and going to Chuck Norris Art Institute because they taught production design. So I was there a year or so that that summer I needed to a job. I wanted to stay in LA, but I read it to one of the fraternity guys said I was looking for a job at LA and he says, well, his wife's father works at Disney. Why don't you give him a call? So I said, oh, maybe I'll get a job sweeping up or you know, whatever. I call them because I was only 19. I just turned 19 turned out Camille's father did the hiring for the artists. I mean, what luck was that? Oh, he said, we'll bring your portfolio and I said, I don't think I'm ready yet. He said, I'll bring it in. So I brought him in my portfolio stuff I had from art school. He said, Well, you're too late for your training program, which teaches you how to draw Mickey Mouse. It's up. But I could put you right now just special effects. The next day I come in, and he put me in a room with this woman, Marian. And there was this lightboard so what do I do? She puts the paper down, then you're in between you draw in between these drawings. And we did things like water and fire. And so I'm thinking, Wow, this is great. So she showed me how to do it. And she worked for Dwight Carlyle, so she was a breakdown artists. So she worked and white work for Josh metter and he was like the king of effects guys. He did the fire scene in Bambi. He did nine and Bald Mountain, all that stuff. He was working on a picture for MGM. And it was a Forbidden Planet. And they were doing the Ed. I don't know if you ever saw that movie, or the Ed was a creature that came out. And after a couple of weeks, she had to leave. And so she said, Well, you just work directly with Dwight. So now I'm breaking down after a couple weeks for right who is the Assistant and after another month or so Dwight Carlo, I have to go to the hospital. So now I'm assisting Josh better drawing the ID. Incredible. So after like two or three months, I'm assistant animator, that was the start. And I was there for a couple years. But I was drawing something for sleeping beauty. I was flipping the pages. I'm drawing one of the fairies got a cookie. So I have a cookie. And this guy reaches over my shoulder and says no, no, the cookie should look like this. And I look oh, okay, well, thank you. Walt Disney correctly. One of my drawings. I'll never forget that because that's a pretty big thing. Anyway, that was my Disney experience. And it was fun. But eventually I really wanted to get into live action and do set designs. I laughed and I and I went to work at a little theater, the Hollywood Playhouse and started designing sets for the theater thankfully got a portfolio became a junior set designer. What an amazing story. It was interesting. As a junior set designer, you're the last to be hired in the first to be fired. until you become a senior. And then so I worked at MGM or on a Mutiny on the Bounty and I worked at Warner Brothers. And finally at Universal, I got a home there. And I became a senior set designer and just stay there and became a sister or an art director. It was such a different situation now, because I talked to young people that just become production designers. Some of them can even draw, they just find things online. You know, they Google spaceships, Google spaceships. Oh, that looks like a good spaceship work. Before we would research I mean, like, for example, on Jaws, if you look at the book, you'll see early illustrations. They were done in charcoal with the sharp coming out the guy sitting in the boat and stuff like that.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:50

The book Joe is talking about as Joe elves designing Jaws, which is an amazing book. Speaking of those early Jaws, drawings, how did these come to be and how did you originally get involved with jaws?

Joe Alves 21:03

What What happened was I was doing a television movie. I had a lot of time because it was mostly locations. David Brown was Eric Brown with producers on sugar man expressed Stephens first movie and I got to know them pretty well. David Brown was editor of cosmopolitan and his wife Helen Gurley Brown was then editor Cosmopolitan magazine. He was into the literary aspects of the Seneca brown team. So he says his wife showed him this tally sheets of a book called jaws is a new writer, young writer, Peter Benchley. He says, I, my wife thinks it might make a pretty good movie. And so we've got to sell this shark movie to the studio, because already if I send you the galleys, but you just do some drawings that illustrate the shark activity. I wasn't supposed to do that. Really. They they didn't have a charge numbers, and they couldn't really pay me but I was being paid doing this television movie. And I mentioned it to the head of the department. And because it was sanika Brown, and they had won an Academy Award for the stain. And they were very prestigious. He said, Jeff, just fill it in, do it whenever you can. So I did it in about 25-30 of those droids that led to a big meeting in Marshall green, who's the head of production. So we had a meeting with all the department heads, camera editing special effects diva and hadn't been brought into the movie yet. They have some other director their mind, but he kept calling the shark, a whale. And they didn't like him. But I got to know Steven pretty well on Sugar Land. So I used to go over to this cabana where he was, had an office and I could talk to him about the shark do and show me the pictures. He said Yeah, well, if he said we were going to do a pirate movie or so but if we ever did it, we should do it in the real ocean like a 25 foot shark. And I did my little spiel. So when we had this meeting, they brought Steven Steven had been brought in janica brought with us he was there. I was talking to more so green, who liked the water because he lived on a boat. He had a boat. So he related to this jaws thing. And I'm telling you, I'm getting that to how I got involved in all this. And I my part of research. When I finished he turned to the effects department and said, Can you make the shark? The biggest white shark recorded was like 20 feet, Stephen and I thought it should be bigger. But anyway, I'll get to that. And the effects department is said, No, we can't we can't make that. So first of all, it would take a year, year and a half and no one's ever done it in the real ocean. Besides, we have bigger movies like the Hindenburg Marshal got upset and said JAWS could be a bigger movie than the Hindenburg. And everybody laughed. Of course, Hindenburg. George C Scott is going to be the biggest movie Jaws is just a little shark movie. And they always thought of it as a little shark movie, $4 million most shark movie. So basically, the meeting broke up. I was collecting my drawings. And I was the last to leave. And Marshall called me back and he said, Can you get the shark mate? And being ambitious and young? I said, Well, I certainly will try. He says, Okay, we'll take it off the lot. Don't do anything on the lot. That was everything was always done in a lot. It was paramount at Warner Brothers, whatever. You had special effects, especially stuff you didn't farm it out. But he wanted this. Just go for it. So basically, then I had to start doing research on sharks. You don't just go go you you start getting books and going to OSHA graphical places. And I started looking for people to build it and what to Disney and they said they would build it. They would take probably a year year and a half to build it because it's never been done before. But they wouldn't take it to the ocean. I said, Well, that's not gonna work because Steven I was dead set on that after doing the barty who did the godfathers series. He said no, he was busy. But he says besides show is going to take a good year, year and a half to bake something like that and to test it. So then somebody in my research said have you talked about bad he used to be a fixed guy. at Disney, I did to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and build a giant squid and all that. So I met Bob, he was sort of somewhat retired, very bad, probably 65. But very ambitious, very, you know, he could do it. He said, Give me a deal. So, so if you look in the book, there's this wire, illustration I did you pull labor, their mouth opens in a closed, you know. So that was a concept of building the shark. Now getting back to the research, that's fine, but I have to find out about sharks. So in the book, there's a drawing with all these measurements. And there's also a sculpture that get four feet, I ended up with a vineyard companion was an ex theologist out of the Steinhardt, San Francisco, and I started researching white sharks to in great detail of it, what Leonard said was sharks, the bigger they get, the fatter they get. So the most perfect shapes, white shark would be about 12 feet, we doubled that I started making the model or real white shark 12 and then all the measurements. So it's like, exactly right on. And then Linda came down and worked with me to get the details perfectly. And then we went from there to the 25 foot shark.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:18

So you sketch it out, you had you had the dimensions of a real shark matched it up, built it out.

Joe Alves 26:23

So when everybody says you know, it wasn't, it was right on, it was right on, and I got experts to work with Iran and Valerie Taylor are very well known documentary people. They did Bluewater white death, and they were in Australia and I remember talking to them about the movement of the shark and says you don't want to wag the tail they don't do that they just sort of boom and then they're attacked That's how you know that started in the research. It was interesting when you do a movie whether it's sharks or its spaceships

Jeff Dwoskin 26:55

Okay, so everyone always says oh Joe design the shark but you didn't just you didn't just design the shark gets it you're it's almost sounded like you're you're almost making it wasn't for Joe. This movie went Have you ever been made? I mean, you seem to like sell it visually. Because you didn't you did the sketches that you drew, you drew the original swimming death in the beginning. Andy Kitner dying, Ben Gardner dying Hooper dying spoiler he dies in the book, quints death right? So you you outline all of these things. Yeah,

Joe Alves 27:23

get all the storyboards to at the very end of the

Jeff Dwoskin 27:25

right way around just saying but those are the things you kind of did in the beginning to help sell it to Steven and I'll end the studios

Joe Alves 27:31

very unusual because to have that kind of position because I put together the crew after I got Bob Maddy, we got Roy Obergas who was incredible with skins and new plastics, wood brothers to do the welding. Yeah, I put together a chain. And we set up a facility in San Juan, which is near the studio, but away from the studio. And we started the shark that would probably be october november because the meeting was in October. So by the time I got everything together with probably late November, we got the team and started doing the first shark we were gonna do three sharks left to right, right to left because we were towing it. And we wanted the backside that you don't see accessible to get into the mechanics and then one on a big crane arm on a platform. So I got that started. And so in December, then I had to go look for a location to our network, Peter benchley in New York. And I said, you know, where did you write this? He said, What no place specific but he lived in Nantucket. I had a map of the East Coast. I was looking at all these little towns and villages. I also needed a bay that you could see the ocean clear of the ocean 90 to 25 feet, because there was that platform that came out with the shark on a crane. And we needed a 25 feet and then I needed a very low tide so that if the tide was too high or too low, you would see this, you know, this shark could come up and end the tide in the West Coast was like 12 feet or something. So I started to scouty the all the East Coast. He mentioned to go see his parents in Nantucket. And I had mentioned to him What's this island over here, Martha's Vineyard. He says I don't think there's anything there. He'd never been there because he lived on Nantucket, you know, go to the island. So here I am starting to build this shark and I'm off scouting by myself. Stephens working on the script. So that's how small this movie was. I mean, I was it was B and Steven, my crew of six guys are actually we call them Magnificent Seven because they were building that and I went off scouting by myself in the winter looking for a summer location. You know, today they have production designers like on the new Star Wars film. They have probably 10 art directors and a production designer and assistance vision was like really small movie, and they didn't really want to make it

Jeff Dwoskin 29:57

with a book hadn't come out yet, right? They were just they hadn't No idea if the book was going to be a success or not, they just knew it was a good story. It was a potentially good story. You're all working and avoid.

Joe Alves 30:07

Exactly. You know, I'll get that book then because here's what happened. So I was going to Nantucket to see his parents and take a look at the island. And the weather was so bad, the boat had to turn around. And then I noticed that there's a boat to Martha's Vineyard. Go look at that. So I wanted to look at Martha's Vineyard. And I was just blown away. Edgartown was perfect for the beautiful picket fences and what a beautiful place for a shark to come and destroy the summer. And then menemsha was a really good sort of, you know, fishing village and the right between there was a bay, which was 25 feet with a two foot tide. And I thought, well, we could do the whole thing here. So that was my plan. Zanuck was not happy with it. Because Martha's Vineyard, there was a Chappaquiddick thing with Ted Kennedy church, where he died and all that he says, I don't think they're going to be happy. There's a lot of rich people there. I could be happy you shooting a movie there? Well, we could Vince to him that it was really good. And Steven eventually started all the very selective, putting them in the movie and all the people that weren't rich people that needed jobs, because I took a painter and a carpenter and a hired local boatbuilders and stuff going back to the book. So that was a November, December, the guys are building the shark February, the book comes out the studio says, We're gonna start shooting this in two months. I said, What about my year to build the shark? Oh, no, no, we're gonna start shooting, I suppose a sharp won't be ready. They didn't give a damn. You know, it was like, This book is successful. And we have to take advantage of that. And so you're dumb sharks going to have to be ready for their allies the problem. So the guys really have to scramble and basically we moved everything to the east coast. They weren't finished with the sharks, we would try to test it. things wouldn't work. The salt water kept eating into electricity, you know, electrical things. And basically, I would go to Steven and and we, we realized that we had to shoot everything we could possibly shoot without the shark starting so early. We're doing a may we're in Martha's Vineyard, doing water sequences, and people are freezing all day on the beach. And it was way before the summer came. So that created a lot of problems. And we use the barrels, we didn't use the barrels because the shark didn't work. We use the barrels because it was like a Hitchcock tape to represents a shark more of an intriguing thing. And the reason people said, a lot of critics say, Oh, we didn't use a shark enough because it didn't work. If you look at my storyboards, everything there every shot that has a shark in it, we got so Stephen, got what he wanted. So I would go to him. And I said, Well, I think the left to right shark was working. Let's see if that works. And so that's the way we would we would test it, if it worked, we would shoot it went on like that it was quite an ordeal. Getting back to my position was very unusual for a production designer to actually be sort of leading the effects team. Basically, that's what happened because he put me in charge of it. That was a very unusual film for production designer. And in fact, it was this low budget the storyboards that they would normally I get, like 200 Star Wars, they would have an illustrator, but they didn't want to afford to pay an illustrator and pay room and board. No, no Joe could do it. So is the book. I think Dennis did an incredible job on the book because it illustrates not just my designing of it. But how difficult it was the small team that we had to put together this shark thing. The studio almost canceled it twice, if not four times. Fortunately, Stephen had, I don't know if this had any effect. But Lorraine Gary was in the movie. And she was married to President of universal. So I don't think he necessarily wanted to cancel it said scheinberg. Anyway, that's how jaws started.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:05

It sounds like for me is I mean is the fan at home. And now the stories about the shark not working. It sounds like it's more like I think the perception that would have gone through my head is everything they thought was working and they got there and it wasn't working. But that was even the case. You were lucky at you hadn't even finished it yet. You were being rushed by the studio. And so by the grace of God, you probably you actually got to work as well as you did under the timeframe that you did. I mean, that's it's a more incredible when you hear it from your point of view.

Joe Alves 34:34

Well, if it was a studio thing, they would be going through a process like it has to be designed and built and then it goes to your fax and all that with us. We were removed from the studio, they didn't have any clue about complications, and they didn't want to hear about it. They just want to say we've got to get this movie done. And they had a young director I must say this so one of the very most difficult things in our schedule was when we start Already shooting the shark. It was probably July, so it was still big in the summer season. So that Bay that I go to in December was just empty. And Steven (speilberg) wanted them totally isolated. So he didn't want to see any boats out there. Well, Martha's Vineyard is a great place to provide Anna's port, all these big yachts, the sea was full of boats. And Steven was very German. No, I don't want to see any boats, we can't do any shots. And so we had to have little boats running around until people could sail over here. So people would cooperate. Other people would just know I'm gonna do what I want. That really held up the schedule a lot, because we had to wait not only for the shark, we have to wait for master shot with no boats. If you remember in the movie, Clint breaks the radio, so they have no communication. So he wanted the three guys out there, isolated, that was very, very difficult. And there were times the studios and what we got to just shut this thing down. But we persisted. And then we got back home, we had some pickup shots, and we were not heroes, the boat that I built quince boat, they sold it to shark, they threw it out into the backlog and let it rot. And then the movie came out at Oh my god, you know, then they needed something for the tourism. So then they had to buy the boat back. And then they took the mold and they made a fiberglass shark that they hung up on the tours, so people could take pictures in front of it. So they did that for a number of years. After many many years. They built a shark right somebody got rid of that plastic shark fiberglass shark ended up in a bid the car lot was a you know used car lot but a car parts were just acres of cars, you pay to go in and and you find a piece that you need. And he had that up on some pole. Cory Turner was a guy from NPR. He came out about nine years ago. He says I want to, you know, could you meet me at Sam's place and talk about the junkyard shark and see if it was really made off of the original mold. And so I called Roy Eric asked who made the bold we went there. You Oh yeah. This was definitely made from the original. So it was the only real thing left from the original shark was the mold. Couple years ago, people from the motion picture museum contacted me about this shark. They had gotten it from the junkyard shark. And they had it in a warehouse. He said what needs to be redone? I said, I know a guy that could do it. Greg Nicotero, who does the Walking Dead is and we've been friends for years. And he's a big JAWS fan. Interesting thing. Jeff, a lot of directors are like in their 50s were big jaws fans. Because in the 70s was a hell of a time with JAWS and close encounters and Star Wars and stuff. They were very influenced by JAWS. And now they're directors and stuff. But anyway, I got to know him years ago, I gave him copies of my drawing system. I said, Well, we should have Greg do it. So Greg refinished it. Well, today, he called me said they have put the shark up in the museum. But he was saying he saw it and it looks great. So it's sort of funny, Jeff because the jaws never dies. You know, it just goes on. And the shark is now finally beautiful, and it's hung up and he says the only thing is what blows people's mind. They don't realize how big it is until you get close to it. I mean, they're tayloe is like six feet huge that when you see how big it is the fact that we were moving it around and was crashing on boats. So the jobs thing lives. This studio, as I say was not crazy about the movie until we had a screening in Texas went okay, Steven called me said Joe, we got four screens, I think we'll get five I need a couple of shots. And the this is we're doing for nothing. He said I need to hold the boat and I need two shots. The shark hitting the boat. Show me the way to go home. Boom, boom. And then water is pretty bad. The boats gonna sink and then also the head with Dreyfus drops the thing the head comes and there's a hole in the head appears here. All right, so I've built that in my garage and we shot the head and Verna feels cool. Verna won the Academy Award for editing the big universal movie. We're doing it in my backyard. We're doing it in vernors pool pick up shots and then when there was the film he I don't know where he got the camera and you got an underwater camera stole the head from Makeup department. So then the dailies of shark dailies in Santa Barbara, it can't be shark dailies. We finished that movie. Well, we didn't. Steven got it all together. He put those two shots into the film. And when the people saw the head coming, they just flipped out they screamed. So we were at Lakewood greeting and all the executives were there Lew Wasserman and everybody's sitting behind us to Jeff my fear was they were Got a laugh? Because when the shark worked, it made all sorts of noises. This is before john Williams music. And then after she was a cut, everybody laughed, you know, because it's silly shark mixer when I was a little concerned that the audience may laugh at the shark because everybody else did when we were shooting it well, cutting it, verna did an Incredibles, I and john Williams music.

And Steven was complaining to john, I think that you're getting paid an awful lot of money to do two notes, you know, does that up, they saw the movie and they said, Oh my gosh, this could be a big success. Now normally, they release the big movies. In the later part of the Year for the academy nominations and stuff. There wasn't really much summer releases. And they generally release it a half a dozen theaters, 10 theaters, and you wait in line to him? Well, they released 450 theaters that was the biggest ever. And it was the first big summer blockbuster. And it was all not by planning. It was just by oh my gosh, I think we've got a success here. I guess this little shark movie is pretty good. And Seaford was sort of Rob from the Academy Award nomination. It was I think he should have got nominated for that. But he didn't Veronica The only nomination and she got the Academy Award for that

Jeff Dwoskin 41:19

Steven (speilberg) got robbed for decades.

Joe Alves 41:21

Yeah, it was interesting. And so as I say what my position was quite different. On the second one, they made me a producer. So I got involved with everything with the director, john Hancock, and actors and stuff like that. But then john got removed, they were going to cancel that movie. And then I got back to the studio. I was doing a picture called Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Anyway, that's how I got involved with Joss too. And then when the capsule that they were fired, I said, Well, you know, I know a young director that I thought was on nikau was Roger was Genoese work, I told them the studio heads. If we're going to do jaws to you don't want to hire a big name director because you don't want to start from the beginning. We need to get a director that will just take off for what we have. It needs to be somebody who this is a big break for him. It worked out with his you know, and that's how it was to sort of happen.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:16

So you casually mentioned Close Encounters of the Third time you had you got an Oscar nomination for that.

Joe Alves 42:21

Yeah, it was interesting. The Oscar nomination because it was it was a star wars that won. George Lucas came to see the set and close encounters, which at the time was a bigger set of rebuilt or had to build an airplane hangar because it was so big and extend the hangar another 150 feet, because there's no studio that and he was just blown away. He said, Well, on Star Wars, we just built it. We had the same set, we just kept repainting it. It had I think what happened, it has a lot of visual effects. And people were blown away that compare that so I didn't get the Academy Award. I got the nomination. But there were all English. The guys are won by bond the British Academy word nice against the English because I think the realization that the visuals were so big, I mean, it was a huge set that sort of grew. What happened with Close Encounters when jaws is being edited. And Stephen and I would scheme friend of mine Dix, mothers of the Smothers Brothers or he had an apartment up there in Mammoth, we went skiing, and we were where he was going to bring along in his traveling and all the stories about black baseball in the 30s. So I got a bunch of old life magazines and stuff. And we got snowed in. So we start talking about being along and then he started reading this thing about a script he had called watch the sky and talk to hind x book, UFO scientific inquiry in UFO sighting USA. And I said, Well, that sounds more interesting than the baseball movie. He says, Yeah, but I don't have a deal. Anyway, I went back and I did a small movie called embryo with rockets. And I was doing that I finished that. And then Stephen called me. And he said he's got to deal with Columbia studios, which was based in Webb Warner Brothers at a time to do this or watch the sky. So he said, meet with the head of the department at Columbia. See what you know, maybe you could serve Scott, he's going to work on this grip. So they're getting on by myself and another small movie and john Veatch is a head of production and he says, this is a small sci fi movie, no more than three and a half million, and we're going to shoot everything on the backlog or on the soundstage here. Except we need one location, some weird looking mountains are set Okay, I flew to Russia. And I was looking at the backdrop Mercer and then I had all these maps of all these strange looking things Chimney Rock, Chip, rock, whatever in this think of Devil's Tower, and so I'm driving and Gillette, Wyoming, and I'm driving and driving and then I see this little peak, then it disappears and I'm driving it is bigger driver and then There's a huge thing. And I was oh my god, it was just what an image, you know, for a sci fi movie. What we did then in those days, you know, took a bag full of 35 millimeter film, then click, click, click and you did pan shots, then you get back to the studio and you tape them together. So I had shiprock and Chimney Rock at all. And I had Devil's Tower. And I told Stephen, that's my choice. And he said, without questions. So then we went there with vilmos zigman, who was a cameraman on Sugarland Express. He turned down Jaws, who wants to do a shark movie, but vilmos is a very talented, he passed away not too long ago. So that's how it started. Now, in the script, where the spaceships supposed to come over this military base, that was just a bunch of kids out in the desert, the image of the mountain Devil's Tower was off in the distance. And I said, I would think that if we're going to be we got information that spaceships going to land, we would prepare for it, we would make a space, a lot of electronic equipment and stuff to pick up everything I said, so we need to build a set, john v. said, okay, you could have stage 15 and 16, which is where they did Camelot. I said, take a look through small and jaws was now becoming a bigger movie. And so he said, well for you guys, your jaws. And now he could just do it. I said, No, no, no. So I built a model always build models that would fit in stage 1516. And for some reason, Columbia was having some financial problems, and they needed a big movie. Now they have the director of jaws there. So they asked me, they all came and looked at my model and said, What do you think? And I said, Well, I think it's too small. I think it should be four times the size, you know, and they said, Oh, okay, so I made a model four times that size. And they said, Oh, this is great. I mean, it's so impressive. You know, just a little golf carts really look small. And because the spaceships going to come down there. So they said, Where are you going to build it? Because it had to be dug trouble came on in he had done base Odyssey to to do the effects. So we need to totally cover things because he needs a certain light control and stuff to know studios that big. There's no sets, it stays epic. So I started looking for airplane hangars, and I did find some but they also had lumber yards in connection with noise itself. But I found two hangars in Mobile, Alabama side by side, but there were 300 feet square, but I wanted it longer. So I extended another 150 feet. So it was 300 feet wide and 450 feet long. And we had 14,000 square feet of of rock of plastic rock. And I got Roy Arbor gas who did the mold for jaws to be head of the effects department there. And I put together a team I got George Jetson, a great illustrator to illustrate some of the illustrations really reflected the lighting. And we worked with the most on that. So we had a good team very difficult shoot this spaceship that we built the one that was up in the air that was done with troubles people now we didn't have CGI, yet. They had some forms of CGI. So we had to build all this stuff. So I built 80 feet with mirrored mylar when the door opens. And that was on the road with like 3000 photo floods and smoke. And so then the little guys come out like that. So it was a big deal. It was it was fun. Yeah, they almost won the Academy Award for photography. And yeah, I was a little disappointed. I didn't when I was nominated also for special effects for jaws didn't get that either. So

Jeff Dwoskin 48:41

well, it's it's an honor to be nominated. Right? Is that what they say? Well, hey, you did what you did win art director Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. Yeah,

Joe Alves 48:51

I told you about that. There's about 1000 people, there was black tie event and they were giving awards to various people. It was a very big compliment to get the Lifetime Achievement Award because they only give one a year for the last 20 years. So 20 people have gotten it some very impressive people, but the Art Directors Guild as we will who's going to introduce you. And I said I don't know. So many people I worked with, they're dead. They'll go more than productive manager and people like they said, How about Spielberg? I said, Steven, you know, he's directing West Side Story. And I haven't seen him for years, I I'd be a little apprehensive to ask him. I was on a book signing thing in Colorado with Greg nicotero. And I was talking about I got to find something. And Greg said, Oh, I'd love to introduce you. I thought Oh, that's cool, because he's the generation that was so influenced by this stuff that I was fortunate to work on. So I had no idea he's introducing me. And behind him was a big screen and they're projecting movies that I've worked on counters scape from VR, blah, blah, blah, and they fit it. And here (STeven) Spielberg shows up and Steven starts talking about our great relationship. I'm what good time had worked together and how difficult jobs was, and blah, blah, blah, anyone honestly love your job, you know, blah, blah, blah. I was blown away. I was absolutely blown away. And then I got up there and made my speech. And it was it was fun because I was explaining to the now art directors I was telling about, you know, touting for close encounters, I had to drive 3000 miles, you know, look, if I said today, you guys just Google it, right? Give me a good mountain, you know, and I said, but we didn't Google. We didn't CGI. We had to build all this stuff. In close encounters. We have middle of the Dylan and Richard drivers climbing up these rocks before they get to the big arena. Well, they would do it in green screen today. I built a seven storey rock on rollers. We put in front of the 125 foot front projection screen. I think it was like

Jeff Dwoskin 50:53

totally different. It's incredible. It's a well, Devil's Tower. I mean, it's basically one of the stars of the movie. I mean, yeah, drive is building it. You got all the people impacted by the aliens drawing it. And so it's like, it's that visual? Yeah, that carries right through to the end. And you know what, Jeff,

Joe Alves 51:11

this is the thing are you plan things so well and feels but sometimes you just lucked out. I think Carl Godley had seen it when I was, we used to go to Verona fields, she became a vice president, she had an office, and then she had a spare office, nobody use. So we'd go there and hang out. And I was there with maps. And Carl would come in, hang out, Carl say, Well, you know, oh, yeah, this point, he's gonna look at Devil's Tower. That's pretty interesting. You know, whatever, like a family of people get in Verona was the older lady. Mother cutter. They used to call her it was different today. I couldn't imagine being an art director and not drawing. You don't have to be the best artists but even to convey your thoughts.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:50

I think there's something special about the old school way of doing it before all the computers and everything like that, that just makes it more real more special. There's just I think that's why these movies still connected. You ever think like oh, have you made that movie today, unlike you just CGI the shark if it would even have been as good

Joe Alves 52:09

they have done CGI sharks, and they're really, really good when CGI came out. And I use this illustration, if you took a Western either had the Calvary come up in the weather half a dozen man or a dozen man and then the Indians would appear on top of the hill and there be maybe 100 today that put 300,000 or whatever

Jeff Dwoskin 52:29

has definitely a magic to all the movies that you did and and special touch that you brought to them. So let's talk about the book Joe elves designing jaws.

Joe Alves 52:38

It's about the making of JAWS and it has it has all the storyboards. You know what was interesting. Jeff is like for example, I didn't throw anything away and was Dennis started to work on this book. He realize I kept everything and I put it in footlocker and I haven't moved from 50 years. So there's like this little notepad, I had that notepad that is describing my scouting for Edgartown, for Martha's Vineyard page by page. So he put that in. And then I said, Why do you Why are you putting this and this this is a whole script on that's how we used to break down scripts. You know, we didn't do it on computer we did page by page. Or maybe I get a little sketch if I thought I was going to you go through the book.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:22

Joe's book is Joe elves designing JAWS. It's a gorgeous coffee table book. I bought it and I just went through it. It shows how Joe not only designed Jaws, the shark but also amedy Island Quint's shack, the Orca. You know everything, every little visual element that we know as Jaws, the movie and a whole this book, designing jaws pulls it all together in such a beautiful way.

Joe Alves 53:49

Something else too. If I have storyboards I don't really push it. But a lot of my stuff is on sale online. It's on https://joealvesmovieart.com/. I'll put

Jeff Dwoskin 53:59

a link to it on Amazon in the show notes. And I'll put your website in the show notes so people can check out your storyboards. Joe, I can't thank you enough for spending all this time with me. You know, hearing these stories, but these movies ever such a strong part of my childhood directly from you. It's been really, really incredible for me.

Joe Alves 54:17

Great, really nice talkin g to you actually. It's very pleasant.

Jeff Dwoskin 54:19

Thank you. You're very pleasant to this is a lot of fun. Thanks, Joe.

All right. How great was that? How many amazing stories The Joe Alves have so many. Ah, I enjoyed that conversation so much. But if you love JAWS as much as I do, definitely check out the book Joe Alves designing Jaws. It's an amazing amazing book. I assume right now you're like book. We're all in the mood to go watch Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I don't blame me. I don't blame. Yeah, the good news is we're almost at the end of the episodes you can go do that.

That's right Episode 59 is coming to a close Can you believe it? I can't but here we are. But you all know what that means. We do Jeff we do! that's right. It's time for a trending hashtag from that family of hashtag round up games on Twitter follow hashtag roundup @hashtagroundup on Twitter, download that free hashtag roundup app on the Apple Store or Google Play Store play along in one day one of your tweets may show up on an episode of live from Detroit. The Jeff Dwoskin show fame and fortune awaits you. This week's inspired hashtag is #SharkSongsAndBands brought to you by tune sis tags a weekly game on the hashtag roundup I already This is the ultimate shark mash up with any song and any band that's how you play and here are some How are as examples of #SharkSongsAndBands

Jaws the two of us we couldn't make it if we try jaws the two of us you and i into the great wide open. I shouldn't pick a song tag is I cannot sing but try to enjoy it. Everybody's talking 'bout the shark dressed man. Fin Young Cannibals great band. Foot Bruce everyone footbruce! that thing you chew! the Tom Hanks classic. Of course. Anything by MC Hammerhead. you got to bite for your right to party. These are some great #SharkSongsAndBands mash ups. I gotta tell you sharp dressed man. Yeah. Great song by ZZ Top sledge hammer head Peter Gabriel classic. The talking hammerheads sharky, shark and the funky bunch. The dorsals amazing band, you mako me feel like a natural woman.... woMan. Great white wedding. Mr. San shark Bring me a dream? Make him the cutest, but please leave my spleen. It's the eye of the tiger shark that if I if I had a hammerhead shark, I'd hammer in the morning. There was some great ones. And finally, let's wrap it up with I fought the jaws and jaws won! Those are some amazing #SharkSongsAndBands you love the hashtags go to hashtag roundup on Twitter and the App Store get the app play along one day when he tweets might show up. As always, these tweeters are retweeted at Jeff Dwoskin show that's my show home on Twitter, go retweet them, show them some love. They'll also be linked in the show notes.

All right, well, that was fine. Can't believe we're at the end of another episode. I want to thank my guest Joe house for joining me. I want to thank all of you for coming back week after week means the world to me. And I'll see you next week.

Announcer 58:05

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Now Go repeat everything you've heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai