Joe Alves: Biography

Production designer Joe Alves is best known for his work with Steven Spielberg, with whom he has worked on four films. Before beginning his career, he studied at San Jose State, Chinaurd Institute (where he majored in motion picture design) and at USC. During the 1950s, he worked as an assistant animator at Disney. He then went on to work as a set designer for stage and television productions. Upon establishing himself in feature films, Alves became distinguished for his work in science fiction. It is Alves who created Bruce the shark, the deadly protagonist of Spielberg's Jaws (1975). For his design of the mother ship in another Spielberg production Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Alves won a British Academy Award. He made his directorial debut in 1983 with the unmemorable film Jaws 3-D. During the '80s and '90s, Alves has worked in various capacities ranging from assistant director to visual consultant to associate producer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide