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ASC Presidents Award Will Celebrate Howard Anderson, Jr. For info on other honorees: Michael Chapman, ASC • Miroslav Ondricek, ASC • Irwin Winkler • Kevin Brownlow In recognition of his extraordinary contributions to advancing the art of filmmaking, Howard A. Anderson Jr., ASC will receive the American Society of Cinematographers Presidents Award at the 18th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards on Feb. 8, 2004, at the Century Plaza Hotel. “Howard Anderson is a dedicated, passionate filmmaker who exemplifies the ASC principals of artistry, loyalty and progress,” says Owen Roizman, ASC, who heads the ASC awards committee. “He has consistently established high standards for innovation and creativity in important sectors of our industry.”       Anderson’s credits include visual effects for hundreds of films, including such classics as Heaven Can Wait, Blazing Saddles, The Body Snatchers, Some Like it Hot, the 1960 version of Godzilla, Tobruk, Annie, Superman and Gray Lady Down. He also created titles and visual effects for such memorable television series as I Love Lucy, My Favorite Martian, The Untouchables, The Invaders, Dragnet, The Waltons, The Fugitive, Barnaby Jones, The A-Team and the original Star Trek. “Howard is an unsung hero, who has worked behind the scenes making countless contributions to advancing the art and craft of filmmaking,” says ASC President Richard Crudo. “He has earned the admiration and respect of his peers.” Anderson joins an extraordinary list of recipients of the coveted ASC Presidents Award, including actor Robert DuVall; visual effects pioneers Linwood Dunn, ASC, Hans Koenekamp, ASC and Douglas Trumbull; Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown; camera designers “Tak” Miyagishima and Albert Mayer Jr.; documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles; archivist Kemp Kniver; and cinematographers William Clothier, ASC, Charles Wheeler, ASC, Guy Green, BSC and Ralph Woolsey, ASC.  Anderson traces his roots to the earliest days of the film industry. His father, Howard A. Anderson, was a portrait photographer in Chicago prior to joining the United States Army at the outbreak of World War I. After the elder Anderson was discharged in 1918, he migrated to Los Angeles with the goal of finding a niche in the new motion picture industry. He was hired by Thomas Ince as a still photographer and second cameraman at Culver City Studios. After Ince died in 1924, the studio was taken over by Cecil B. De Mille. Anderson created lightning, storm and flood effects for De Mille’s The King of Kings, one of the last, successful silent movies. He founded the Howard Anderson Special Photographic Effects Company in 1927. The younger Anderson was still in his pre-teens when he began working part-time for his father’s company during the early 1930s. He subsequently studied math at the University of California-Los Angeles, and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Before the war, Anderson shot industrial films for Douglas Aircraft. His projects included documenting construction of the first B-19 airplane and the company’s public relations film We Give Them Wings. He joined his father’s company as an optical camera operator during the late 1940s. Anderson worked on the original I Love Lucy show and earned Oscar® nominations for creating visual effects for Tobruk and Jack the Giant Killer. He and his brother Darrell began working with Gene Roddenberry two years before the first episode of Star Trek aired. The brothers created starfields and invented a photographic technique that enhanced the illusion of people being “beamed” onto and off the starship Enterprise, and other effects including matte paintings of alien worlds. Four generations of the Anderson family have worked in the motion picture industry for more than 80 years, spanning the transitions from silent films to “talkies,” black and white to color, the evolution of television, and the convergence of film and digital technologies. Howard Anderson Jr.’s son, Howard Anderson III, became president of the company in 1993, and his granddaughter, Valerie Anderson, also plays a key management role. “My father thought he had seen everything during his lifetime with the advent of the cinema, radio, television, the electric light, locomotives and airplanes,” Howard Anderson Jr. says. “I believe the future will bring challenges and opportunities that are beyond our imagination today. No one predicted that DVDs would make films that my father worked on popular today. The secret is that you have to love what you do, and you have to strive to do it the best that it can possibly be done. I love what we do and am proud of it.”  For more information about the 18th Annual Outstanding Achievement Awards, visit our Awards page.

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