AD Flowers

AD Flowers (born February 22, 1917 in Hillsboro , Texas , † July 5, 2001 in Fullerton , California ) was an American film technician and specialist in special effects , who in addition to an Oscar for the best visual effects and a Special Achievement Award for visual effects as well as a so-called Oscar for technical merit ( technical Achievement Award ) received.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1935, Flowers, like many others , moved to California in the 1930s , hoping to find work in the US “Golden State”. Within three years he was not only married, but with the help of his father-in-law, a painter in the film studios of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), he also got a job as a laborer in the studios. In the first 19 nights of his activity, he had to polish a floor on which Mickey Rooney , a child star in Hollywood at the time , was recording dance scenes. Shortly afterwards, as a gardener, he was responsible for the plants and flowers used in film shoots, before he finally worked in the props and then special effects departments in the mid- 1940s . There he developed into a specialist in explosions , but was also interested in all the mechanization of studio equipment and, in addition to his work, completed advanced training in the fields of hydraulics , electronics and pyrotechnics . He used this knowledge for the use of fire, floods, bombing and aerial combat.

In the 1960s , it rose after television series like Combat! and Garrison Gorilla’s to head mechanical special effects at 20th Century Fox and worked on the production of around 20 films until he retired in 1979.

At the 1971 Academy Awards , he and LB Abbott received the Oscar for the best visual effects in the war film Torah! Torah! Torah! (1970) on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Although no Oscars were awarded in this category between 1973 and 1977, he and LB Abbott received a so-called Special Achievement Award at the 1973 Academy Awards for the best visual effects in Poseidon's Hell's Ride (1972).

In 1980 he was nominated with William A. Fraker and Gregory Jein for the Oscar for the best visual effects in 1941 - Where are you going to Hollywood (1979), but the prize in this category went to the film Alien - The uncanny creature from a strange World . Nonetheless, at this Oscar ceremony he received the so-called Oscar for technical services together with Logan R. Frazee "for the development of a device for controlling miniature airplanes during filming".

Other well-known films with effects designed by him were The Godfather (1972), The Godfather - Part II (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979). During his career, Flowers worked with well-known film directors such as Richard Fleischer , Kinji Fukasaku , Ronald Neame , Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg .

Web links

• AD Flowers in the Internet Movie Database (English)