The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) will present its next Lifetime Achievement Award to Jaws DP Wilmer (Bill) Butler, ASC. The award will be given during the organization's 17th Annual Outstanding Achievement Awards, to be held Feb. 13, 2003 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
Butler, an electronics graduate from Iowa State University, worked as a radio and television engineer in Chicago before hooking up with director William Friedkin to shoot local documentaries. His first feature film as director of photography was Philip Kaufman's 1967 Fearless Frank, which was followed by Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People, Jack Nicholson's Drive, He Said, and Coppola's The Conversation. His breakthrough work on Jaws included designing an underwater box and special camera rafts for director Steven Spielberg.
Butler's other film credits range from Rocky II, III, and IV to Grease, Capricorn One, Can't Stop the Music, Biloxi Blues, Anaconda, and Bill Paxton's recent directorial debut Frailty. The DP's many television credits include Sunshine, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, The Execution of Private Slovik, Fear on Trial, Raid on Entebbe, the miniseries The Thorn Birds, A Streetcar Named Desire with Ann-Margret, and Don King: Only in America. Butler has received two Emmys and an Oscar nomination, for additional photography (with Haskell Wexler) on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
For further information, visit the ASC website.