Curator’s View Tour: Aboard the Orca

Production sound mixer and Academy Governor Peter Devlin gives a 30-minute tour examining the art and science of sound mixing in film. He also explores the sounds of the adventure classic Jaws (1975), from its realistic and natural sounds to its unforgettable score.

Stay for a brief Q&A with Devlin after the tour.

Steven Spielberg’s second feature as a director set the standard for edge-of-your-seat suspense and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. When the seaside community of Amity Island falls prey to a great white shark, the chief of police (Roy Scheider), a young marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss), and a grizzled shark hunter (Robert Shaw) embark on a desperate quest to destroy the beast before it strikes again. A box office record-breaker as well as a Best Picture nominee, Jaws earned Oscars for film editing, sound, and John Williams’s thrilling score.

On the occasion of Jaws: The Exhibition—the largest mounted exhibition ever organized around Spielberg’s film, experience the movie before diving into the collection. The museum’s first of this scale focused exclusively on a single film, the exhibition features scene breakdowns, interactive experiences, behind-the-scenes stories, and more than 200 original objects, many never before seen on public display, and follows the structure of the film, taking visitors from the opening credits to its gripping conclusion.

Jaws: The Exhibition is curated by Jenny He, senior exhibitions curator, and Emily Rauber Rodriguez, assistant curator, with Alexandra James Salichs, curatorial assistant, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Production designer, director, and Academy member Joe Alves gives a 30-minute tour, diving into the creativity of the production design of Jaws (1975). The tour also explores the many elements that went into his vision for this the Oscar®-winning film from Universal Pictures.

Stay for a brief Q&A with Alves after the tour.