March 1, 1999
Producer and Unit Production Manager Tom Joyner will be the recipient of the Directors Guild of America’s 1999 Frank Capra Achievement Award, DGA President Jack Shea and Awards Committee Chairperson Howard Storm announced today. The Capra Award, given to an Assistant Director or Unit Production Manager in recognition of career achievement and service to the DGA, will be presented to Joyner at the 51st Annual DGA Awards on March 6, 1999, at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
Joyner’s DGA career began in 1969, when he was accepted into the Guild’s Assistant Directors Training Program. He worked as a Second Assistant Director on feature films and movies for television including Sugarland Express, Breezy, Joe Kidd, High Plains Drifter, Pete and Tillie and Ulzana’s Raid. His first feature film as First Assistant Director was Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, and was followed by The Bingo Long Travelling Allstars and Motor Kings, Slapshot, The Last Remake of Beau Geste, Bronco Billy and Don’t Cry It’s Only Thunder. He served as Unit Production Manager on Two Minute Warning, Jaws II, More American Graffiti, The Last Married Couple in America, The Blues Brothers, Walking Tall, Starman, Poltergeist II, Against All Odds, Grandview USA, Tough Enough and Tender Mercies.
Joyner served as Executive Production Manager at Walt Disney Pictures from 1985 to 1987, where he supervised production on films such as Ruthless People, Tough Guys, The Color of Money, Outrageous Fortune, Tin Men, Adventures in Babysitting, Stakeout, Shoot to Kill, The Rescue, Good Morning Vietnam and Three Men and a Baby. From 1990 to 1996 he was Vice President, Feature Production at Warner Bros., supervising production on films such as Tin Cup, Grumpier Old Men, Fair Game, Outbreak, The Client, The Specialist, Cobb, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, On Deadly Ground, Doc Hollywood, Point of No Return, Forever Young, Falling Down and The Bodyguard.
Joyner has served the Directors Guild in various capacities since 1974. He began service on the Assistant Director/Unit Production Manager (AD/UPM) Council from 1974 to 1975, served again from 1984 to 1985, and has been either a Council Member or Alternate from 1988 to the present. He was Chair of this Council from 1996 to 1997. Joyner also currently volunteers his time to six of the AD/UPM Council’s committees, and was appointed by DGA President Shea to serve on the Guild’s Negotiating Committee, which recently reached an agreement with the AMPTP on the economic terms of a new contract.