Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/679317
44 P E R S P E C T I V E | M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 6 this era. Not many of these adjustments were favorable to film unionism in the United States. However, the IATSE was more successful at reaching accords with the producers, without striking, than were the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America. Certain of its membership believed that the IA was, therefore, settling for less than it deserved. Strikes were authorized by the IA membership during both 1979 and 1982, for example, yet in neither instance did they take place. The unions, as well as management, provided, during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, their full measure of devotion to Hollywood's place as the world's filmmaking apex. As the 2000s have unfolded, we see that the intricate, sometimes unfair, accommodations which were executed over the preceding thirty years have borne fruit within the loam of these earlier decades' sacrifices. The financial state of the movie business is as healthy as at any time since television was in its infancy. Many of these painful- profitable changes in moviedom have involved IATSE personnel, yet it must be emphasized that, into the era of computer-generated filmmaking, the cinematic influence of the Production Designer and other Art Department personnel seems only to be burgeoning. A major part of this swelling influence is their respected collective agent, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Art Directors, now the Art Directors Guild. Mr. Allen, during his tenure, carried the torch surpassingly well. He is among the Society's heroes. T his additional phase of Mr. Allen's life would be enough for most men—a third successful career in labor unions, following equally admirable civilian stints in police work and in Production Design—but there was also a fourth endeavor: Mr. Allen was elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in August 1983. A veteran of the Academy boardroom upon becoming its president, he was first elected to the Board of Governors in 1973, and had served as Academy Treasurer three times. As were his early days within the IA leadership, Mr. Allen's term as Academy President occurred in the wake of a successful presidency, in this instance, Fay Kanin's. It is likely that Mr. Allen's well-demonstrated executive skills had commended him to his fellow Board members as a successor to the popular Kanin. Also, in the wake of the divisive, circa 1980 labor wars, it may well have been determined that a "below-the-line" Academy President best fit the requirements of the age. Mr. Allen is, to this date, the sole member of the Art Directors branch elected to the leadership of the Academy. His two years as the Academy's president may be considered to have been quiet and tempered. Along with him, all five of his officers were reelected by the Board of Governors in 1984, following his initial term Below: Mr. Allen in 2008, after his retirement, in his artist's studio, directly upstairs above his residential condominium, overlooking Balboa Harbor in Newport Beach, CA. Photograph by Matt Petit © A.M.P. A.S.