Oscar-nominated producer Adam Somner, who was among the many most in-demand First Assistant Administrators within the enterprise over the previous few many years, died Nov. 27 from anaplastic thyroid most cancers. He was 57.
Somner was the go-to AD for the likes of Steven Spielberg (ten movies), Paul Thomas Anderson (six movies) and Ridley Scott (six movies). He additionally labored a number of occasions with Scott’s brother Tony, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and James Mangold. His most up-to-date movies embrace Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Steve McQueen’s Blitz and Anderson’s upcoming untitled Warner Bros. movie starring Leonardo Di Caprio.
“The job title “assistant director” is inadequate to explain what Adam Somner was to me and the contribution he made to my movies—simply as my left arm is extra than simply an assistant to my proper,” mentioned Spielberg in an announcement to Deadline. “He labored as AD, and producer and he carried out each of these duties with equal measures of devotion. He liked making motion pictures. He liked being on the set. It was his gridiron. He was a cheerleader and ball service and at occasions I couldn’t inform if he was following my lead or I used to be following his. He made everybody who joined the crew really feel like they have been a part of the household. He was a uniter and when issues weren’t going in keeping with plan, his English working-class wit and humor, might easy out the issue by way of his under-the-breath cursing, laughter, and the backup plan he all the time appeared to have standing by. He was an icon in his area and an inspiration to anybody who needs a profession within the mounting of productions—with the complete recognition that it’s as inventive as it’s organizational. Going again to work with out Adam won’t ever be the identical.”
“I believe your job nearly as good AD is to be a barometer to the set,” Somner mentioned throughout an AFI Conservatory Q&A in 2020. “If it’s tense, you try to make it much less tense. If perhaps it’s too slack, you try to snap it up, try to get it to the place the chemistry is the correct stage to do good work.”
Amongst Somner’s extra memorable demonstrations of that ability was overseeing the wild airplane orgy scene in The Wolf of Wall Avenue.
“It was all within the preparation,” Somner informed DGA Quarterly. He choreographed the scene rigorously, pairing off actors to create managed scenes so everybody felt comfy.
“It will be like, ‘You two are doing this over right here,’ and ‘You two are doing that over there,’ after which generally I’d be with Marty and he’d be like, ‘Can you have got one thing happening over there?’ We have been working in a safe setting that was preset,” says Somner. “Everybody was prepped. So once we wished them to go nuts, they might go nuts. Everybody was working in set boundaries.”
Scorsese mentioned he “by no means would have been in a position to make The Wolf of Wall Avenue or Killers of the Flower Moon with out him.
“Adam Somner was credited as an Assistant Director and a Producer on three of my photos, however his presence meant extra to me and to the movies than any credit might actually even point out,” mentioned Scorsese in an announcement to Deadline. “Adam had a really particular and really specific set of qualities—the organizational skills and the self-discipline of a common on the battlefield; a singular means to work as carefully with me or with any director as two dancers doing a routine or two musicians bouncing off one another; and a rare artistry when it got here to organizing and orchestrating motion within the body. Adam Somner embodied and practiced all of it. I’d by no means have been in a position to make The Wolf of Wall Avenue or Killers of the Flower Moon with out him, and we have been in the course of planning one other undertaking. He handed away far too early, and I’ll miss him terribly. He liked “making photos,” as he put it. He was one of many most interesting collaborators I might ask for, and I do know that my fellow administrators would say the identical.”
Licorice Pizza author/director Paul Thomas Anderson additionally paid tribute to Somner: “Adam liked making movies greater than anybody else ever within the historical past of the film enterprise. It was foods and drinks to him. He made everybody who labored with him really feel secure,” mentioned Anderson. “He noticed the whole lot from all sides directly and had a again up plan to the again up plan to the again up plan. He moved mountains and vans and other people like he was transferring a salt shaker throughout a desk. It was wonderful to look at him work.
“He knew the best way to make a movie higher than anybody else. His instinct and expertise was second solely to how deeply humorous and loving he was. Most of all and above the whole lot, he was beneficiant.
“For these of us fortunate sufficient to work with him, we all know going to work won’t ever be the identical or as a lot enjoyable. I’d rank him within the Kobe Bryant, Mick Jagger, Winston Churchill class of Legends. And that might be under-selling it.”
You possibly can watch Somner and fellow Licorice Pizza producer Sara Murphy focus on the movie with Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro under. The duo was Oscar-nominated for his or her work on the undertaking.
Somner additionally was awarded the DGA Award for Excellent Directorial Achievement/Function Movie for his work with Alenandro Inarritu on The Revenant.
Somner is survived by his spouse Carmen Ruiz de Huidobro, his kids, Olivia and Bosco and his brother, Mark Somner.
A DGA scholarship in Somner’s title might be established with donation particulars forthcoming.
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