Philip Van Horn Weems Dodds (May 17, 1951 – October 6, 2007), credited as Phil Dodds and Philip Dodds, was an

audio engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

who appeared in the 1977 motion picture ''

Close Encounters of the Third Kind ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story ...

''. As

ARP Instruments, Inc. ARP Instruments, Inc. was a Lexington, Massachusetts manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, founded by Alan Robert Pearlman in 1969. It created a popular and commercially successful range of synthesizers throughout the 1970s before de ...

's Vice President of Engineering, Dodds was on the set to install and manage the

ARP 2500 The ARP 2500 is a monophonic analog modular synthesizer equipped with a set of sliding matrix switches above each module. These are the primary method of interconnecting modules. It is the first product of ARP Instruments, Inc., built from 1970 ...

synthesizer used in the movie to play the five alien tones, and to program it for the sounds the filmmakers wanted. He had performed a similar function on other science fiction films, such as ''

Logan's Run ''Logan's Run'' is a science fiction novel by American writers William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Published in 1967, the novel depicts a dystopic Malthusianism future society in which both population and the consumption of resource ...

'', and some of the early ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' movies.

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...

, liking his looks, offered him a part in the movie on the spot; he spent the next nine weeks filming the now-iconic final scenes of the movie. He has considerable screen time for an extra, playing the notes on the

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

under the direction of several scientists and musicians, and gazing raptly up at the alien spaceship. In the film's credits, Dodds's name appears twice—once as "Jean Claude" (as Philip Dodds) and once as "ARP Musician" (as Phil Dodds). In his original script, with the working title of ''Watch the Skies'', Spielberg had written these as two separate parts, but combined them into one character during filming. Later vice president of R&D for

Kurzweil Music Kurzweil Music Systems is an American company that produces electronic musical instruments. It was founded in 1982 by Stevie Wonder (musician), Ray Kurzweil (innovator) and Bruce Cichowlas (software developer). Kurzweil was a developer of r ...

, Dodds was a project analyst with Randall House Associates, Inc. in Annapolis, MD. He was the chief architect of the

Sharable Content Object Reference Model Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based electronic educational technology (also called e-learning). It defines communications between client side content and a host system (cal ...

(SCORM) under the guidance of the

Advanced Distributed Learning The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative is a US government program that conducts research and development on distributed learning and coordinates related efforts broadly across public and private organizations. ADL reports to the Defense ...

(ADL) Initiative, a project of the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

. The ADL SCORM is widely perceived as a means to achieve interoperability, accessibility and reuse of the component pieces of web-based instruction, irrespective of

Learning Management System A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...

s. Dodds' grandfather was

Philip Van Horn Weems Philip Van Horn Weems (March 29, 1889 – June 2, 1979) was a United States Navy officer, inventor of navigational instruments and methods, including the Weems Plotter and the Second Setting Watch, and author of navigational textbooks. Biograph ...

, pioneering founder of navigational instrument company Weems and Plath. Dodds died from cancer on October 6, 2007, at 56 years of age.

References

Rhodes Chroma: Interview with Philip Dodds and Tony Williams
*
CE3K IMDB Page
*

Rhodes Chroma The ARP Chroma is a polyphonic, multitimbral, microprocessor controlled, subtractive synthesis analog synthesizer developed in 1979-1980 by ARP Instruments, Inc. just before the company's bankruptcy and collapse in 1981. The design was purchase ...

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dodds, Phil 1951 births 2007 deaths American male film actors 20th-century American male actors