OSCAR NOD A REEL THRILL : EFFECTS WORK EARNS NOMINATION.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

As a 20-year-old just getting started in the movie visual-effects business, Doug Smith saw just about all of his colleagues on ``Star Wars'' - his first job - walk away with Academy Awards.

Smith was essentially a gofer on that project, the low man on the totem pole, performing odds and ends and making himself available to the director of photography whenever he could. Still, he thought that he would cop one of the coveted statuettes by the time he reached age 30.

Now, at age 42, the Marina del Rey resident is enjoying his first Oscar nomination for his work as one of the visual-effects supervisors on last year's movie mega-hit ``Independence Day.''

``It took more groundwork than I expected - at least than I expected when I was 20,'' Smith said.

Co-nominees with Smith are Volker Engel, Clay Pinney and Joseph Viskocil.

For the most part, Smith has been too busy these past few weeks working on the visual effects for the Walt Disney feature ``Flubber'' at Dream Quest Images in Simi Valley to give the nomination much thought.

But as tonight's Academy Awards show gets closer, his heart is thumping just a little faster - particularly because he believes he and his colleagues have a very real chance of beating out ``Twister'' and ``Dragonheart'' for the visual effects award.

``That's the thing that gives me an adrenaline rush, wondering what it's going to be like when I walk up there,'' he said. ``Otherwise, I'd just sit back and enjoy the show.''

Photography was first love

Though always interested in photography, Smith didn't start out with a desire to get into movies. He wasn't one to make 8 mm films and about the only thing in common he thinks he has with others in the business, other than an artistic bent, is that he lived a migratory childhood as the son of a military man.

``I guess there's something about the movie industry that tends to attract people with that experience,'' he said. ``I don't know why that is.''

In fact, he didn't think he could even make a living as a photographer, though that was his first love, and thought about studying architecture in college.

Meanwhile, his older brother, Wayne, was in the film industry, working with such giants in the field as Douglas Trumbull, who had created the visual effects for ``2001: A Space Odyssey.''

Increasingly fascinated with the process of creating visual effects and Trumbull's work in particular, Smith hit on a simple plan to get a job with the great man. He took a break from college and moved in with his brother.

``I thought the only way he's going to get me out of the house is to get me a job with Doug Trumbull,'' he said.

SJoining `Star Wars' crew

Instead, his brother suggested a meeting with John Dykstra, who was working on the effects for a relatively low-budget science fiction film called ``Star Wars.''

``I got hired with almost no skills,'' he said. ``Though I knew the basics of photography, I hadn't even seen the inside of a motion picture camera.''

Luckily, the ``Star Wars'' crew was developing many of the visual effects techniques now used in the industry. Among his other duties, he was camera assistant for the effects director of photography on that hit, which was recently re-released to huge box office grosses.

``At that point I decided not to return to university,'' he said.

Since then, Smith has worked on the effects for a number of films and television shows including ``Battlestar Galactica'' and ``Star Trek: The Motion Picture,'' and was the visual-effects supervisor on smaller-budgeted pictures such as ``Shakedown'' with Peter Weller and Sam Elliott.

As visual-effects supervisor with Volker Engel on ``Independence Day,'' Smith helped determine the elements comprising the effects shots - there were sometimes hundreds of whooshing space ships, explosions and other effects in a single shot, worked with the model makers and post-production crew, and arranged schedules.

The project - more than a year long and involving about 300 people - was complicated, exhilarating, exhausting, often hectic and at times downright scary.

``The first step is wild enthusiasm,'' he said about first getting the assignment. ``Then you get into it and it scares the heck out of you, and you get in the middle of it and you wonder if you'll get to the end.

``You get to the end and you're staggering,'' he added.

But the end result was worth it, especially after he saw ``Independence Day'' for the first time with an audience. ``Everybody was pretty hyped up and ready for an experience - it was pretty great,'' he said. ``I hadn't worked on a film since `Star Wars' that had that sort of reaction.''

OK, so he didn't get all teary-eyed when he learned of the nomination from a receptionist as he walked through the Dream Quest doors for another day on the ``Flubber'' set.

But the prospect of going home tonight with the statuette, which legend has it some have used as a doorstop, is something else.

``I hope I get the doorstop,'' he said.

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Photo: Doug Smith, in Simi Valley working on an upcoming film, has been nominated for an Academy Award for his special-effects work on the blockbuster hit ``Independence Day,'' which took more than a year to complete.

Andy Holzman/Special to the Daily News