RON GRESS miniature painter / art director 

I had a great time interviewing Ron at his house. He had so many fun stories, and a great sense of humor. Hopefully all these interviews will inspire a new generation of filmmakers to use more practical effects mixed with CGI.

@@piercefilm A noble goal for all your efforts. I hope so too! Or even better; more practical effects withOUT any CGI (lol...I can dream).

I was very happy to meet and interview him. He painted so many iconic filming miniatures in is career. Half of the DVD´s I own have his work in them. A great talent.

Thanks for watching. More coming up soon!

No digital creation can be as good a model.

​@@bobrew461 I disagree; there is value to the real and tangible; instead of the digital. Digital effects can and do break the entire look of a scene. It takes the viewer out of the film and reminds the viewer that's it's CGI movie. Look at the over CGId Star Wars "Special" editions. The CGI was not necessary; it added nothing to the over all story and decimated the original film. When One must rebuild a CGI model from scratch. The results tend to be completely terrible and noticeable different from shot to shot. Plus, a model can't be held for a bitcoin ransom in a cyber-hacking.

Sad but true! But the Thunderbirds are go, revamp uses a combination of practical and digital effects! And it looks amazing!

@@UtilityPro The Razorcrest as well as the big cruiser at the end of Season 2 of the Mandalorian were real models. I think it makes a huge difference.

It was a great pleasure to have met Ron. A true talent.

Especially that first movie _MagicCam_ Enterprise with the original pearlescent paint job. Jeffrey Katzenberg once said, "As great as it looked in the final movie, it looked even better in person!" Those Klingon ships look really stunning as well. Loved the color and the panel detail on those in particular. 👉👍👍

I have a very long (30min) segment about Star Trek TMP coming up later this year.

@@piercefilm Seeing the _Enterprise_ and Drydock would be fantastic as always; so damn well made! But- if at all possible- could you please get some pictures of _V'ger_ when it was NOT under stage lights, in normal lighting conditions? I remember reading that they would close off one part of the giant fly-by model and fill the room with smoke for photographing, while on the other side of that screen they were building the model at the exact same time! And then, when filming was completed, because the smoke they used was corrosive, they took the used model and literally floated it down a river never to be seen again! Seeing a scaled plastic/die-cast metal replica of _V'ger_ from Eaglemoss HeroCollector is one thing, but to see photographs- or even video! (which I seriously doubt there exists any, considering the jaw-dropping time-crunch they were under in 1979)- the original filming model would be incredible. (I spotted the brief shot in _this_ video of the mechanical orifice inside the massive ship.)

@@EVAUnit4A Yes, you'll be seeing lots of those miniatures in my long Star Trek segment coming up.

@@piercefilm I would like to know/see the paint job on the K’tinga models. I heard they painted them a “military green”, but shots in this video and just the finished product they have a weird purplish silver look.

Ron Gress invented his own airbrush paint system that had multiple colors. I think he used enamels.