From Mt. Seleya to Mt. Olympus

Thank you Scott Lucas Williams! I’m honored!

http://seleyatoolympus.blogspot.com/2010/04/doug-drexler-and-vulcan-design.html

See You Again on May 23rd!

Hope everyone enjoyed this months offerings. See you next time with more stuff, including the continuing countdown to the 2011 SOTL calendar. Take care, have fun, and remember… if someone tells you you can’t, that’s a pretty good indicator that you can! Drex out!

NX-01 Refit Diagram

Diagram I prepared for Pierre Drolet to build the secondary hull of the NX-01 refit.

Look for it in the 2011 SOTL Calendar.

Let The Countdown Begin! 2011 SOTL – Sneak Peek 01- Andrew Probert

“Long Range Confirmation” – Andrew Probert

2011 Ships of The Line Calendar from Pocket Books – On Sale August!

Get ready, ’cause the amazing Andy Probert has turned the 2011 Ships of the Line calendar on it’s end!  That’s right! Andy is the first artist to take advantage of the calendar as a vertical format! No surprise there… Andy has been shaking the Star Trek Universe up pretty regularly, and he has done it again. Man, when this baby arrived my jaw hit the deck. Positively stunning! We used to think the standard Romulan Warbird was huge. This Romulan super ship redefines things a little. You’ll have to wait awhile longer for a full rez look, but it the meantime this ought to get your juices going! Look for the SOTL 2011 Calendar a little earlier this year, it’s slated to arrive in in stores this August.

Steve Canyon – 43 – Grand Canyon Sunday 04!

My Love Has Wings

(Above) 1943 – 1st lieutenant Roddenberry (2nd from left) and crew, somewhere between Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo, and Nandi, in the South Pacific.

Gene Roddenberry flew B-17s in the Pacific Theater during WWII, assigned to the 394th Bomb Squadron. Suffice it to say that war is a hell, and that young Roddenberry had his share of hair raising, and sometimes tragic experiences. The war time experiences shaped Roddenberry and would be an influence on everything he would do through the course of his life.

Over the last year or so I’ve written a number of entries here on the files, connecting the dots between Star Trek and the B-17 experience (many of you know that TOS art director Matt Jefferies was a flight engineer on a B-17). It struck me that I had never seen an images of Gene in the AAF. I grabbed the official Roddenberry biography off my library shelf, and just as I remembered… nothing. I contacted Rod, who mused about it for a second and then got to work. Here are three unusual pictures from the flying days of Gene Roddenberry. A rare glimpse into the background of a man who knew war firsthand, and therefore promote peaced and understanding in his works.

Special thanks to Rod Roddenberry

(Below) Roddenberry at the controls. This picture appears to be a few years later, and perhaps Gene’s days as a commercial pilot for Pan Am.

(Above) Another view of Roddenberry’s B-17. One wonders if the shadow cast of the photographer is the lanky “first looey”.

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/a-god-apollo-is-my-co-pilot/

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/rockin-it-old-school/

Bear McCreary’s Haunting Caprica Theme

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(Above) Bear graces us with his unique talent.

I came across this video of Bear McCreary’s off the cuff performance of the Caprica theme. So much of the emotion, mood, and psychology of a piece of film relies upon the composer’s ability to plug into our sense memory.

Check out Bear’s blog for some unique insights into the mind of one of televisions most gifted composers -

http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/

BSG VFX 2007-08 Primetime Emmy Presentation Book

Whenever Gary Hutzel and the team submit an episode for Emmy Award consideration, a reel of effects is edited together for the Academy membership. I always prepare a booklet to go with that, and have a lot of fun doing it. I’ve printed it here in it’s entirety, and I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating

“Razor” was an epic extended episode of BSG that had more visual effects in it than we could possibly include in our reel due to time constraints. Seven minutes is the max, so Gary and our VFX editor Eric Lee had their job cut out for them whittling it down. Incredibly, Razor didn’t make the nominations. We won anyway for a different episode (“He That Believeth in Me”). Amazing work, one and all - Gary Hutzel, Mike Gibson, Dave Takemura, Pierre Drolet, Sean Jackson, Kyle Toucher, Aurore Deblois, Michael Davidson, Jose Perez, Heather McAuliffe, Derek Ledbetter, and Jeremy Lang.

Tall Tales of a Time-Traveling Tribble – A Tribble Travelogue

Tall tales of a time-traveling Tribble – A Tribble Travelogue

As transcribed by Jörg Hillebrand

Whenever I’m on vacation, my owner accompanies me. He’s been to all parts of Germany, London, Rome, Australia, St. Louis and Los Angeles. When I spent some time in Los Angeles (and some other interesting places all around the Milky Way Galaxy) last month, he kindly offered to take some snapshots of me at some pretty famous locations. First, we went to Santa Monica Pier, where Janeway and her crew beamed down in 1996 to find a way back home to the 24^th Century.(01)

George Brozak – A Trek Writers Journey

(Above) George Brozak, who wrote numerous tales for Star Trek, recounts his experience as a Hollywood scribe, and how he broke into the biz.

Breaking into Hollywood always makes for a fascinating story, and George’s adventure is no exception. The odds of “making it” are so stacked up against you, that anyone who actually vaults the wall successfully is a hero to me. Meet George Brozak -

The wonders of Facebook. Though I initially resisted joining a few years ago, it has been a wonderful tool for reconnecting (and in some cases connecting) with friends and colleagues from the Star Trek offices on the Paramount lot. My friendship with Doug Drexler is just such an example. I spent many hours this past weekend pouring-over his wonderful blog, reliving my experience with the incredible production staff, producers and writers.

Understandably, I was very humbled when Doug asked me to recount my experience writing for Star Trek. As I told him, I am merely a small cog in a very large wheel – but I just couldn’t say no to his generous offer. It was another chance to relive those incredible times during Trek’s meteoric rise.

My writing career began with The Next Generation. TNG had created a triumphant presence to the Star Trek universe, taking us places we had never gone before. At the start of its third season, Michael Piller (a producer for shows like Simon and Simon, Cagney & Lacey and Miami Vice) joined the staff in charge of writing. Piller instituted a policy unheard of in episodic television by opening script submissions to un-agented writers. And though we had never met, Michael’s hiring was about to change my life.

Sunday Paper

(Above) Zosho’s incredible Sovereign class paper sculpture.

If anyone’s papers are in order it’s these Trek fans with their remarkable papyrus starships.

That’s right... these starship models are made of paper. Andy Probert brought these to my attention just the other day, and they just blew my socks off. Among the most prolific of these vellum artists are Zosho, Loenf, Martin Sanger, and  Marko Härtel, and these examples of fibrous wonderment are theirs.

I think it’s just marvelous that something that began life on a piece of typewriter paper would manifest itself in this way… behold!

(Below) Loenf’s papyrus NX-01

Daelen’s Ship

(Above) Voyager and designer Rick Sternbach were to be applauded for the shows array of unusual and offbeat alien vessels which plied the depths of the Delta Quadrant. Like the oceans of Earth, the deeper you go, the stranger the creatures you discover.

Jörg Report – The model only appeared in two episodes. It was seen as Daelen’s ship in “Vis à vis” and two vessels of this type were seen as spectators during the Antarian trans-stellar rally in “Drive”. The industrial looking machinery on the lower part of the main hull is seen constantly rotating in the episode, which enhanced the alien look of the vessel even more.

Side view.

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Welcome back!

Welcome back to the drex files! Kinda’ excited ’cause we have a couple of entries that are calculated to create a stir! Get ready for the first sneak peek at the 2011 SOTL calendar. We’ll be previewing Andy Probert’s amazing hand painted Romulan supership! My jaw just about hit the deck when I received it  here at drex files HQ, and I’m anticipating your reactions with glee!  So strap in and activate your inertial dampers, because awaaaay we go!

Make That April 25th – Tomorrow!

I’m spending the day prepping entries for this weekends blog. So hang in there til tomorrow for some very cool, eye opening, and never before seen stuff!