By GustavoLeao / 14:05, 17 February 2013 / Star Trek: Nemesis

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The June 1989 issue of American Cinematographer magazine was a special Star Trek V The Final Frontier issue, featuring extensive interviews with director William Shatner, cinematographer Andrew Lazslo ASC and special effects supervisor Bran Ferren from Bran Ferren & Associates. Here are excerpts from the extensive Ferren interview, by journalist Ron Magid.

"There was alot of time wasted on the film. Ultimately, every model we received from Paramount had to be completely refurbished prior to shooting We had to have Greg Jein build some new ones, while we created five landscapes and moons as well.!

"One entire side of the Enterprise model was spray painted matte gray, destroying the meticulous original paint job. We had to go in and fix it before we could shoot it, which took two painters and an assistant about  six weks to do. Also the Enterprise turned out to be an electrical challenge that only continued to worl because there were sufficient short circuits within it to keep it arcing into operation - so we had to rewire it. As much as we wished we could just walk into something that was ready to go, that's seldom the case."

"Its not exactly like Star TRek is a neew concept;WE knew what it was supposed to look like, so our job was really to be fainthful to that look rather than try to reinvent the wheel. Star Trek usually means models with soft light. I wouldnt light them that way if we were going from scratch - though there is nothing wrong with it. I would have preferred a stark,  cutting, contrasty, less filled look. Unfortunately, we couldn't just ramdomly introduce that, since the look of thew Enterprise and of the other models is something that has been created and maintained for four films. We just accepted the fact that most of our model shots had to match what had been done before. Whenever we had the opportunity to do new things, we really had fun."

"For example,we were able to integrate laserdisc video preview equipment ffor the first in this film, so thatinstead of doing film tests, every motion control shot was digital video sloptested, where each element was recorded onto laserdisc and comped 100% on video so we could do element checks before shooting any film."

The full interview can be found in the June 1989 issue of American cInematographer.