Template:Realworld Koji "Fred" Kuramura (Fred being the nickname given to him by his boss at Foundation, Ron Thornton) was a CGI artist for Foundation Imaging and subsequently at EdenFX, after the former went out of business in 2002. He worked on numerous episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise, as well as the tenth feature film Star Trek Nemesis and the Star Trek: New Voyages fan films.
Kuramura's work on Deep Space Nine entailed among others the Defiant-class launch bay [1](X), and animating the Fire Caves sequence in "What You Leave Behind". For Voyager, his work included among others, constructing the warp nacelle interior for the USS Voyager crash sequence in "Timeless", the severely damaged USS Voyager in "Year of Hell, Part II", and the Unicomplex and the damaged Borg sphere in "Dark Frontier". (Star Trek Monthly issue 58)
For Enterprise, by then in the employ of Eden FX, noticeable contributions were the CGI models of the NX-class under construction Columbia NX-02 and the ISS Enterprise, as well as his CGI build of the USS Defiant. [2] His work earned Kuramura three Emmy Award nominations, one for the Voyager episode "Year of Hell, Part II", and two for the Enterprise episodes "Dead Stop" (that did win him a Visual Effects Society Award) and "The Council".
Kuramura has counted his Enterprise builds of the the Romulan Bird-of-Prey (22nd century) [3](X) and the abandoned prime-universe D4-class [4](X) among his personal favorites.
Outside Star Trek Kuramura worked as a special effects crew member on the short film The Blair Witch Mountain Project in 2002, directed and produced by, as well as starring Ike Eisenmann. Another film as digital artists is the horror thriller Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist in 2005, being employed at Eden FX alongside former Foundation co-worker John Teska. Kuramura has also contributed to the Electronic Arts, Inc. video game Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Firestorm (2000). [5]
In 2006, Kuramura was hired by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in order to create visualizations, for which his prior experiences on Star Trek were singularly well suited, of space exploration, or as Kuramura himself has put it, "Our job is to bring some Hollywood pizazz, the wow factor, to everything we do". [6] Former Foundation and Star Trek colleague Michael Stetson joined him at JPL. [7](X)
After a long absence, Kuramura returned to the motion picture industry, having recently worked as digital modeler on Iron Sky (2012, along with former Foundation Imaging colleague Lee Stringer).
Star Trek awards
Emmy Awards
Kuramura received the following Emmy Award nominations in the category Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series:
- 1998 for the episode "Year of Hell, Part II", shared with Eric Chauvin, Arthur Codron, Paul Hill, John Teska, Greg Rainoff, Mitch Suskin, and Adam Lebowitz
- 2003 for "Dead Stop", shared with Arthur Codron, Pierre Drolet, Steve Fong, Robert Bonchune, Sean Scott, John Teska, Greg Rainoff, and Mitch Suskin
- 2004 for the episode "The Council", shared with Arthur Codron, Dan Curry, Pierre Drolet, Steve Fong, Sean Jackson, John Teska, Greg Rainoff, and Mike Stetson
Visual Effects Society Awards
- 2003 VES Award win in the category Best Models and Miniatures in a Televised Program for the episode "Dead Stop", shared with John Teska, Pierre Drolet and Sean M. Scott
External link
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