(written from a Production point of view)
Ron Mendell is a concept artist, designer and modeler for Hollywood films. He recently worked as a concept artist on 2009's Star Trek. His tasks for this film included the design and building of the updated Star Trek: The Original Series-style communicator.
Mendell's film career began in 1991 as a set model builder on Hook. He has since designed and built set models for such films as Death Becomes Her (working with Star Trek: The Motion Picture production illustrators Tom Cranham and Martin Kline), Jurassic Park (also working with Cranham and Kline), Mars Attacks! (featuring Paul Winfield), The Insider (starring Bruce McGill and Christopher Plummer), Three Kings, and Windtalkers (starring Christian Slater). He has also built digital models for films such as Minority Report (featuring Neal McDonough and Patrick Kilpatrick), Jurassic Park III (featuring Linda Park), and Ali (featuring LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Brad Greenquist, Albert Hall, Bruce McGill, William Utay, and Wade Andrew Williams).
More recently, Mendell worked as set model designer and builder on Solaris, Ocean's Eleven, and Ocean's Thirteen. He worked alongside Star Trek set designer Dawn Brown on all three of these films. Mendell and Brown had previously worked together on Batman & Robin, on which Mendell was an illustrator and weapons designer.
As a concept designer, Mendell worked on such films as Batman Forever (1995, featuring René Auberjonois and Ed Begley, Jr.), XXX (2002), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), XXX: State of the Union (2005), and War of the Worlds (2005). He first worked with Star Trek director and producer J.J. Abrams and production designer Scott Chambliss (among many other Star Trek production staff members) as a concept artist on Mission: Impossible III (2006).
Mendell's other projects include design work for Armageddon (1998, co-written by J.J. Abrams) and Déjà Vu (2006, starring Bruce Greenwood), both of which have Mendell credited as Assistant Art Director. Mendell was also a creature designer for the pilot episode of Babylon 5. In addition, he designed visual effects for Fight Club (1999, featuring Zach Grenier) and designed vehicles for Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003, featuring Dick Miller, George Murdock, Ron Perlman, and Robert Picardo).
Before Star Trek, his most recent concept design work was for 2008's Iron Man, based on the Marvel Comics character and featuring Faran Tahir. He was also model maker for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009, starring Rachel Nichols.
External links[]
- RonMendell.com – official site
- Ron Mendell at the Internet Movie Database