Steve Gawley

Stephen "Steve" Campbel Gawley was an employee at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) who was assigned as the supervising model maker on three . He was largely responsible for supervising the construction of such studio models as the and . Additionally, he contributed as such, albeit uncredited, to the first season episode . 
Gawley was interviewed for the "Space Docks and Birds of Prey" special on the Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Special Edition) DVD, where he discusses the design process of the studio models for that movie.
==Career outside Star Trek==
Steve Gawley studied Industrial Design at the California State University in Long Beach, California. In August 1975 he was hired by George Lucas for a drafting job. He soon after found himself employed at Lucas' newly formed visual effects (VFX) company ILM as modelmaker. While not one of the "Original Twelve" founding staff of ILM, he still was one the earliest employees of the company, becoming employed in the second round of hirees. (The Making of Star Wars, p. 70, ) With his friend Joe Johnston (another ILM staffer of Star Wars fame, and hired at the same time Gawley was), Gawley commuted to his work in his pick-up truck, that would attain fame in Star Wars lore as it was used for filming the high speed Death Star trench sequence. In 1990 Gawley received an Academy Award nomination for Best Effects, Visual Effects for his work on the science fiction sequel Back to the Future Part II which he shared with Ken Ralston, Michael Lantieri, and John Bell. The team also won a BAFTA Film Award for Best Special Effects for their work on this film. In 2006, Gawley won a Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Motion Picture for his work on (2005), which he shared with Edward Hirsh, Joshua Ong, and Russell Paul.
Gawley's first work was as model builder for the miniature and optical effects unit for (1977). He also had a small cameo part as a Death Star Trooper in this film. For in 1980 he worked as modelshop foreman for the miniature and optical effects unit. On in 1983 he was the modelshop supervisor.
Other films Gawley worked on during his time at ILM, included the Battlestar Galactica pilot (1978, though being on loan due to slow business to John Dykstra's Apogee, Inc., Dykstra actually having been one of ILM's "Original Twelve" and therefore a former colleague), (1981), (1985), (1985), (1986), (1987), (1987), (1988, with Christopher Lloyd), (1989), (1990), (1991, with Billy Campbell), (1992), and (1993).
Gawley worked on all three Back to the Future films (1985, 1989, 1990) as supervising modelmaker and was interviewed for the television special The Secrets of the Back To The Future Trilogy in 1990.
Further credits for ILM include (1996), (1996), (1997), (1997, with Dina Meyer), (1999) and (2002), (2001), (2001), (2003), (2003), (2003), (2004), (2006), and (2006) and (2007).
Gawley worked for ILM for 31 years until August 2006. In 2005 ILM, in order to concentrate more fully on the digital techniques for creating visual effects, such as CGI, decided to split off the physical production departments for them to eventually become a separate company, Kerner Optical. Gawley, as a specialized physical model maker, moved to over to the new company. Nonetheless, Gawley decided to leave Kerner in January 2007 after having been in its service for only four months, and to strike out on his own as modelmaker as a freelancer. During his short tenure at Kerner Optical, Gawley worked as model/miniature maker on the 2007 comedy Evan Almighty.
== Star Trek credits ==
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** – Supervising Modelmaker
** – Supervising Modelmaker
** – Chief Modelmaker
* – Supervising Modelmaker (uncredited)
== External links ==
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es:Steve Gawley
Gawley, Steve