Judy Elkins (born 10 December 1953; age 70) was, while employed by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), an animator on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Ten years later, from 1993 onward, she served as a visual effects (VFX) coordinator on the entire run of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as VFX Producer Dan Curry has specified at the time, "Joining the DEEP SPACE NINE Visual Effects crew this year will be Sue Jones and Judy Elkins, and Cari Thomas as Visual Associate." (Cinefantastique, Vol 23,#5, p. 62) Elkins has been given the opportunity to flex her muscles as VFX supervisor for seven episodes, spread over the last five seasons, but was never permanently elevated into the position.
Judy Elkins was part of the team that was mobilized to embellish Deep Space Nine's sixth season episode "A Time to Stand", which needed a shot of a retreating flotilla of Starfleet vessels. To beef out the scene, the visual effects staff built several new ships, kitbashing them out of parts from commercially available AMT/Ertl-Star Trek model kits. Elkins constructed the Federation tug, featured in the opening shot of the episide, and affectionately called the "USS Ertl" among the staff themselves. [1](X) [2] The warp engines originated from a D'deridex-class model kit (AMT kit no. 6858). A second kitbash she constructed, was the after her named Elkins-type, USS Elkins (NCC-74121), fleetingly seen in the same episode. This ship has been featured in more detail on Doug Drexler's Blog(X)
While employed at the Star Trek franchise, Elkins shared four VFX Emmy Award nominations for her work on Deep Space Nine.
Career outside Star Trek[]
As a Bachelor of Fine Art graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, she started her professional career at ILM as animator, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) being her first recorded credit. As such she worked on Dragonslayer in the same year. The Wrath of Khan and Poltergeist followed suit the subsequent year. One year later, in 1983, she was a key sculptor on Return of the Jedi. She then honed her skills by diversifying into the field of motion control photography, by becoming a motion control (assistant) camera operator for productions such as The Abyss (1989) and Total Recall (1990), in the employ of Dream Quest Images (DQI, co-founded by Hoyt Yeatman and other former FGC employees who had worked on Star Trek: The Motion Picture). While in the employ of Boss Film Studios during the latter half of 1989, she worked as such on The Hunt for Red October (with a slew of other Star Trek alumni), though she went uncredited for all of these productions. Nevertheless, it was sufficient for her, to secure her position as visual effects coordinator on the Deep Space Nine-series in 1993.
After Deep Space Nine, Elkins has garnered few additional motion picture credits. As "visual effects coordinator/producer", she worked on MythQuest (2001) and Idiocracy (2006), though she has worked as visual effects coordinator on Galaxy Quest (1999).
Elkins has left the motion picture industry in 1999, in order to work on personal title for real-world corporations.
Star Trek credits[]
(This list is currently incomplete.)
- As Animator:
- As Visual Effects Coordinator:
- DS9:
- As Visual Effects Supervisor:
Emmy Awards nominations[]
For her work on Star Trek, Judy Elkins received the following Emmy Award nominations as Visual Effects Coordinator/(Co-)Supervisor in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects:
- 1996 for the episode "The Way of the Warrior", shared with Joshua Cushner, Dennis Hoerter, Steve Fong, Adam Howard, Gary Hutzel, Don Lee, Fredric Meininger, Glenn Neufeld, Scott Rader, Jim Rider, and Joshua D. Rose
- 1997 for the episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", shared with Kevin P. Bouchez, Adam Howard, Laurie Resnick, Gregory Jein, Steve Fong, Don Lee, Davy T. Nethercutt, Adrian Hurley, Paul Maples, and Gary Hutzel
- 1998 for the episode "One Little Ship", shared with Paul Maples, Gary Monak, Gary Hutzel, Adrian Hurley, Steve Bowen, Steve Fong, Davy Nethercutt, Kevin Bouchez, Laurie Resnick, and Fredric Meininger
- 1999 for the episode "What You Leave Behind", shared with Dan Curry, Gary Hutzel, David Stipes, Adam Buckner, Arthur J. Codron, Adam Howard, Gary Monak, Paul Maples, Steve Fong, Don Greenberg, Paul Hill, Davy Nethercutt, Kevin Bouchez, Gregory Rainoff, Larry Younger, Sherry Hitch, Rob Bonchune, and David Lombardi