Greg Jein

Greg Jein (October 31, 1945, in Los Angeles, US – May 22, 2022, in Los Angeles ) was a Chinese American model designer who created miniatures for use in the special effects portions of many films and television series, beginning in the 1970s. Jein was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941 (1979), and also nominated for an Outstanding Special Visual Effects Emmy for his work on Angels in America.

Jein was a graduate of Dorsey High School in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, and of California State University, Los Angeles.

Biography One of Jein's first jobs was building models for the sex comedy spoof Flesh Gordon; this was followed by work on a number of television series, commercials and movies including Wonder Woman and The UFO Incident. In 1975 he was contacted by Douglas Trumbull's office and asked to do some work on Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

After working on 1941, Jein was invited by Douglas Trumbull to work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture building planetary models for Spock's spacewalk scene and the interior of the V'Ger craft. Jein continued his association with Star Trek through a number of the movies, building alien weapons for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and Starfleet helmets for the assassination scene in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. In 1986 he and a team at Industrial Light & Magic built the original six-foot model of the designed by Andrew Probert for the pilot of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He would go on to build a number of models for The Next Generation including the Ferengi Marauder starship (also designed by Andrew Probert) during the first season of the show, and the Klingon Vor'cha (designed by Rick Sternbach) for the fourth season.