Who was that masked man?
A photo of the original masked marvel, Greg Jein with the Enterprise-A backing him up.
This picture was pinned to the bulletin board in the Star Trek art department for many years, and If I had to bet, I’d say John Eaves, or Fritz Zimmerman drew the superhero mask onto Greg. Either way, it effectively portrays how we all feel about the amazing Mr. Jein. If you are new around here, Greg is one of Hollywood’s all time great model makers. Plus he’s one of us! Gooble Gobble!
For the DS9 high watermark, Trials and Tribble-ations, Greg had to build a fully lit five and a half footer of the original series Enterprise, the K-7 space station, and Klingon Battlecruiser… all in ten days. As Don Adams might have said… “AND loving it!”
Enjoy a few happy snaps Mike Okuda and I took over at Image G, of the filming of the Trials and Tribble-ations Enterprise.
When I was a boy, drydocks were made of wood!
This was over at Image G, in Universal City. Trek-wise it’s historic. In fact, I believe that Robert Abel and Associates used to be in this building. Whenever Gary Hutzel put a starship on the motion control stand, he always gave us a courtesy call. He knew we loved the ships. But this day was something special however… I mean look!
Greg lassoed the famous, and infamous Gary Kerr, whose knowledge of these ship models is unparalleled, to put together diagrams for him to work from. Then it was on your mark, get set GO!
Gary had requested to Mike that we stop over for a work related reason as well, and that was to on the spot weather the ship to camera’s taste. Oh man, was that great fun.
Mike and I exchanging glances at one another while telekenetically screaming, Can you believe this?!
Oh joy of joys! Look who came down to see the grand lady of the spaceways, not to mention seeing his favorite neices an nephews.
Left to right: Gary Hutzel, Denise Okuda, Uncle Bob, the thing from the basement, and Mike Okuda.
There are many more images to this saga, which I will post at a later date. Meanwhile, back on DS9… Denise, Mike, and Doug have to get back to Paramount where the TOS sets are being built, and that as they say, is another story.
This entry gave me some serious Poster Book flashbacks! Anyone remember that? – Doug
Thanks for sharing, that was one of my favorite Deep Space Nine episodes.
I remember when I first saw this model when I watched “T&T,” I seriously thought it was a CGI model, it was so perfect. That’s how good of a modeler Greg Jein is.
I vividly remember this, and the Enterprise is so cool. But I mostly remember you modellers attention to details that won´t make it on screen, that´s just very nice pride in your job. I´m thinking of Cyrano Jones ship and the shuttle barely visible as a blur in the hangar-bay of K-7. Did Greg Jein build those too? And do you have shots?
You’ll see more of that in an upcoming part II of this entry. Now that I am sifting thru the residue of time, I cannot believe the stuff we got to do. I’m very happy to be getting it organized, and out to our firends (you) who love it.
Wohaa! I stumbled across this when I was looking for an Ambassador color scheme, NICE to see you have a blog now!
I think this really gives a good idea of how things are behind the scenes, and well…. with CGI models only, you never would have pictures like this. I sometimes damn this computer stuff to hell!
Looking forward to new/unseen treasures being revealed!
Howdy Mark! Fun to see you! For those of you that don’t know, Mark is a regular contributor to the Ships of the Line calendar. He was brought to my attention by the great Andy Probert. there really is some interesting stuff coming up on Drex Files. Last night I came across a bunch of shots I took of the original work bee miniature from TMP. You guys will go nuts!
That’s the main problem with CG, isn’t it? No miniature to fawn over. When I was up at Foundation Imaging, we worked on the Directors cut of TMP for Daren Dochterman. It was premiered at the theatre on the Paramount lot. In the lobby they had the TMP Enterprise on display… a real celebrity! Nowadays, what do you do? A display pillar with a data CD on top?
Anyway, that’s life. Obviously I have totally embraced CG, but the physical model just delights the kid in everyone. – Doug
On the subject of CGI…any chance you’ll be posting any orthos of some of the ships used in ENTERPRISE in the near future? Say, like the Enterprise-J? (hint,hint
The Enterprise J
I’m aware of interest in the ship. I’ve heard some wonderful, and even poetic praise for it, then there was the stray “pizza cutter” comments too, hehe! I love it all.
I have some stuff. I have the variants that were submitted along with the known J. I even have fly by animations. Would everyone one like to see those? Is that a silly question? – Doug
“…That’s a stupid question!”
..Y’know, the more I look at this picture of Greg, the more I keep thinking of Kato from Green Hornet; it’s the shape of the “mask.”
Mr. D., I’d been meaning to catch up on this gold mine of a blog later, but this post yanked me back.
I can’t say enough about the modeling work done for “Tribble-ations,” so I’ll gush privately over the opportunity to see you grinning wizards posing with Stuff That I Adore, Made By People Who Feel the Same Way.
Yes, I remember the Poster Book. I also remember selling off the issues I had in a comics/magazine purge back in a previous decade. I miss reading Allan Asherman’s fanwank articles, and I miss calling out detail corrections during his convention slide shows while I still retained that sort of information.
Here’s an off-topic question, regarding what you choose to resurrect for nostalgia’s sake: have you any images of the old Federation Trading Post, where I was one of dozens of awestruck greasy 15-year-olds who spent pitifully-spare cash on slides and magazines? I want it to be 1975 again for a few moments, just to see where you and Mr. Frederickson started out.
We would love to see fly-bys of the J as well as concepts. But I also agrre with a previous poster, orthos would be just so great because we´ve only seen one angle so far.
Moe! That’s hilarious! The Federation Trading Post days! That place was kind of ground zero. We had quite a set up there at 53rd and Third on the isle of Manhattan. You were one of our kids, no kidding?
All the Trek actors made a beeline there when in the city. It was a magnet. Huge fun for us. I will cover the Trading Post, you bet.
The Poster Book grew out of the Trading Post. We were the first Trek publication, and there was some good sftuff in there at a time when there was zip available. This blog feels a lot like Poster Book 2.0.
You remember Asherman, huh? Quite the character, and a true scifi historian. I wonder how he is?
These are fantastic images – the blog is becoming a daily stop for me, I can’t get enough!
One thing I’d particulary love to see would be any photos or info on the Klingon Battlecruiser that was built for Trials and Tribbleations. It looks terrific on screen, I’d love to geek out over the details of the miniature!
Thanks for all the work publishing all of this great material!
OMG, dude these are just AMAZING!, as is this whole site, that I just found today. Thanks very much for taking the time and making the effort to do all this. I could spend days reading your blog, and I have forever admired your work BTW!
LLP,
deg
It is nice to know you enjoyed your work as much as we enjoyed seeing it.
One point; I’ve so often heard directors slam the old series ships as not translatable, or “campy,” yet your team proves in these photos that one can add detail for the digital screen without straying from the original look. Your respect for those who came before you exceeds any overriding ego, which is what I suspect often drives “revisionary” efforts. Your creativity is demonstrated in your keeping with the original look, while adding detail & texture, all consistent with the original vision.
In short, this site has only cemented my already high esteem for you and your colleagues.
Thank you.
BTW: Do you have any photos of the D-7 used in this episode?