Grant McCune (March 27, 1943 – December 27, 2010) was an American special effects designer whose entry into Hollywood was the uncredited creation of the great white shark in the 1975 film Jaws.
He attended California State University, Northridge where he earned his undergraduate degree in biology and met his future wife.
[1][2] McCune was able to use his scientific training when he and Bill Shourt were hired in 1975 to work on creating the iconic shark in the movie Jaws, marking his start in Hollywood, though he was uncredited.
[1] He was subsequently hired to work on the Star Wars movies as the franchise's chief model maker, responsible for the design details of the robots (such as R2-D2[3]) and alien characters in the films.
[3] Interviewed by Popular Mechanics magazine in 2009, McCune described how one uses a photographer's eye in designing miniatures, using perspective and surface details to make the objects appear as realistic as possible.