Leslie "Les" Bernstien is a visual effects artist who worked as motion control operator on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the Star Trek: Enterprise first season episode "Broken Bow". In addition he worked as visual effects cameraman on the Star Trek: Voyager sixth season episode "Life Line".
Bernstien earned two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series for his work on Star Trek. In 1995 for the Deep Space Nine episode "The Jem'Hadar", shared with Glenn Neufeld, David Takemura, Erik Nash, Joshua Cushner, Adam Howard, Patrick Clancey, and Don Lee, and in 2000 for the Voyager episode "Life Line", shared with Dan Curry, Ronald B. Moore, Elizabeth Castro, Bruce Branit, John F. Gross, Fred Pienkos, Jeremy Hunt, and Paul Hill.
In 1999 he directed, wrote, produced, worked as matte artist and additional photographer on the short thriller Night Train. This film earned him the Director's Week Award at the Fantasporto and featured Trek actor Dan Shor. Ten years later he worked as director, writer, producer, and cinematographer on the documentary Tijuana Moods.
As visual effects artist he worked on feature films and television series from the early '80s on. He started as technican animator on Ghostbusters (1984), followed by credits as visual effects supervisor on the documentary X: The Unheard Music (1986) and the science fiction comedy The Trouble with Dick (1987). Further credits, mostly as visual effects director of photography, include Beetlejuice (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Dave (1993), The Shadow (1994), The Santa Clause (1994), Demon Knight (1995, with Rocco Gioffre and Todd Masters), Batman Forever (1995), Down Periscope (1996), The Arrival (1996), Escape from L.A. (1996), Bordello of Blood (1996), Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), Dante's Peak (1997), Contact (1997), City of Angels (1998), Armageddon (1998), Small Soldiers (1998), Fight Club (1999), and Stuart Little (1999).
In addition he worked for Buena Vista Visual Effects on Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992) and on the short comedy Trail Mix-Up (1993) and for VIFX on Ghost in the Machine (1993, with Cheryl Budgett, Peter Crosman, Rhonda C. Gunner, Richard Hollander, Greg McMurray, Zeke Morales, and John C. Wash).
More recent credits as visual effects artist and motion control operator include Vanilla Sky (2001), Stuart Little 2 (2001), Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), The Passion of the Christ (2004), Blade: Trinity (2004), The Island (2005), Poseidon (2006), Click (2006), Apocalypto (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008), The Unborn (2009), and Fast & Furious (2009). Most recently he worked as lead motion control operator on Walking with Dinosaurs (2013).