Pierre Drolet

Pierre Martin Drolet "[…] just a few months before Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon" is a French-Canadian digital artist and compositor, having been involved with the visual effects (VFX) created for , , and . Drolet began his work on Star Trek at Foundation Imaging in 1999, and moved to Eden FX less than two years later, upon the closure of the former company. On his , Drolet recounted the events leading up to his position at Foundation, "After high school I went on to college and graduated in graphic communication at Laval University. As luck would have it in 1995 I got a job in the video game industry as a Lead 2D Artist. In 1999 there was a international contest that was sponsored by a US-based company which a friend told me about it. I did so without any expectations, and surprisingly, I won the contest based on three 3D images that I made for the competition. The winning prize was a job as a CGI modeler at Foundation Imagine in Los Angeles… and that made me very happy!" 
Hired by Robert Bonchune (coincidentally a fellow French-Canadian), Drolet's very first independent assignment on Star Trek was the digital build of Friendship 1 for Voyagers seventh season episode . Amongst his other Star Trek assignments, Drolet was responsible for the design of the Warp Five Complex spacedock, as seen in and subsequent episodes, as well as translating the majority of John Eaves's starship designs in CGI for the series. Nevertheless, his most signature contributions were his CGI build of the series' namesake hero vessel, , designed by Doug Drexler, and the CGI Romulan capital city Drolet built for under the auspices of Ron Thornton, his former Foundation supervisor. 
For his work on Star Trek, Drolet was nominated for a Emmy Award for his work in the episodes and and again in for his work in the episode . Drolet was also nominated and awarded the 2003 Visual Effects Society Award (VES) for his work in the episode for "Best Models and Miniatures in a Televised Program, Music Video, or Commercial", with an additional nomination in another category in 2005 for . For Star Trek Nemesis, Drolet was largely responsible for digitizing and fine-tuning Syd Dutton's matte painting of the Romulan capital city.
Outside the live-action Star Trek productions, Drolet contributed to the Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendars series, some of which reproduced in its 2006 book derivative. Drolet was interviewed in the special features of the ENT Season 4 DVD where he discussed the rendering for the Xindi weapon.
At Pixomondo Drolet shortly contributed to in its pre-production stage, when he modeled an alternate reality Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which was eventually rejected by the film's art department in favor of the final design. Drolet shortly afterwards left the company. (; Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, special issue 4, p. 11)
By 2017, Drolet became subcontracted by CBS Studios and is known to have helped out for eight months as a 3d modeler on the effects heavy episodes and , the first two pilot episodes that kicked off Star Trek: Discovery, albeit uncredited. For these two episodes he built and rendered the CGI models of several Klingon ships besides that of the "hero ship". (; Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, bonus issue 23, p. 19)
Outside the official Star Trek framework, Drolet volunteered to work as a digital artist on the fan-made internet series episode "World Enough and Time" (2007), on which he worked alongside Michael Okuda, Dan Curry, and Daren Dochterman.
== Other work ==
Drolet remained in the employment of Eden FX until 2006, having worked on their productions such as , (both 2005), and (2005), the pilot episode of the latter earning him an additional VFX Emmy Award nomination in 2006. In 2006 he joined many of his former Star Trek digital co-workers at the by Universal Studios contracted VFX company ZOIC Studios, to work on Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica franchise and its spin-offs and . An acclaimed production, the franchise garnered Drolet his first VFX Emmy Award win in 2008, with two more nominations the two consecutive years, all of whom he shared with many of his former Star Trek colleagues. 2008 was a good year for Drolet, as it also won him his second VES Award, for Razor, he shared with Gary Hutzel and Sean Jackson. Another Universal production, (2009), resulted in Drolet's eighth Emmy Award nomination, though ironically he had not received official credit for that production.
In 2010, after Battlestar Galactica had ran its live-action course and ZOIC Studio was forced to lay off much of its staff as a consequence, Drolet moved over to Pixomondo Visual Effects and became its lead digital modeler. Pixomondo, an international VFX house that currently employs many former Star Trek visual effects staffers, is where he rejoined his former Foundation supervisor, Robert Bonchune. While there, he worked on (2011, starring Daniel Dae Kim and produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci), (2011), (2012), and Da Vinci's Demons (2012) as well as (2012, starring Chris Hemsworth and Chris Obi). Shortly after his single, ultimately rejected Star Trek Into Darkness contribution, Drolet left the company in order to henceforth ply his trade as an independent contractor. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, special issue 4, p. 11)
Before he was reacquainted with the Star Trek franchise in 2017, Drolet had in the intervening years worked as an independent contractor on (2013), the TV shows The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow at Encore company (2016-2017). He subsequently worked on the TV shows The Happytime Murders, The Orville (from star/producer Seth MacFarlane, again rejoining several former Star Trek production staffers), and Nightflyers at Stargate Studios (2015-2018).
== Star Trek awards ==
=== Emmy Awards ===
Drolet received the following Emmy Award nominations in the category of Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series:
* for the episode , shared with Dan Curry, John Teska, Paul Hill, Armen Kevorkian, Ronald B. Moore, Dave Morton, and Sean Scott
* for the episode , shared with Robert Bonchune, Arthur J. Codron, John Teska, Steve Fong, Koji Kuramura, Sean Scott, Greg Rainoff, and Mitch Suskin
* for the episode , shared with Arthur J. Codron, Dan Curry, John Teska, Steve Fong, Sean Jackson, Koji Kuramura, Greg Rainoff, and Mike Stetson
=== Visual Effects Society Awards ===
Drolet received the following VES Award win and nomination: 
* VES Award win in the category Best Models and Miniatures in a Televised Program for the episode , shared with Koji Kuramura, John Teska, and Sean M. Scott
* VES Award nomination in the category Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Act on Broadcast Program for the episode , shared with Fred Pienkos, Eddie Robison, and Sean M. Scott
== Bibliography ==
*Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendars – Co-illustrator
**2002 – December spread
**2003 – April spread
**2006 – February spread
**2008 – April spread
**2011 – September (with Doug Drexler) spread
== Further reading ==
*"Pierre Drolet", Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, bonus issue 23, February 2020, pp. 14-19
==Footenote==
== External links ==
* – official site
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es:Pierre Drolet
Category:Special and Visual effects staff
Category:Star Trek calendar artists
Category:Emmy Award nominees
Category:VES Award winners
Category:VES Award nominees