Gabriel Koerner

Gabriel "Gabe" Charles Koerner is a digital artist. He became known among Trekkers when he was featured in the documentary Trekkies. While employed at Eden FX, Koerner later worked on in the final season. The Galaxy-class CGI model from the series' finale, , was from the ground up created by Koerner. 
After appearing in Trekkies, Koerner achieved a minor celebrity status. He appeared as "The Star Trek Geek" in fifteen episodes of the short-lived Comedy Central game show Beat the Geeks. He also guest-starred as the character "Frank" in two episodes of The Drew Carey Show. The first of these was the annual April Fool's Day episode for 2001, which included many Star Trek and sci-fi references and jokes. Among the jokes were a Trek-style doorway in the office, Lewis mentioning a girl at a sci-fi convention that weighed under 200 pounds, and Frank referring to his house as "the Babylon 2 station." Koerner returned for his second appearance, later that year, when Lewis and Oswald (Diedrich Bader) built a killer robot to compete in a Battlebots-style competition. Frank's robot was victorious after Lewis and Oswald's self-destructs. 
Koerner's story was followed up in 's Trekkies 2. He was also lead visual effects artist for that film, creating the entire opening animation sequence. He was credited as a research consultant on this film, as well. He has also appeared in the fan film Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, playing the role of Captain Jillson. In 2013 he joined the creative staff of the fan series as a digital visual effects artist. Notable contributions he made for that series were his CGI co-builds with Doug Drexler of an Orion and a Tellarite ship, which were based on era designs of Matt Jefferies, for the second episode "Lolani".
His "Trekkie" status led to his cameo appearance as a spokesperson of a three-person "Trekkie" committee in the 23 September 2014 "Bid Strong and Prosper" episode of the television reality show Storage Wars on the grounds of the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant (the site frequently used as the location of Starfleet Academy/Starfleet Command), where they were consulted to give a value estimate for two Master Replicas items that were found in an abandoned storage locker room, though he was not identified by name in the episode.
In 1999, Koerner made a prophetic comment on : "I'd say when we're looking back 10 or 20 year from now, DS9 will be viewed as the Star Trek that dared to be different, that it took chances, that it was good and got lost in the shuffle".
==Career outside Star Trek==
After his spell at Eden FX, Koerner's career as a digital artist took off when he worked as such on films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), (2005), Superman Returns (2006, directed by Bryan Singer), and Speed Racer (2008, featuring music by Michael Giacchino). He was also a digital artist on and , both created by J.J. Abrams. Koerner's work as a digital modeler on Ronald D. Moore's earned him and his fellow visual effects team members an Emmy Award nomination in 2005.
Koerner often spells his name with an umlaut over the 'o', so that his name is written Gabriel Köerner. 
 
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Category:Special and Visual effects staff
Category:Star Trek calendar artists
Category:Exhibit and attraction staff