Pierre Drolet
Pierre Martin Drolet  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 last 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. (; 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 Star Trek: New Voyages 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 the science fiction movies Serenity, the horror movie It Waits (both 2005), and the sci-fi television series Surface (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 revamped 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 M. Jackson. Another Universal production, the television movie Virtuality (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 the television series Hawaii Five-O (2011, starring Daniel Dae Kim and produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci), Steven Spielberg's science fiction series Terra Nova (2011), Perception (2012), and Da Vinci's Demons (2012) as well as the fantasy theatrical film Snow White and the Huntsman (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 one 2013 outing of the Sharknado franchise, 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, David R. Morton, and Sean Scott
  for the episode , shared with Robert Bonchune, Arthur Codron, John Teska, Steve Fong, Koji Kuramura, Sean Scott, Greg Rainoff, and Mitch Suskin
  for the episode , shared with Arthur 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

References

External links 
  – official site
 
 
 
 

es:Pierre Drolet
Special and Visual effects staff
Star Trek calendar artists
Emmy Award nominees
VES Award winners
VES Award nominees