Nathan Wells is an American brickfilmer. He is known for brickfilms including the Alex and Derrick series, The Cleaners, Beast, 30 Years: The Story of the Minifigure, Driven, and Infinity Squared. He also produced and contributed stop-motion animation for the 2016 documentary Bricks in Motion[1] and ran the twelfth through fifteenth Twenty-four Hour Animation Contests, from 2015 to 2018. He is considered to have been an early major influence on pushing the quality of set design in brickfilming.
Filmography[]
Hiatus and return[]
In 2008, after releasing 30 Years: The Story of the Minifigure, Nathan left home for college and quietly stopped being involved in the brickfilms community. In 2013 Nathan returned[3] and eventually released Derricking Ball and The Meek and the Bold before releasing Alex and Derrick: Five Years Later, considered to be his "official return."[4][5]
Features in the media[]
Nathan Wells's work was featured in a 2007 ABC newsegment called I-CAUGHT. The segment featured several other brickfilmers including David Pagano, Joshua Leasure, and Billy Gribbin, and also featured the work of Jay Silver, Lewis Chen, Robinson Wood and others. Footage from Infinity Squared was featured extensively throughout the segment, and was used to demonstrate the concept of frames per second.[6]
Collaborations with Zach Macias[]
Over the years Nathan Wells and Zach Macias have worked together on many projects, including four direct collaborations: Feel Great, Diatribe/Malapropos, The Cleaners, and The Sentinel, and two community projects: The Day Brickfilms.com Crashed and Quarantine Daze. They have also provided numerous voices for each others films, including Infinity Squared, Unsound, To Strive for Fame, Arthur's Legacy, and A Christmas Caper.
Nathan and Zach also worked together in relaunching and hosting the 2014 Bricks in Motion Awards, and worked with Philip Heinrich on the Bricks in Motion Documentary. All three of them appeared in the Bricks in Motion Documentary Kickstarter video, which marks the first time Nathan and Zach's sigfigs have ever spoken to each other (and the first time Nathan's sigfig has spoken at all).[7]
Collaboration with The LEGO Group[]
In early 2008 a representative from the LEGO Group contacted Nathan asking if he wanted to make a short film, which eventually led to 30 Years: The Story of the Minifigure. Nathan was paid $500 (which was mostly spent on LEGO sets that appear in the film) and sent a box of minifigure parts, which ended up being about 80-100 assembled minifigures (most of which are used in the minifigure pyramid near the end of the film). Nathan was given complete creative freedom, and called it "a great experience."[8]
References[]
- ↑ Nathan Wells's YouTube Channel
- ↑ Diatribe/Malapropos release thread
- ↑ Nathan's Return
- ↑ Alex and Derrick: Five Years Later release thread
- ↑ Archive of The Set Bump's article on Nathan's return and Dark Ages of Brickfilming
- ↑ ABC's I-CAUGHT segment on brickfilming
- ↑ Bricks in Motion Kickstarter
- ↑ Nathan's post on working with The LEGO Group