 Hi, my name is Ryan Brain. I was born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk on March 11th, 1981. I lived with my parents and two older brothers until the age of 22, when I moved to Hull to attend Lincoln University's Games Design Bachelor's Degree course.
At the age of 4, I was bitten by the acting bug when I played "Dopey" in a Primary School production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and quickly became interested in other aspects of the Performing Arts. Throughout my life I have acted on stage in dozens of school plays, amateur dramatics musicals and pantomimes, while in my spare time I made short films with my friends and wrote short stories.
When I was 16, I joined the King Edward VI Grammar School's Sixth Form, in Bury St. Edmunds, to study an Advanced GNVQ in Performing Arts and Entertainment Industries, in which after 2 years I gained a Destinction Grade.
During my time at King Edward VI, I began concentrating my spare time on my storytelling skills, writing stories and screenplays, including a remake of the first story-turned-film I ever wrote (at age 9), "A Christmas Murder" (and its 4 sequels). At 17 my teachers became aware of my writing talent and arranged a meeting with a local documentary director. Later on I worked closely with the director and other professional scriptwriters to write a documentary that was later broadcast on the BBC and shown throughout UK schools. I also co-hosted the documentary with a fellow student.
By this point I was so interested in scriptwriting that I began looking for University courses that focused on scriptwriting. After leaving King Edward VI I attended Bournemouth University's Scriptwriting for Film and Television Bachelor's Degree course, but sadly couldn't adjust to university life and went home after 5 months.
From the age of 18-21 I completely stopped performing, writing and making films, my creativity and confidence diminished by the disappointment of university and the mundainity of working a 9-5 office job (I worked in the Internet Security industry for a few years). However, in November 2001 I co-founded the LAN Party Organisation LANwars, a non-profit organisation specialising in the hosting of LAN Parties throughout East Anglia. LANwars quickly became successful and in September 2002 I made the decision to give up my job and comfortable salary to return to university in persuit of my second passion - games.
In September 2003 I joined Lincoln Univeristy's Game Design Bachelor's Degree course in Hull, accompanied by my best friends Michael Humphrey, Jon Carey and Victoria Oldknow. In May 2003 I, Michael and Jon, inspired by the Star Wars mythos and dozens of Star Wars FanFilms we'd found online, made what became the first in a trilogy of films that rekindled my dwindling creative spirit, "Shotgun". And thus, Stepladder Productions was born.
We went on to produce "3 Seconds" in the weeks before we left for university, and "Ex" during our first year, which completed the trilogy. Since then the films have been downloaded more than 10,000 times and are ranked as some of the best and funniest fan films ever made.
It was during the making of these films that I fell in love with film making again. I wrote the screenplays for each part of the trilogy and taught myself how to create all the special effects, even teaching some of my own methods to younger students at Lincoln University, through tutorials I wrote and added to my website. I have written a feature-length sequel to the trilogy that is yet to be made and have produced a number of "F/X Tests" to showcase my visual effects skills.
In 2006 I graduated from university and accepted a design position with Nephin Games in Galway, Ireland. Today, I spend my spare time creating visual effects for films, designing websites, writing screenplays and playing computer games, as well as watching films at the cinema and at home, and spending time with my beautiful fiance Claire.
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