NATHAN BOEY

INTERVIEW & PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY POWER REGIMBAL

Today’s overpopulated commercial and music video marketplace can force young directors to make a choice if they want to stand out from the herd of film school graduates and self-taught computer wizards. Either relinquish your creative vision to get a chance with big-name clients or refuse to bow to industry pressure, building an impressive demo reel one low budget project at a time. Somehow Nathan Boey has managed to infuse the best of both worlds, directing material for high-profile clients such as NASCAR, Bank of America and most recently Nickelodeon while still maintaining his artistic integrity and a unique, playful animation style. We spent a day with Nathan pushing shopping carts, drinking too much coffee and pondering ideas from a future galaxy.

JEREMY POWER REGIMBAL—Where are you from and how did your spaceship end up in the land of film and animation?

NATHAN BOEY—I’m originally from planet Winnipeg but I moved to the Montreal galaxy to study. I’ve been making movies since I was a kid, but I relate to every good kung fu movie – at some point you need to venture off alone into the forest to train on your skills… Hopefully you have a good sensei.

JPR—What’s your opinion of the present state of the commercial/music video world? What do you do to try and stick out amongst the plethora of nerdy film school graduates?

NB—It is more saturated with media and artists than ever before so it’s a challenge to stick out. I think this era is producing a lot of people that are ‘really good’ but not a lot of ‘masters’ in the industry. My goal is to stick with it for sixty more years and hopefully earn that title.

JPR—I know your cart shredding pro career is really taking off, is there anything else besides that and animation you would like to do in the future… for fun or career wise?

NB—Well, besides the cart shredding scene which is blowing up in Portugal right now, as we all know, I have a ‘Bucket List’ for sure. I have career goals like doing a feature film but also more subtle things like, ‘Impress my girlfriend’s parents by playing that piano song from Charlie Brown.’ There’s a lot of random stuff on there.