Who Is This Guy?
Brian Kindregan is a narrative director at Ubisoft Montreal. He grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, served in the military, and received a BFA in Character Animation from California Institute of the Arts. He worked as a storyboard artist at Warner Bros. feature animation, Disneytoons, Universal, Sony Imageworks, Cartoon Network and more. In 2001, he storyboarded and did character design on the short film “The Chubb Chubbs!” which won the Academy Award for best animated short. He directed the first two seasons of the Emmy-award-winning show “The Zula Patrol”, which aired on PBS.
He joined the games industry to write on BioWare’s Jade Empire, and after a brief return to film, came back for Mass Effect 2. After completing that game, he moved to Blizzard Entertainment, where he was co-lead writer on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, lead writer on StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and lead writer on Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. He left Blizzard for Epic Games, where he was narrative director on Paragon and Robo Recall, before coming to Ubisoft Montreal.
He has spoken at GDC, GDC Europe, GDC China, and the GDC Taipei summit, as well as teaching game narrative at the University of California, Irvine. He also taught visual storytelling at California Institute of the Arts, and Laguna College of Art and Design. He has lectured at NetEase Academy, Bezalel Academy, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.
His family is made up of his beautiful editor-wife Diandra, who often tells him why his writing stinks, their cats Lyra and Serafina, who silently judge, and their doberman pinscher, Pantalaimon, who loves everything Brian does.
Resume
Qualifications
- 25 years of storytelling experience
- Extensive AAA development
- Guided narrative for some of the largest IPs in the game industry
- Successful manager of small and large teams
- Writer of fan favorites, such as Abathur from StarCraft 2 and Jack from Mass Effect 2
- Fluent in all phases of development, from brainstorming to shipping a game and beyond
- Visual and filmic storyteller, with credits on Oscar winning projects
- Veteran teacher and mentor
- Enthusiastic collaborator
Experience
UBISOFT – 2018 – Present
Narrative Director
EPIC GAMES 2016 – 2018
Narrative Director
BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT 2009 – 2016
Lead Writer:
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (co-lead) & StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
BIOWARE CORP 2004 – 2005, 2008 – 2009
Senior Writer
Mass Effect 2
Writer
Jade Empire
FILM INDUSTRY 1990 – 2008
Storyboard Artist
Iron Giant, Space Jam, Quest for Camelot, and the rest of my credits can be found on imdb.com
Studios:
Warner Bros, Disney, Universal, Sony Imageworks, Cartoon Network, and more
US ARMY RESERVE 1988 – 1996
Sergeant
7th Psyop Group
TEACHING and PUBLIC SPEAKING 2001 – Present
Instructor and Speaker on Storytelling:
California Institute of the Arts
University of California, Irvine
Harvard Graduate School of Design
GDC, GDC Europe, GDC China, GDC Taipei Summit
Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts
California Institute of the Arts