Born and raised in NYC, Nicolai Feldman has always had a passion for storytelling and a tendency to jump into the unknown, unafraid of failure.

He started writing short stories and scripts at the early age of 7, and he had always known there would be a place for him in television and film.

After bouncing around pursuing different careers in skateboarding, music, and journalism, he finally found his true love in scriptwriting and filmmaking, especially in comedy, dark humor, and horror.

Nicolai started Brainzap in 2024 as a production company to develop an animated television series, but once collaborating with Nolan Slay in 2025, they saw that it could grow into so much more, a culture.

Nolan is a writer, director, and editor from Portland, Oregon. At age 11 he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said “filmmaker.” For better or for worse, he’s honored that decision ever since. Fascinated by the sheer absurdity of reality, Nolan uses film as a form of exploration, to make the complex simple.

For the past 15 years, Nolan has been honing his craft, from cold emailing all the filmmakers in Portland to meet for coffee and interview them about their career path, to internships at some of Portland’s most long-standing production companies, to film school, moving to New York and editing for the biggest youtuber in the world, MrBeast, burnout is not a term that Nolan understands.

With hundreds of finished projects under his belt, a dozen different stints in nearly every aspect of the filmmaking process, and a creative mind that never stops flowing, he joined forces in 2023 with Nicolai, another creative powerhouse, and eventually they formed Brainzap Studios.