Preston Mutanga

## External links

IMDb
Twitter
YouTube

**Preston Mutanga** is a Cameroonian-American-Canadian animator responsible for the LEGO universe portion of *Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse*. Mutanga became noteworthy for his skills in computer animation at the young age of 14.

## Background

### Early Life

Preston Mutanga was born in Minnesota and raised in Toronto, Canada. At a young age Mutanga honed in on his creativity by building cars out of Lego blocks without instructions and making his own comics. Noticing his talent and interest in art, Preston Mutanga's father introduced him to the 3D software Blender to help him get into computer animation. Mutanga took to the software like a fish to water. He would teach himself how to create on Blender through YouTube video tutorials during his spare time. Mutanga would go on to spend around seven years experimenting and practicing till he eventually landed an animation role for a major movie.

### *Across the Spider-Verse*

On January 2nd of 2023, Preston Mutanga recreated the first trailer for *Across the Spider-Verse* as if everything was made of LEGO. The finished work on Twitter garnered enough attention to reach writer-producer Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Lord and Miller who directed for the *The Lego Movie* series and other LEGO film spin-offs we're so impressed by Mutanga's work it lead them to deciding to add a LEGO universe segment into the movie.

A day after the fanart was posted Preston Mutanga was contacted via email asking if he was interested in animating the segment. On Global News, Mutanga revealed that he had actually missed the email because it landed in his junk folder. Mutanga only found out about about the opportunity a month later when he was contacted through his Twitter DMs. Once the team had gotten in touch with Mutanga they became even more impressed when they found out he was a talented 14 year with no previous professional experiences. His age lead to some hesitancy from both the crew and Mutanga's parents. The team was initially unsure if they we're allowed to hire such a young artist and Mutanga's parents we're naturally skeptical of their son getting an offer from Sony Pictures Animation.

After proper communication between adults, Preston was allowed to tackle the animation project at home with support of his parents and from the producers who check on him through zoom meetings. Mutanga's father even built him a new computer that could help produce work faster than the old one. On his first zoom call with the team, Mutanga was shown the storyboard version of the scene he would animate to look like a LEGO Spider-Man universe. Two months of his process was spent planning the project and the other month was dedicated towards completing the animation. Mutanga started the project on the first day of spring break. When he needed to go back to school, Preston would work on the project after finishing his homework. In an interview with New York Times, Preston choose the feedback part of collaborating with a team of artists as the most interesting part of his experience. Getting a chance to see how much of the developing content would change before it was approved as the final product gave Mutanga a better idea of how production worked.

## Gallery

### Animation

Spider-Man- Across the Spider-Verse LEGO Spider-Man - Official Scene - 4KAnimation for the film
#### Relevant Fan Animation

Spider-Man- Across the Spider-verse but in LEGORecreation of the teaserSpider-Man- Across the Spider-Verse but in LEGO - Official Trailer (4K)Recreation of the first trailerSPIDER-MAN- ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE but in LEGO - Official Trailer -2 (4K)Recreation of the second trailer"Maybe get off the kids ass" but in LEGOImprovements after animating for the movieBEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE - Miles G. Morales Animation Test but in LEGOSpider-Man 2099 Animation Test but in LEGO - 4K

## Trivia

* Preston Mutanga's YouTube channel use to be called "LegoMyEggo."

## References

1. ↑ From @FG\_Artist on Twitter
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 New York Times Article: "How a 14-Year-Old Came to Animate a Scene in ‘Across the Spider-Verse’." (Archived Version)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Variety Article: "A 14-Year-Old Got Hired to Animate on ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ After Recreating the Film’s Trailer Shot-for-Shot in LEGO Style"
4. ↑ CBC Video Player: "Canadian teen Preston Mutanga on the viral LEGO trailer that landed him a job on Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse"
5. ↑ From LegoMe\_TheOG Blender
6. ↑ Link to fan-made trailer made by @FG\_Artist on Twitter
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Global News on YouTube: "Canadian teen on animating 'Spider-Verse' movie scene after LEGO fan trailer catches producers eye"
8. ↑ Toronto Life Article: "'My friends keep telling me I’m famous': Meet the 14-year-old who animated a scene in Across the Spider-Verse"
9. ↑ @FG\_Artist on Twitter: "4 LegoMe facts"