Community Highlights: Meet Ian Wells of Mountain Pixel Management

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ian Wells.

Hi Ian, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story begins in the small town of Champaign Illinois. A university town located 2.5 hours south of Chicago, right smack in the middle of a bunch of cornfields.

Ever since I was young, I had an affinity towards computers and technology. You would always find me tinkering with computers and programs, pirating music before Spotify existed, taking apart VCR’s, speakers, and various other electronics in the 90’s. I carried this interest of mine through my various stages of life, and grew it into the career and life I’ve built for myself today.

I was playing music in various bands in my adolescence, but always focused on the live sound and instrument technology during practice and live shows. I had found a talent with running track & field in high school and college, but always had a strong interest in recording my running and analyzing my form to improve where my form could be improved, along with optimizing my body through the food, fuel and supplements I put into my body. The system is our bodies, and upgrading/optimizing the software is the food and fuel. To me, it’s a way of looking at a biological and muscular-skeletal system through the lens of technology and computers. Optimizing the system you were born with for optimal performance.

Once my muscular system started failing me, I turned back to my love for technology, and started looking for a way to make a life and career with technology.

This brought me to the School of Journalism & Mass Communications at Drake University, focusing on Radio & TV Broadcast. This is a very technical place to be, but also very artistic and creative in the way we produce and tell stories. I grew a strong foundation in storytelling and journalism, using technology to tell stories. Cameras capture light and sound, computers and editing software’s allow you to align your footage in a way to shape your story. This brought it all together for me.

Moving to Colorado in 2015, I ventured into the world of Live Events. This world is highly technical, and I positioned myself into the space of Video, dealing with signal distribution, projectors, LED processing, camera systems, screen management and video systems engineering. I love it here. Now I can be a technical expert in my career specialty, while also still creating motion assets for some clients, and creating and editing video from time to time.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road is never paved smooth. I have gone through a lot of internal and external struggle, getting to the place I am now.

Over time I started to feel resentment towards employers when I had to go into work to do some boring task that did not fill my cup. I made changes in my life to make sure that I had control over my schedule and interests, so I could do exactly what I wanted to do, and continue to learn and grow.

Starting my first business, Creative & Technical, came with challenges of figuring out when it was appropriate to make the switch fully away from an employed lifestyle. It was scary, and financially challenging, but I got the hang of it all over time. Now I have started my second company with some business partners, and that road has also been challenging, but a lot more supportive and fluid having gone through the process once before.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My first business is Creative & Technical Media Services (CTMS), but my newest adventure is Mountain Pixel Management (MPM). They go hand in hand, but MPM is focused on providing High Resolution video systems and services in the corporate AV and live event landscape.

We provide the hardware, software, and operators to process and push very large volumes of pixels to these large venue displays and destinations. This takes a lot of coordination and programming to create the seamless events that people experience in various venues across the US.

Hi-Res video systems is a specialty in Denver that we are trying to capture, and what sets us apart from other vendors is that we also offer motion design and creative services for clients needing Hi-Res assets for their shows and events. Most of the time, companies and organizations have this budget for an awesome event with a large, custom resolution LED wall, but their presenters are creating content in a standard TV aspect ratio, which leaves a lot of blank space to be utilized. What we offer is motion and asset creation to tie the whole look of their show and theme together, utilizing that blank space and making everything pop. That is a part of our service offerings, but more often we offer the hardware and software to drive it all because the the client has a creative team that we can work with to design assets for specific custom resolutions.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Gratitude, kindness, an affinity for learning, growing, and exploration.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mountainpixelmanagement.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mtnpixman/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/61585188320867/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianmichaelwells/
• Other: https://creativetechnicalservices.com/

Image Credits
Seawell Ballroom