This mural appears in my first feature length movie, Log Warriors.  I first wrote the script for Log Warriors specifically with a bear mural included.  Then I painted the mural.  It took me one week and over 30 hours to finish the mural, which I call, “Gentleman Bear and Son.”  The first night of painting the mural, I got so into it I stayed up the entire night.  I ask myself, “Why all this work for something that appears in the movie for less than 15 seconds?”  I answer, “Beauty is fleeting.”  Actually, the mural is still on my living room wall and maybe when I sell my house, I can add an extra couple of bucks onto the price of the house.

Bear Mural in Living Room

Bear in top hat mural painting

Gentleman Bear bids adieu or hello?

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Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program Video

by Jimmy on August 2, 2010

Here’s another video I did for the Food and Nutrition Service to explain the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to the wider world.  The goal was to get school’s excited about this new program that gives money to selected elementary schools to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables for their students’ consumption.  Schools can provide fresh fruits and vegetables to their students as a snack, but it cannot be a part of breakfast or lunch.  The greatest part of the program is that it allows schools to experiment with different fruits and vegetables like jicama, asparagus, pomegranate, blackberries, sugar snap peas, and other things that students may never get the chance to try.  Schools are also encouraged to teach their students about nutrition and healthy eating by using the fruits and vegetables as examples and teaching tools  as you can see in the video.

The most difficult part of the video was the opening animation with all the fruit and vegetables.  It took several hours to choreograph and execute properly.  Those dastardly fruits and vegetables just would not listen to my directions.

The best part of making the video was visiting the two schools: Arcola Elementary in Silver Spring, MD and Potomac View Elementary in Woodbridge, VA.  Kids these days are so bright and hilarious.  Well, maybe kids have always been that way.  I guess I just have not been around groups of children in a long time, which is a shame.  After working in a cubicle for 2 years and then being reintroduced into a lively atmosphere full of kids, I realized how unnatural and creatively arresting cubicle life really is.  Needless to say, I truly enjoyed making this video because it was a break from the routine.

Right now, I’m thinking of the song by Queen – “I Want to Break Free.”

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While the Cherry Blossoms were out in April this year, my friend Raycurt Johnson and I thought that the beautiful white and pink blossoms would provide for a gorgeous backdrop for a music video.  So we went about wonderful Washington, D.C. making one.  However, since Raycurt is a natural street performer, we decided to involve the unsuspecting public.  Enjoy.

*On a side note, Raycurt Johnson will be playing George Bridgetower in my next feature-length movie.  I gave a brief description about the project in a previous post. In short, the movie will be a musical biopic about the Afro-Polish Master Violinist George Bridgetower, who was a contemporary of Beethoven.  We already have a young actor to play young Bridgetower for the movie and he is somewhat of a child prodigy at the violin as well!  Stay tuned for more updates about the project.

Raycurt Johnson music video

Raycurt Johnson serenades the cherry blossoms with his violin.

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I applied to the DC Shorts Film Festival and a few others back in April 2010.  The two movies I submitted were Island Dog Robber and Olfactory Thriller, two of my first real short movies.  The DC Shorts Film Festival was the first festival to get back to me and their response to my two movies was a resounding four thumbs down (2 thumbs x 2 movies = 4 thumbs).  Here are what the volunteer judges (anybody off the street can be a DC Shorts Film Festival judge as long as they show up for a meeting) said about my movies in their rejection email to me.  They are pretty harsh, but hilarious.

Three judges critiqued Island Dog Robber.  Four different judges critiqued Olfactory Thriller.  Only one judge out of seven recommended my film be accepted into the film festival and that was for Olfactory Thriller.  I appreciate that one judge.  Read their comments below.
DC Shorts Film Festival

Island Dog Robber
Judge 1:
I would recommend this film for inclusion in the festival:  false
Comments: The concept of this film was engaging as soon as it was clear that there was something going on with the dog. However, the execution was hard to digest. The transformation into a spirit (played by a human) contained a lot of scenes that were not pleasant to watch and did not add to the film (e.g., defecation, licking woman in bed, etc) and constantly cutting back to the dog droppings just made me want to turn away. The last scene of the semi-erotic shot with the dog and the man also took me out of the film. The scene of the girls finding the dog could have gotten the same concept across a lot quicker and a number of the two-person shots went on way too long. The dialogue could have been a lot tighter – felt improvised in a sloppy kind of way. The lighting in the house was a bit dark. I liked the opening scene with the island pic and the narration, very engaging.

Judge 2:
I would recommend this film for inclusion in the festival: false
Comments: The opening sequence drew me in and the dog was very cute, but after that it went from bad to worse. There’s a kernel of a good story in there and if you’d kept to it – and been able to overcome the challenging lighting and sound conditions – and scripted it rather than rely on rambly improv dialog this could have been good. But then things just started getting gross. I really didn’t need to watch the guy shitting on the floor, I knew how it got there. And I really really didn’t need to see the other guy rubbing dog food all over himself to get the dog to lick it off. I’m really not easily offended, but this one crossed the line.

Judge 3 (my personal favorite for comments):
I would recommend this film for inclusion in the festival:  false
Comments:
A film about island tourists being robbed by the cute stray dog they bring home from the beach (who turns out to be some island evil spirit). The opening sequence was well done and drew me in to the story, but the film fails to live up to its potential. The plot idea of trained robber dogs could have been interesting. The tourists on the beach scene is poorly lit, has bad sound, and plays like a bad home movie. The director and DP needed to plan this scene better… Shoot later in the day so the light isn’t as harsh, or shoot mostly away from the water to avoid the difficult lighting. As for sound, the wind in the microphone was so bad, at one point I thought the story was going to have a storm come in! But the voice-over work is no better, if going to ADR at least should also be done outside. Finally this scene was clearly ad-libbed and rambled, a good example of why even what seems simple should have planned dialogue. There were several scenes that were creepy, odd, or disgusting that took away from the movie for me. The dog poop in the house was okay, until the scene when it was really the evil spirit man pooping (why did we have to watch him poop?) Why did the evil spirit man then have to go lick the sleeping woman? When the dog returns to his master, why did the master wipe wet dog food all over his chest for the dog to eat (while having some himself)? All of these things have nothing to do with being an island robber dog and just take away from the film. [click to continue…]

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Movie synopsis: Tob Raboon (Nick Dodson), an investigative reporter, seeks to uncover how two former best friends and current fitness trainers ended up becoming bitter enemies. One of the former best friends, Jimmy Loggins (Jimmy Nguyen), is the ruler of a worldwide fitness empire and the other, Stephen King (Stephen King), is the proprietor of his own small gym. Through interviews and flashbacks, Raboon is able to piece together a complex tale of jealousy, denial, and paranoia that all leads up to an epic showdown. Will the two former best friends reunite or will they let their feud harden into the very logs that may have split them apart in the first place?

Run time: 43 minutes

Written, Directed, and Edited by Jimmy Nguyen.  Original music by Stephen King and Eric Roberts.  Starring Jimmy Nguyen, Stephen King, and Nick Dodson.
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Making the movie (spoiler alert, read only after watching the movie): Log Warriors took exactly one year to complete from the time I first hit the record button on my camera to capture the first scene.  The first scene was me in the Occaquan River developing the Log Warrior Workout fitness program.    Originally, Log Warriors was only supposed to be the 6 minute infomercial you saw in the movie.  The infomercial was going to begin with the scenes where Stephen King was bullying me in the gym.  The infomercial would open with the question, “Tired of going to gyms and dealing with egotistical and overzealous trainers?”  Then the montage of Stephen berating me with the balance ball, dumbbells, and boxing bag would appear.  After these sequences ran, I would propose, “Then you should try the revolutionary Log Warrior Workout.”  Therein would follow the 6 minute infomercial for the Log Warrior Workout. [click to continue…]

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