Julia Nguyen Shows Digital Media Passions

From High School to Hollywood: Nguyen (‘22) Pursues Her Passion in Digital Media

Julia Nguyen (‘22) has been enthralled by filmmaking since she was seven years old. Today, she continues to explore her passion through Del Norte’s Digital Media Production course. 

Although Nguyen has loved movies since she was very little, she first became interested in the film industry during a Universal Studios backlot tour in Los Angeles. She said that, at a young age, she was captivated by the film sets and the creation of movies from behind-the-scenes. The moment the tour ended, her dream of being on set sparked and has only grown since.

“Filmmaking is one of the most enticing and dynamic outlets to creative expression,” Nguyen said. Cinema can incorporate all forms of art, such as literature, music, and performance. Nguyen said she finds this remarkable, as the art of filmmaking can capture creative energy in so many different ways. The artistic perspective of creating movies is what drives Nguyen’s dream job of becoming a director.

A few of Nguyen’s favorite directors and inspirations include Wes Anderson, Steven Spielberg, and Bong Joon-ho. However, her all time favorite director is Hayao Miyazaki, well known for his film studio Studio Ghibli. Nguyen says that she believes his films are imaginative beyond comprehension, transporting viewers to different worlds and drawing on creative energy. A few of her favorites from Miyazaki’s studio include “Spirited Away,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and “Ponyo.”

Nguyen said that filmmaking is an artform that all individuals can dive into, but she believes the American film industry is different. Nguyen stressed that Hollywood lacks diversity.

“Rather than trying to fix the broken system, people should invest their time and energy into doing their own thing,” she said. Through new platforms such as YouTube, creatives have the opportunity to share their films and receive recognition without having a large platform.

Nguyen said she wishes leading roles were given to people of all ethnicities and backgrounds in order to inspire young kids when they see someone who looks like them on the big screen.

To further become an independent and self-made artist, Nguyen decided to explore a high school course focused on filmmaking. In Del Norte’s Digital Media Production course this year, Nguyen said she has fine tuned her editing skills through a series of projects focused on various aspects of the editing process. Although she claims that the videos she created weren’t very serious, she said she enjoyed the opportunity to practice editing with different professional softwares.

Her favorite film is the last project she had to put together for the course: a movie trailer. Nguyen made a video inspired by the movie “Coraline.” She used editing programs like Adobe Premiere Pro to create a realistic portal effect. Through both the learning aspect and the hands-on experience with professional tools, Nguyen enjoyed the break from a conventional academic class to pursue her passion in filmmaking.