Don Le
Encyclopedia
Don Pham Le is an American filmmaker, who started out dabbling in acting. He was featured as one of Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank
Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress. Swank's film career began with a small part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then a major part in The Next Karate Kid , as Julie Pierce, the first female protégé of sensei Mr. Miyagi...

's main students in the 2007 Paramount Pictures film, Freedom Writers
Freedom Writers
Freedom Writers is a 2007 American drama film starring Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, Scott Glenn, Imelda Staunton and Patrick Dempsey. It is based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell who wrote the story based on Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach,...

.

In August 2007, he was cast as a lead Cub Scout bowler with Street Fighter powers in Motion City Soundtrack
Motion City Soundtrack
Motion City Soundtrack is an American rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, formed in 1997. The band consists of founding members Justin Pierre and Joshua Cain , along with keyboardist and moog synthesist Jesse Johnson, bassist and backing vocalist Matthew Taylor, and drummer, percussionist and...

's "This Is For Real" music video, directed by Jay Martin (Plain White T's
Plain White T's
Plain White T's is an American Pop rock band from Chicago, Illinois. Formed in 1997 by high school friends Tom Higgenson and Ken Fletcher, the group had a mostly underground following in Chicago basements, clubs, and bars in its early years, and underwent numerous personnel changes.The band is best...

 "Hey There Delilah
Hey There Delilah
"Hey There Delilah", written by Tom Higgenson, is the third single released from the band Plain White T's 2005 album All That We Needed. In June 2007, over two years after the song's release, it became the band's first hit in the United States, eventually reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July...

" video). He can also seen in the movie Bring It On: All or Nothing
Bring It On: All or Nothing
Bring It On: All or Nothing is the third installment in the Bring it On series of films that revolves around high school cheerleading. Directed by Steve Rash, the movie was released direct-to-DVD on August 8, 2006 by Universal Pictures....

, the second sequel to Bring It On.

He is also a notable photographer, whose work has been featured on Wired.com
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...

 and CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

's The Screening Room, amongst other sites and publications. A collection of his work can be seen at his photo site, Don Le Studio, wedding studio Bliss Imagery, and his production company, Fusion3Media.

Film Production, 2008–2009

In 2008, he co-founded a production company, Northern Five Entertainment, and produced the original pilot episodes for an action web series called "The Resistance" series with director, Adrian Picardi
Adrian Picardi
Adrian Picardi is a bi-racial "Italian-Korean" American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. For all his works thus far, he has been credited as director, writer, cinematographer, and editor. He got his start in the industry by independently creating original projects that utilized...

, and producer Eric Ro
Eric Ro
Eric Ro is a "Korean" American film producer based in Los Angeles, California. He shoots and produces many of his projects in Los Angeles, California...

. Under Northern Five, Le worked as Associate Producer for the music video "Makeup Smeared Eyes" for the band Automatic Love Letter and Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....

 / Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...

.

Capping off 2009, he produced a music video for a song called "A Soldier Never Dies", a track dedicated to fallen marine Anthony Hector Vargas. The track for rapper Invincible, featuring Grammy-nominated R&B artist Jon B.
Jon B.
Jon B. is a Grammy nominated American R&B singer and songwriter.-Early life:...

 (of Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Amaru Shakur , known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2007, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world...

's "R U Still Down?" and "Babyface"'s "Someone to Love")
Someone to Love (Jon B. song)
"Someone to Love" is the fifth track on Jon B.'s debut album, Bonafide. This song is a duet with Babyface that gained wide exposure on the Bad Boys soundtrack....

 and producer Battlecat
Battlecat (producer)
Kevin Gilliam, better know by his stage name Battlecat, is an American hip hop producer from Long Beach, California.-Biography:He is well known for producing artists such as Snoop Dogg, The Game, Xzibit and Tha Eastsidaz along with a number of other West Coast rappers...

 (who produced songs for Xzibit
Xzibit
Alvin Nathaniel Joiner , better known by his stage name Xzibit , is an American rapper, actor, and television host. He is known as the host of the MTV show Pimp My Ride, which brought him mainstream success...

, Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg
Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. , better known by his stage name Snoop Dogg, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Snoop is best known as a rapper in the West Coast hip hop scene, and for being one of Dr. Dre's most notable protégés. Snoop Dogg was a Crip gang member while in high school...

, The Game
The Game (rapper)
Jayceon Terrell Taylor , better known by his stage name Game, formerly The Game, is an American rapper and actor. As a member of G-Unit, he rose to fame in 2005 with the success of his debut album, The Documentary, which earned him two Grammy Award nominations...

). The video was directed by Paolo Ongkeko and starred rising Hispanic actor Sonny Ayon
Sonny Ayon
Sonny Valens is a Hispanic American actor/entertainer. He was featured as one of Hilary Swank's main students in the 2007 Paramount Pictures film, Freedom Writers....

. Currently, Le is focused on a new production company specializing in videography and photography for film, TV, commercials, and music videos. He also recently started a wedding production company called Bliss Imagery that focuses on traditional and photojournalistic videography and photography for engaged/soon-to-be wedded couples.

Le's video work on Neuromarketing
Neuromarketing
Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. Researchers use technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain, electroencephalography and...

 was featured on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

's The Screening Room (the intro was co-directed by Le and nationally televised), Wired.com
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...

, and Mental Floss.com. The clips were produced by horror film producer, Peter Katz
Peter Katz
Peter Katz is an award winning film producer and innovator of Neurocinema. He has produced critically acclaimed genre films that have screened at the AFI Fest, Rome Film Festival, as well as the New Zealand International Film Festival. He was one of the producers on Mortuary, which was helmed by...

. He has also produced alongside Eric Ro
Eric Ro
Eric Ro is a "Korean" American film producer based in Los Angeles, California. He shoots and produces many of his projects in Los Angeles, California...

 on the reality docu project for DJ Shy's "Beauty & The Beats".

The Future, 2010 – present

In 2010, under the Teddy Zee
Teddy Zee
Teddy Zee is a longtime producer and entertainment executive in Hollywood. Perhaps the most visible and vocal champion of Asians in Hollywood, Zee has over twenty years of experience as President of Overbrook Films and Davis Entertainment, as a studio executive for Columbia Pictures and Paramount...

 Productions banner, Le directed and produced a series of charity PSA videos alongside Teddy Zee
Teddy Zee
Teddy Zee is a longtime producer and entertainment executive in Hollywood. Perhaps the most visible and vocal champion of Asians in Hollywood, Zee has over twenty years of experience as President of Overbrook Films and Davis Entertainment, as a studio executive for Columbia Pictures and Paramount...

 (Hitch (film)
Hitch (film)
Hitch is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed by Andy Tennant and starring Will Smith. The film, which was written by Kevin Bisch, co-stars Eva Mendes, Kevin James, and Amber Valletta. Smith plays a professional matchmaker who makes a living teaching men how to woo women...

 / Pursuit of Happyness), Adrian Zaw
Adrian Zaw
Adrian Zaw is a Burmese American-born American actor best known for his role of Syrus Primoris on the SyFy channel television series , which is set to debut on the American television network, the SyFy channel, on October 4, 2010.-Career:...

, George Wang
George Wang
George Wang is a Chinese/Taiwanese-American producer in the entertainment industry.In December 2009 through January 2010, under the Teddy Zee Productions banner, Wang produced a series of public service announcement videos to be featured on the internet with Teddy Zee , Adrian Zaw, and APEX...

, and APEX
Asian Professional Exchange
The Asian Professional Exchange is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan, community-based organization with multi-faceted goals and purposes that are charitable, cultural and educational in nature...

 founder Stephen Liu
Stephen Liu
Stephen Christopher Liu is a prominent entrepreneur, media executive and Asian American community leader.Stephen is the CEO and “Chief Social Capitalist” at , an invitation-only niche social network and online/mobile travel platform targeted at a select group of transpacific executives and key...

. He directed the 20+ clips that featured Asian American celebrities like John Cho
John Cho
John Yohan Cho is an American actor and musician, best known for his roles in the American Pie films and the Harold & Kumar films . He also starred in the critically acclaimed hit film Better Luck Tomorrow...

, Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh is a Canadian actress. She is best known for the role of Dr. Cristina Yang on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, for which she has won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award. She also played notable roles in the feature films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways, and had a supporting role on the...

, Kaba Modern
Kaba Modern
Kaba Modern is a dance group originating from Irvine, California. Kaba Modern is a spin-off of the University of California, Irvine Filipino cultural club, Kababayan, which means "countrymen" in Tagalog. Created by Arnel Calvario in 1992, Kaba Modern began as dancers that performed the hip-hop...

 Legacy, Justin Chon, David Choi
David Choi
David Yong Choi is an American musician and YouTube video producer living in Los Angeles. He performs a mix of original songs and covers of pop hits. Choi released his debut album, Only You, in October 2008. His second album, By My Side, was released on May 19, 2010...

, and 100+ talents in a campaign to win $1 million for the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF). The charity ended up in the top 20 out of 100 charities competing for the top prize, and ended up creating awareness for the widespread but generally unspoken issues of sexual assault and domestic violence. | | | In September 2010, he produced videos for the first ever AAPI Rock the Vote 2010 campaign with Teddy Zee
Teddy Zee
Teddy Zee is a longtime producer and entertainment executive in Hollywood. Perhaps the most visible and vocal champion of Asians in Hollywood, Zee has over twenty years of experience as President of Overbrook Films and Davis Entertainment, as a studio executive for Columbia Pictures and Paramount...

, George Wang
George Wang
George Wang is a Chinese/Taiwanese-American producer in the entertainment industry.In December 2009 through January 2010, under the Teddy Zee Productions banner, Wang produced a series of public service announcement videos to be featured on the internet with Teddy Zee , Adrian Zaw, and APEX...

, and Adrian Zaw
Adrian Zaw
Adrian Zaw is a Burmese American-born American actor best known for his role of Syrus Primoris on the SyFy channel television series , which is set to debut on the American television network, the SyFy channel, on October 4, 2010.-Career:...

.

Currently, the new incarnation of “The Resistance”, which Le served as Associate Producer, is debuted on October 4, 2010, on the SyFy
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...

 channel as a one hour television pilot, and was released afterward in its original 8 episodic form on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

, Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...

, Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

, Hulu
Hulu
Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...

 and the Playstation Network. What originally began its origin as a low budget web series with 4 short online teasers featured on YouTube became an actual fully realized webseries with a budget in the low to mid six-figure range. The series features actors Adrian Zaw
Adrian Zaw
Adrian Zaw is a Burmese American-born American actor best known for his role of Syrus Primoris on the SyFy channel television series , which is set to debut on the American television network, the SyFy channel, on October 4, 2010.-Career:...

 as Syrus Primoris and Katrina Law
Katrina Law
Katrina Law is an American actress of German, Italian and Taiwanese descent originally from New Jersey, USA. She represented New Jersey in the Miss Teen USA Pageant. Katrina is also the lead singer and bass player in her band "Soundboard Fiction"...

 as Lana.
Before filming the actual web show, the series was picked up by Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...

’s Ghost House Pictures and Starz Media, after executives at Starz and Ghost House viewed "The Resistance" teasers online. "The Resistance" is directed by Adrian Picardi
Adrian Picardi
Adrian Picardi is a bi-racial "Italian-Korean" American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. For all his works thus far, he has been credited as director, writer, cinematographer, and editor. He got his start in the industry by independently creating original projects that utilized...

, Executive Produced by Ben Ketai
Ben Ketai
Ben Ketai is an American film director, writer, and producer. He directed and wrote the following Ghost House Pictures productions: the upcoming feature film 30 Days of Night: Dark Days and the webseries 30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust....

, Scott Bayless, Scott Rogers, with producers Aaron Lam, Eric Ro
Eric Ro
Eric Ro is a "Korean" American film producer based in Los Angeles, California. He shoots and produces many of his projects in Los Angeles, California...

, and Associate Producer Don Le. The pilot will reportedly make history, as it's the first time a series created originally for the web will first premiere on television.

Le also recently wrapped production on a music video with superhot viral video director Ross Ching
Ross Ching
Ross Ching is an American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. For all his works thus far, he has been credited as director, cinematographer, and editor. He started as a teenager making skateboarding videos with his friends, which were considered slick for high school level productions...

 (of Kina Grannis
Kina Grannis
Kina Kasuya Grannis is a Japanese American guitarist and singer-songwriter. She is of Japanese, English, Irish, French, and German descent....

' "Valentine" music video fame) and YouTube musician Clara Chung
Clara Chung
Clara Chung is an American guitarist and singer.Clara Chung is a YouTube artist that rose to fame when she won Los Angeles’ Kollaboration 10, KAC Media Juice Night, and ISA 2009.-Career:...

 to create an inspiring video set in a world filled with bubbles. As of October 2010, Le completed an action-oriented project with director Ross Ching
Ross Ching
Ross Ching is an American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. For all his works thus far, he has been credited as director, cinematographer, and editor. He started as a teenager making skateboarding videos with his friends, which were considered slick for high school level productions...

 and fellow producer George Wang
George Wang
George Wang is a Chinese/Taiwanese-American producer in the entertainment industry.In December 2009 through January 2010, under the Teddy Zee Productions banner, Wang produced a series of public service announcement videos to be featured on the internet with Teddy Zee , Adrian Zaw, and APEX...

, starring Harry Shum, Jr.
Harry Shum, Jr.
Harry Shum, Jr. is an American dancer, actor, and choreographer. He is best known for his role as Mike Chang on the FOX television show Glee. He has appeared in dance films such as Stomp the Yard, You Got Served, Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D...

, Stephen "tWitch" Boss (winner of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (season 4)
So You Think You Can Dance (Season 4)
So You Think You Can Dance is a United States television reality program and dance competition airing on the Fox Broadcasting Company network. Season four premiered on May 22, 2008, with Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy returning as permanent judges and Cat Deeley returning to host...

, and Katrina Law
Katrina Law
Katrina Law is an American actress of German, Italian and Taiwanese descent originally from New Jersey, USA. She represented New Jersey in the Miss Teen USA Pageant. Katrina is also the lead singer and bass player in her band "Soundboard Fiction"...

 (Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Spartacus: Blood and Sand is a Starz television series that premiered on January 22, 2010. The series is inspired by the historical figure of Spartacus , a Thracian gladiator who from 73 to 71 BC led a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Executive producers Steven S...

, The Resistance
The Resistance (series)
The Resistance started off as a low budget web series in the form of 4 short online teasers featured on Youtube. Before filming the actual web show, the series was picked up by Sam Raimi’s and Starz Media, after executives at Starz and Ghost House viewed "The Resistance" teasers online.The...

). The project released January 10, 2011, and is set to be part of a trilogy of short films including a prequel and sequel. "3 Minutes" has received nationwide coverage from the official Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

 site, Wired
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...

.com, and Gizmodo
Gizmodo
Gizmodo is a technology weblog about consumer electronics. It is part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton and is known for its up-to-date coverage of the technology industry, along with topics as broad as design; architecture; space and science....

, as well as the New York Post,
Seventeen Magazine, Audrey Magazine
Audrey magazine
Audrey is an English-language Asian American women's magazine. It is published between four and six times a year and features articles on Asian American issues and culture, as well as fashion and beauty. The first issue of the magazine hit newsstands in March 2003. The magazine was named after the...

, and Hyphen Magazine. It was also won the coveted slot of Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick in November 2004...

's Staff Pick of the Day on its debut day, netting well over 60,000 views on the site within the first 24 hours. Currently, the short film has been viewed by well over 1,000,000 on both YouTube and Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick in November 2004...

cumulatively.

In mid 2011, Le produced a series of 3 short comedic sketches with the world-renowned Wong Fu Productions starring Harry Shum Jr. Tyler Shields, famed photographer, co-starred as a Mugger in one of the spots.

Currently, Le produces under his production company, Fusion3Media, and has a slate of productions in development including a feature films, TV shows, ad campaigns, viral clips, and various other properties. He also owns a photo studio named Don Le Studio and wedding studio entitled Bliss Imagery.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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