Nguyen graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Imaging and Digital Arts and he found success in school by testing how far he could bend the rules.

“In college, I would constantly take the objective of the assignments and see how I could break the rules, but still convince the professor that it still fulfilled the requirements,” Nguyen said.

Jokes aside, Nguyen credits his success to the support system surrounding him, especially during high school and in college.

“I had a lot of great mentors and people who supported me, especially my parents,” Nguyen recalls.

Living Without Regrets
During his time at UMBC, Nguyen studied abroad in Rome, Italy where he studied classical art, following an interest not usually encouraged by first generation Vietnamese parents. He attributes the success of his career as an artist to several defining moments he’s had throughout his life. One of those defining moments happened in Rome.

While touring in Sicily, Nguyen met an older man who was a retired doctor. Over a glass of wine, the retired doctor told Nguyen when he was younger, he wanted to play the trumpet, but never did. Consequently, the retired doctor regretted that seemingly trivial ambition.

Recalling the man’s feelings of sadness, Nguyen felt, “This is a successful doctor looking back in his life. It was sad for me seeing him regretting what he didn’t do. I’m sure he did great work during his lifetime but I didn’t want to have regrets the way he did.”

Thus far, Nguyen is regret free and is happy to report that “the mistakes I made allowed me to learn and grow.”

Influencing and Motivating
The journey to express his purpose in all of his work continues to branch out, showing the diversity of Nguyen’s talents and ambitions. Nguyen’s pursuit and passion for the arts have led him to what he calls the bread and butter of his career.

Upon graduating college, Nguyen took on an internship at UMBC as an assistant to the webmaster, a “nine-to-five” job that helped him decide what he did not want to do for the rest of his life.

“It was the first taste of what could have been my life and career,” Nguyen said. “I wasn’t happy doing that. If I hadn’t had that internship I would have accepted a job as a web designer at some company and would have hated it. I decided from that internship that I didn’t want to have a nine-to-five job.”

While interning full-time at UMBC, Nguyen was also freelancing in web design for small business websites and instructional websites.

“It brought in some money so I felt I was able to support myself through these freelancing jobs and build my own company by producing video and web designs under Tunahead Productions,” Nguyen said.

When asked how he came up with the name for his production company, Nguyen said his first name, Tuan, was pronounced “Tune” to his English-speaking peers, teachers and professors.

Tunahead Productions develops short animation films such as “The Legend of the Watermelon,” which has been showcased at the Vietnamese International Film Festival (VIFF). With the increasing popularity and growth of the film-making industry within the Vietnamese community abroad, Nguyen is among an emerging group of young filmmakers and artists. Because of this budding group, Nguyen said it allows him as well as others to look up to each other and find motivation in their individual successes.

“We’re influencing each other and motivating each other,” Nguyen said. “It’s a big network of artists and filmmakers. We’re making mistakes and also learning from each other. We’re finally seeing there are other people out there like the Bui brothers, Charlie Nguyen, Ham Tran, and Victor Vu.”

Since his submission in 2003 to VIFF, Nguyen has since been working on another animation project called, “The Legends of Vietnam.” LOV is an animation series about ancient Vietnamese folklore containing proverbs, customs and moral lessons. Nguyen hopes LOV will encourage new interest in looking at the Vietnamese culture, especially for the younger generation. Furthermore, Nguyen hopes this will reach beyond the Vietnamese community and attract others who are curious about the culture and traditions.

Tunahead Productions led Nguyen to become one of the co-founders and the current executive producer of VATV, Vietnamese American Television, which is broadcasted in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland.