WELCOME TO WAXYJAX.COM

Trying my best to showcase the work I've been doing, but my LinkedIn profile is probably the most up-to-date.

oh and....

hi, i'm Jacky Tran. you may only meet one of us in your life, but you'll encounter many of us online. aren't we a smiley bunch? if you know another one of us, please don't hesitate to introduce me :)

i do many other things--making my own website look pretty is not one of them.

here's what i've done for other people though:

• Executive Producing Living Distance, an art project that involved launching a robotic sculpture into space by Xin Liu...
• Among its many accolades, it was part of the Sundance New Frontier Institute. The short film that accompanied the piece was officially selected for Sundance 2020 Film Festival and the SXSW 202 Film Festival
• While at Spotify...
• I launched Wrapped 2018, which broke a lot of records in terms of user traffic (35 million unique users!), playlist streams (more than 3 billion for each playlist, and counting!) and user conversions, got lots of press, lots of love from music artists and lots of fun memes. I don't have the words to describe how rewarding this project was from the challenges my team overcame to the camaraderie we shared along the way (plus if I try I may disclose proprietary info that has helped make Spotify the leader in music streaming). However, I will share this informative Spotify Wrapped 2018 - Technical Case Study by our creative production partner Active Theory, which details how the dynamic front-end was executed.
• I also launched the breathtaking twenty øne piløts "Banditø" Immersive Experience, which also garnered an insane amount of traffic, plus lots of love and obsession from the band's fans. It was a brilliant collaboration among Spotify's Brand & Creative team, the band's creative team and the talent crew at Resn.
• And, I led production on the EQL Directory--it's estimated that less than 5 percent of all audio professionals are women and so Spotify partnered with Soundgirls and Wild to build this global database for women in audio and music production.
• As Executive Producer at B-Reel, I oversaw (and sometimes directly led) integrated production and client management on numerous projects like...
• Nixon's Clio Award Winning smartwatch The Mission
• An interactive data visualizer for Quantcast that lived on a big touchscreen and on iPad (here's a taste of the design on Art Director Irena Milev's portfolio)
• American Express Design Language System, a massive design and dev toolkit that we collaborated closely with AMEX to build and regularly upgrade and maintain for use across thousands of AMEX's digital properties around the world (some screens, care of Clarissa Soto, the Product Design Director)
• OOH and Social Media campaign for the launch of Forever 21's beauty and lifestyle store Riley Rose
• CES 2018 launch video for Google Assistant with Visual Display; and, many other projects for Google and other clients that either aren't yet live or are confidential.
• The Docu-film for Google's Expeditions AR, an app that helps teachers engage students with immersive lessons.
• While producing a video shoot for POSSIBLE's Holiday Card, the team and I made a last minute decision to do a shot-by-shot spoof of Beyoncé's "7/11" with our talent still dressed as Santa Claus and his elves. I had a half-day to negotiate with a hotel so we could shoot all this on a tight budget - it also involved schmoozing up the head of hotel security, who let us film in prohibited parts of the hotel and even gave me a ride to a dollar store to grab some last-minute props.
• For Google's Androidify Times Square event, I worked with Ohrenkunst as their Producer/EP for the sound design and music composition work done in partnership with Red Paper Heart.
• APT CB2 which was, without a doubt, the most integrated project I could have ever dreamed of at the time. it was was the first real-world apartment designed completely on Pinterest in real-time, over the course of 5 days. I was Mother NY's integrated producer, and kept internal creative, broadcast and experiential production in sync. we partnered with Stopp-LA (nka Media Monks) on the site, camera rig and overall direction and production of each shoot day. the photography itself was lit and overseen by the talented photo duo Ball & Albanese. on the agency side alone we had 30 people working to deliver on experiential, digital, photo, social media, interactive paid media and print for this live interactive event. none of us slept and by the third shoot day the loft smelled like feet - but the project was so amazing that it was worth it!
• Marketing and Content Strategist at Betaworks for a couple of their products, including Blend
• The ultra-talented experiential studio Red Paper Heart, built a proof of concept for an installation that would eventually end up at Verizon's new flagship store in the Mall of America. I worked with them to further develop the installation and build a production roadmap with AKQA, who executed the overall identity of the store and would take on the remainder of the build.
• I was one of the producers on the team at Droga5, which concepted and produced BringYourChallenges.com for Prudential. With a robust array of interactive and creative content, the site aimed to help people understand and plan for financial planning and retirement.
• The Barbarian Group produced original video and interactive pieces for GE's Brilliant Machines campaign. I helped bring some of this content to life for the launch of the campaign, however the crowning jewel was to be a video shoot on an oil rig in the North Sea. I had all the moving parts in place but at the last minute the shoot was called off. However, if anyone out there needs a producer for a shoot on an oil rig, I'd be more than happy to help out :)
• 2012 launches of Apple's new iPad and the MacBook Pro with Retina display, the first ones ever to have Retina display. I was an interactive producer on the launch teams. Because sites never had to worry about hosting Retina-ready images before, I also lead the team charged with optimizing Apple.com, including the 125 other localized versions of it, for Retina.
• Mother brought me on board at to produce an interactive site commemorating Chevrolet's 100th Anniversary. We allowed visitors to watch a video series about the town of Bridgeville, PA, where one of the oldest Chevy dealerships is located, plus explore an interactive map where archive photos and footage from the Chevrolet vaults were pinned according to the locations where they were shot. Visitors could also upload their own content by pinning photos and videos on the map. Our incredibly talented backend developer Matthew Knight, archived some screen grabs of the site here.
• "Orange Sunday", the music video for this track by The Walkmen. Directed by Bruno Levy, shot in Buff Bay, Jamaica. I produced a music video for As exotic as it sounds, it was a bare-bones shoot. I had to secure some local fishermen to help us out big time with this one. However the end product and love we got from such respected publications, like Pitchfork, were well worth the effort.
• Sweatshoppe's The Landing, a revolutionary (I'm not exagerrating--it's the first of its kind) digital/light graffiti piece. I produced and ran PR for it--we got love in such esteemed blogs as Wooster Collective and Babelgum.
• Deboutonner, the music video I produced for Modeselektor's track. Directed by Bruno Levy, shot in Nepal using stop motion and in-camera effects! It won a Metropolis Art Prize Special Mention award and was screened in Times Square on Thursday, December 17, 2009. Isabella Rossellini was hosting!
• "Smoke Rings", the music video for Udachi & Jubilee's single on the great Jason Forrest's label Nighthifters. We got love from URB and T-Pain, plus it got featured on Dailymotion's music page.
• 2009 NYC Budgetball Championships event. I produced the world's first-ever Budgetball tournament, where 4 teams battled for the top title at at Coles Sports Center in New York. The geniuses at game design studio Area Code designed Budgetball in collaboration with Parsons PetLab and The National Academy of Public Administration. NPR was all over it.
• Backchannel, my first project with Area Code to produce this multi-player game synched with real-time broadcasts of MTV's The Hills. Creativity Magazine loved it.
• The Corona Beach, interactive micro-site for Corona Beer that i co-produced with Jason Merenda while at Big Spaceship. it won lots of awards.
• Glaceau, overhaul of website and digital branding of Glaceau and its sub-brands, including the venerable Vitaminwater. it also won lots of awards.
• 50's Calling, promo site for Formula 50, 50 Cent's Vitaminwater flavor--send friends a personal shout-out from 50 himself.
• a bunch of Integrated and Interactive Production projects for various ad agencies--you can see who I've worked for here.
• lots of production coordinator/associate/assistant work at MTV on my resume, Yahoo!TV and Fancast list some of the shows i've worked on. once i figure out how they found me i'll have them list everything else i've done.

and i'm also not afraid to teeter on the fringes of the law for a good production or adventure...here are some highlights:

• I traveld to Cuba in 2008 (back when the US still had a travel ban) so I could join 4 other friends to watch the US Men's National Soccer team play a World Cup qualifier match. The night before the match, Sports ILlustrated's soccer writer Grant Wahl interviewed us, then posted an article to the SI.com homepage the next morning, dubbing us the "The Cuba Cinco." The article also revealed how we planned on masking our identities by wearing USA bandanas and Castro hats. The next day when we arrived at the match, we were swarmed by international media and ended up with lot of fans. Here's an oral history, published by Major League Soccer.
• First Warm Night, in collaboration with ComplacentNation (the founder runs awesome artist organization See.me) and a laundry list of other djs, activists, artists and promoters--a moving street/subway event to celebrate the first warm night of 2005. drawing a couple thousand attendees we started the night off in LES, then on the subway, then through Red Hook as marching bands and vehicles tricked out with soundsystems blasted their way to the waterfront. the cops were cool until this dude who had swum the English Channel decided to get naked and jump in the East River.
• Green Party, a subway party thrown in 2003, also in collaboration with ComplacentNation. Gawker called it 'Disturbingly similar to what a previous generation would have called a "flash mob,"' but honestly, it was a rowsing way to bring people together. more than a thousand revelers dressed in green met up at a dive bar by the Bowling Green subway stop and then flooded into the 4/5, covered the interior in green, drank green jello shots, crowded surfed and sang while zipping around town and ended up at a bowling alley deep in Brooklyn to end the night. as location scout, i was one of the two only people who knew how to get to the bowling alley and grand marshalled the marching band, baton twirlers and crowd through the streets of East Flatbush. Richard the manager was gracious enough to close the alley's doors to the public and let us party all night long--and even ordered everyone chinese food!
• Lunatarium, i was Promotional Director and also produced several one-off events. the 18,000 sq ft, top floor of a warehouse building overlooking the East River, the Manhattan skyline and 4 bridges, which required use of the freight elevator, was tough to fill but we pulled it off. Run DMC played one of their last shows here before Jam Master Jay's death. check out the NYPress award for "Best Warehouse Fire Waiting to Happen," which pretty much sums up the atmosphere of the venue....though the name of the award hasn't aged well in light of recent events :(

i'm known to keep myself well-traveled, well-fed, and socially stimulated. i also like sharing tips on how to do that--on other people's publications (don't hold your breath for a Waxyjax travel/food p0rn blog). check out my writeups on travel and music site Cliktrips for Paris and Krakow. if you're looking for Paris tips from 2006 they can be found in a handful of listings in the Paris Section of the BlackBook List: Jet Set Edition 2007 The Best of Europe . I've also been dubbed a "Rehabilitation Specialist" for people who've given up on using sites like Yelp by my favorite food blog SeriousEats.

i've even dabbled in music. check out "The Ceasing Now" by Parts & Labor. the band selected samples submitted by their friends (or in my case, friends of friends) and a recording of me clipping my fingernails happened to make the cut (i just noticed the pun and i'm not gonna do anything about it). here's NPR's story on the album and sample concept behind it. my speaking voice has appeared on other tracks by other artists, but i don't like hearing myself speak and will therefore not share any further details here--sorry!

...i feel closer to you already.

keep in touch