Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexander Le.
Hi Alexander, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
To introduce myself, I’m a Vietnamese-Mexican Austinite, a cancer survivor, and a multimedia creative. I’m a graduate from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Arts & Entertainment Technologies with honors, specializing in game development and live events, and co-founder of an upcoming indie game studio. I started my pursuit of this field in my early preteen years, immersing myself in modding video games from the early 2000s. It sparked a fire in me, discovering that I could create 3D models myself and put them in existing video games. This became a side hobby for me throughout my teen years, and it eventually branched out into other forms of game-related media. Graphic design, programming languages, music production, and sound design – I built my knowledge of all these skills through self-learning by watching tutorials online or pushing a button and watching what happens. These were skills I never considered as viable for a future career. Film production soon became an option as I neared the time to consider my college options. However, growing up hard-of-hearing due to childhood cancer, I understood that I would be facing challenges in a demanding career in film. I narrowed my options down to the more “behind-the-scenes” career paths, such as CGI, VFX, and so on. These were areas that I felt I could adapt my foundational game development skills to. Soon enough, as I applied to university, I ran into the Arts & Entertainment Technologies program at UT Austin – a program dedicated to game development, live events, animation, and all forms of entertainment media. It matched my hobbies and passions far greater than any other field. It felt like a program designed for my interests.
After joining the program at university, I took a lighting design course with no prior interest in the field. I had never considered lighting, live events, or stage production in my life, but it seemed interesting enough for me to pick it up. To my surprise, it felt like another creative outlet that felt expressive and versatile. I dove into live event production and integrated media, wanting to find a place in it. I started working various gigs in the field, such as serving as a spotlight operator for dadaLab, filming interviews for the Austin Opera, setting up the event tech for the Austin Rodeo, and working as an A/V technician for UT Austin.
A massive turning point for me was stepping into the role of Producer for the “40Acres MikuFest!”. I was recommended by a friend to a local student org leader who was looking to make a live virtual concert based on the global cultural phenomenon, Vocaloid, featuring the idol Hatsune Miku. It was intended to be a small-scale event for a few people, but it soon grew to a sold-out performance with over 400 attendees in our last show. I was asked to assist with motion capture for dance choreography when I first joined the team, but I soon began taking point in the production. I had the honor of working with an amazing team for the “40Acres Mikufest!” in 2024 as a co-producer, and continued collaborating with the team by serving as the producer for the following show in 2025. With the help of my network, I established a partnership with the Department of Arts & Entertainment Technologies at UT Austin and the Texas Performing Arts to support our show, which has now become an annual production at the B. Iden Payne Theatre. Managing a large-scale collaborative multimedia concert production highlighted a newfound passion for live design. It showed me the magic of stage production to create an environment that brought a community together and a story to life.
Following this, I’ve had the opportunity to engage in so many amazing events: I served as a lighting and visual designer for Moody By Nature – a concert hosted by John Peyton at the Department of Radio-Television-Film in UT Austin, I worked as a Content Creator for MirrorWorld Inc, an immersive experience that premiered at the Fusebox Festival in ATX, and I had the pleasure of performing live on stage as a VJ and lighting designer (respectively) at the Audio Pixel Collider in 2024 and 2025.
Between my work in live events, I also continued my engagement in game development. I’ve been part of several wonderful student teams at university and worked on several game projects. “MedPets” was one of the highlights of my game projects – a medical app developed for patients with type 2 diabetes, which I am proud to still follow the development of currently, and “Final Generation”, a 2.5D horror survival rougelike, was my first game to be released and marketed on Steam for PC and MacOS with my wonderful team, Studio Mori. I served as the audio designer, 3D artist, and writer for “Final Generation” and am continuing with Studio Mori as a company emerging from UT Austin straight out of graduation.
Post-graduation, I’m currently working as an A/V technician and freelancing for local bands for visuals – along with my ventures with Studio Mori, of course. It’s a bit of an exploration into the field of live events, but I’m enthusiastically looking to go into the more artistic, creative side of it. I feel that it defines my goals and passions, and it’s a world in which I fully find myself immersed in. I love making creative visuals, working in music production, operating as a lighting designer, and creating new worlds that audiences can find themselves stepping into. I’ve been creating worlds since I was young, messing around in 3D spaces. Now, I can make them tangible and something to admire.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It certainly hasn’t been a smooth road. I struggled with finances, having to take up two jobs every semester while attending university full-time just to make ends meet, and I’ve also had difficulties stemming from childhood cancer. Chemotherapy made me hard-of-hearing, and it’s been rough trying to fit in, both socially and professionally. It would be difficult to understand people in loud, noisy environments, or it might impede audio balance in sound design and music production. Sometimes I would misunderstand people and mistake their words for others. I learned to adapt, and it’s something I’ve sort of trained myself to do over the years. I can easily read lips (imagine how awful it was when Covid-19 hit!), understand my environment, and engage with people up close. When it comes to work, I learned to adapt when it came to music production and sound design by understanding leveling, audio spectrums, waveforms, and EQ. If I needed to work with a high-pitched sample that was out of my hearing range, I would lower it an octave in order to hear it, work on it to my liking, then pitch it back up to scale. Adaptation is something I have come to realize that I excel in.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a tech artist, multimedia creative, and immersive designer specializing in the intersection of real-time visual programming, game development, and live performance. My skillset is between software engineering and creative expression. Practically, this means I spend my time split between game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity—building 3D environments, virtual reality experiences, and interactive logic—and real-time multimedia workflows using platforms like TouchDesigner, Ableton, and Resolume Arena to build live visual environments.
What sets me apart is my deep foundation in both technical and creative. While most operate amazingly in their individual specializations, I can implement complex interactive systems, such as a live digital environment that responds dynamically to audio, performers, or audience interaction, while grounding it in a foundational, artistic intent behind the piece. I’ve been known to bring a multitude of tech expertise into a project and find unique ways to bring it to life.
I am incredibly proud of my work pushing the boundaries of what live multimedia experiences can look like in Austin. My career highlight was serving as the Producer for 40Acres MikuFest!. It was a massive undertaking that required managing production pipelines, real-time visual programming, synced lighting design, and live audio engineering to bring a massive, collaborative Vocaloid concert production to fruition. Seeing a crowd completely immersed in a passion project my team and I built from scratch was an unforgettable reason as to why I do this. Currently, I’m continuing to refine my work through freelancing and gigs, finding more ways to make my work feel tangible, alive, and human.
Any big plans?
Currently, I plan to work in live events as a contractor or part-timer as I continue to develop my portfolio with gigs and opportunities as a freelancer. I have applied to graduate school in Live Design & Production, hoping to get in and hone my skills into a more specialized demand so that I can pursue a career in stage production. Something about a theatre or concert venue feels rather majestic, and hopefully, places that I can find myself frequenting for work more often. I haven’t heard back from grad school yet, but my fingers are crossed! In the meantime, I will be pursuing these ventures on my own, looking to expand my clientele.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.laymestill.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/layme.still
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderminhle/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@laymestill
