OG: Approved - Jon Ryan Sugimoto
Featuring the Next Generation of Storytellers Rising from the Creator Economy
Welcome to OG: Approved—where rule-breaking creators shape the future. Hand-picked by Open Gardens, they’re not following the playbook—they’re writing the next one.
Name: Jon Ryan Sugimoto
Instagram: 96K Followers
Tik Tok: 59.8K Followers
Youtube: 7K Followers
Who Is Jon Ryan Sugimoto?
Jon Ryan Sugimoto makes short films, then cuts them apart on purpose.
During the week, he runs video production at Loop. Nights and weekends, he writes and directs. The result is a body of work that moves back and forth between festival shorts, branded campaigns, and social sketches without losing its voice.
On social, Jon’s work shows up as tight, deadpan scenes that feel like moments pulled from a longer film. Office spirals. Therapy group dynamics. The quiet panic of modern adulthood. They are written to stop a scroll, but they do not feel disposable. Each one has a rule, a turn, and a button. You could lift the scene and drop it into a short film without changing a thing.
That is not an accident. Before the feed, Jon was already making narrative shorts and taking them through festivals. He learned how scenes breathe, where edits land, and how much space a joke needs. When he started posting regularly, he did not switch gears. He adapted the same instincts to vertical.
Social is not a side project for him. It is the front door. Clips test ideas fast. The ones that hit get follow ups. The ones that do not disappear. Scenes that work on phones point people toward the longer films. It is development in public, but disciplined.
That same sensibility is why the crossover works. Jon is already directing branded and studio work, not as a novelty creator, but as a director whose timing and framing translate cleanly. Campaigns for Duolingo, Ridge Wallet, and Character AI. Studio marketing work tied to Paramount and Lionsgate releases. The humor does not change. The delivery just has a bigger brief.
What makes this feel intentional is how the pieces feed each other. Festival films establish taste. Social sketches build audience and pressure-test ideas. Branded work pays the bills and sharpens execution. None of it replaces the other. It compounds.
Three Things We Love About Jon Ryan Sugimoto
He treats the feed like a writers room: Most people post and move on. Jon posts to find out what actually works. If a premise clicks, he worries it like a bone. Follow-up angle, cleaner button, new version. You can watch the material tighten in real time.
The short stuff still feels like film: Even when it is thirty seconds, it has shape. A setup you understand fast, a turn you did not expect, and an ending that lands. It is not “content.” It is a scene.
Jon is using social to move the bigger work: The shorts are not museum pieces. Social is the on-ramp. People discover him through a sketch, then go looking for the longer films, then stay for the next drop. That is the whole system working.
