ENDA Episode 08→ The time when the Endless Apprentice learned about software’s flexibility (Part 1)

During one’s beginnings in the VFX journey, we tend to begin with one software that is our door of entry to this world, maybe because it was the first software that we heard about on the internet, maybe because a friend recommended it, or simply because the icon seemed cool. For some artists, it was a 3D program, others an editing program, others a 2D design program, and so on.

This first software becomes our everything when we begin and we want to do everything with it, even stuff where we technically should not be using it. I remembered seeing cases of Premiere’s advocates wanting to do 2D animations in the editing program, Photoshop’s advocates wanting to do video color correction instead of using specialized software, a Powerpoint user who does all his poster designs with that program, and of course Final Cut Pro advocates that wanted to do even sound mixing in the program. I was in the last group.

None of these are wrong approaches when we start and we are either doing personal projects or simple tests to see the scope of our abilities. In the end, it is possible to do all those other tasks in one program. Nonetheless, it will come with a price that we won’t realize until we either start working with other people or in a real work environment.

The mentality of “I only work with this software” won’t cut it out and it would only create discord in a team. I remember that I went with this idea for half of my university career and it caused me to lose opportunities to work with certain people at the right time and even got me a few discussions with others. I was very dead set on using just one program and not learning or using others because I thought it was enough with the one I already knew.

Thankfully I was able to snap of out it when I got to my 4th year of university and mature more in my way of thinking. It also helped that I started to understand how teams work in technical aspects and how the job market worked in terms of software and things were more difficult than you would expect.

But that would be for the next episode.

What was the first software you learned?