ENDA Episode 25→ The time when the Endless Apprentice met his first heroes (Part 2)

“The beginning is always the golden time” and they could have not been more right.

The first time I saw a short film created by this team, which I’ll be referring to as SAMA, was in a small short film competition between classes that we had for our first course of filmmaking during our first year.

On this occasion, they had two additional members to their alienation. There were many different proposals, with the expectable mistakes from beginners, my team’s project was no exception, but that’s another story.

Nonetheless, the moment they projected SAMA’s short film, we found something entirely different: it was well shot, the script was funny and it managed to grab the entire audience. To no one surprise, they won the competition.

Their success did not stop at that, the next semester (our second year by then) there was another filmmaking course and SAMA repeated their alienation with a different additional fifth member.

If the previous semester their work had reached high standards, this work surpassed every expectation anyone had: well-cared cinematography, two sequence shots filmed masterfully with a steady cam, tense musical atmosphere, and a clever way of narrating the story.

Nevertheless, the killer move was presenting the promotional material: a poster of the project printed for a cinema stand and an official DVD box with a designed cover. All neatly presented more as a professional sell of the project than a mid-term college project.

Next semester there was no filmmaking course, but they found a way to keep filming. They took the opportunity that in the Accounting course we were asked to do a video per group to explain an accounting concept in a video.

The objective was just to illustrate the concept in a video, but the SAMA team only knew how to do things better than they were asked. Now with the temporal addition of two other members, they could do more.

What was supposed to be just a simple accounting video, turned into a mini-episode of a TV show with a complete production. They coordinated things with time and managed to book the university’s TV studio set.

They used well all their arsenal: studio lighting, costumes, chroma, VFX, audio recording, etc. It was more than they were asked, but they did not want to waste the chance to produce a high-quality product. Closing in that way the second year.

From the first project they presented, I began to admire their teamwork and how they managed to always present professional work. They were my inspiration to do better.

But then, by the beginning of the third year, I managed to have the opportunity of working with SAMA. That experience will change me in many aspects, but more importantly, it will allow me to see what was behind the team I admired so much.

What was that I discovered? Well, that will be for the next episode.