ENDA Episode 39→ The time when the Endless Apprentice knew the right people, but a bit late (Part 2)

There have been many instances when I missed chances, but later on, I knew that maybe it wasn’t a complete “missed chance”:

➡️ When I chose the “smaller” campus over the “main” one in my university for a commute matter.

I thought for a while that I was missing many opportunities because the other campus had more installations, and more courses and teacher options, and later on, I found out that in my same year on that campus, there was a solid group that did amazing projects.

Nonetheless, today I can say that I won’t change a thing about my experiences on that campus I was:

✅I met many amazing people, even one of my best friends and biggest inspirations.

✅I worked on different projects that maybe were not all good but I had lots of experiences that I can share.

✅The lack of certain equipment or facilities made us more creative with what we have and taught us that if we need something, we must ask and fight for it because no one else will.

✅I met one of the best teachers I could have ever wished and I treasure every class I had with him.

✅I was part of the first graduated class of that campus and when we left (2016), we raised the bar so high with our Career Final Project, that until now no one else has been able to surpass it. I honestly hope the next class is successful.

➡️ When I choose to continue studying instead of working.

This haunted me until this year, but after all that I had done, I knew it was the right choice. At that moment I was working in advertising, I was getting used to working and the producers started to have more trust in me and I had arrived just two months ago, fresh out of college.

But I was about to begin the Animation and VFX school the next month. So I could learn more about postproduction and the VFX industry in general. I left my work and the school took me 5 years to complete instead of three, due to the thesis and COVID exploding the year we had to start our short film by ourselves.

I debated many times if I did the right thing because during those years I kept hearing about how the rest of my friends and classmates got jobs and were ascending, while I kept studying. Nevertheless, today I can see that it was not a bad choice:

✅I met two of my best friends there.

✅The shots I worked on the thesis short film were in part what allowed me to enter the VFX school in Canada and emigrate.

✅The thesis short film was the first work I produced that won a Film Festival in Europe and was part of 3 Official Selections in the other 3 film festivals.

✅I obtained a complete understanding of how the VFX pipeline works from start to finish.

So I have to conclude something from all this that there is no “right time and right place”, every decision we make in that moment will make us gain and lose something, but it will be how we use and appreciate the things we gain that we will continue our journey as artists.