Today we’d like to introduce you to Sergio Fernandez.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Sergio. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Looking back on my childhood and adolescence, I’ve always been interested in cameras, in capturing images, and in creating videos. However, that wasn’t always so clear.
Arriving from Bogotá, Colombia to rural North Carolina, I started playing soccer at the age of five and never looked back. As a kid, I played other sports with friends, I skateboarded, I played golf… but none of those activities came close to my passion for the beautiful game. As I got into middle school and early high school, soccer became my life albeit an injury-filled life. This never stopped me, as I had the goal of playing soccer in college, but it did introduce me to the medical field of orthopedics. As my focus on soccer increased, so did my interest in orthopedics. At the age of 14, as a freshman in high school, I decided I would pursue a career as an orthopedic surgeon.
I fully focused on soccer and academics in order to fulfill my goal of playing in college, as well as my goal of becoming an orthopedic surgeon. Fast forward a few years to Haverford College in Philadelphia’s Main Line, where I accomplished my goal of playing soccer in college. I managed to become part of a phenomenal team in what came to be a new era of success for Haverford Men’s Soccer, yet I was extremely frustrated with my own level of play and performance. Coupled with a rigorous academic curriculum as a Biology major and Neuroscience minor, I quit the varsity team and resolved to focus on my academics.
Despite that decision, I was already dreading the thought of the impending academic commitment that medical school would entail. After suffering (academically) through just two years of college, I couldn’t fathom subjecting myself to another eight to ten years between medical school and residency, and potentially more.
It was while studying abroad in Italy during the second semester of my junior year (Spring of 2015) that things started to change. I’d always had an interest in action sports, and was decent at a handful of them, but as I mentioned, soccer had taken up a lot my adolescence. Nonetheless, Red Bull’s insane video content was always on my radar, but it wasn’t until one day in my room at my host family’s apartment that I thought to myself, “wow, wouldn’t it be amazing to be involved in the production of these insane action sports films across the globe?”
I landed myself a summer internship at a lab at the University of Milan, but my only camera at that point was a Sony Cybershot, so I decided to buy a GoPro to capture my summer adventures in Italy and beyond. Both cameras, which I still own to this day, captured my adventures from the Running of the Bulls to hiking Europe’s tallest active volcano, to motorcycling through the Alps. After putting together an edit of my summer in GoPro Studio, I was hooked!
Senior year arrived, and I made a few key decisions. I decided I wasn’t going to get my ass kicked by college that year, but rather I would be doing the ass-kicking. I also decided I would buy my first DSLR, a Canon Rebel XSi, and start delving into “digital media.” I put that in quotations because it was all still very new to me and I didn’t know what I did and didn’t like. By the end of that year, I got a 4.0 on my year-long research thesis, landed a summer internship with the booming content platform Odyssey Online in New York, and secured another internship in Cape Town with a non-profit called Grassroot Soccer (GRS).
In accepting the year-long volunteer internship in Cape Town, I took a leap of faith and turned down my dream medical-school-path job as a Research Assistant in a neuroscience lab at Cornell-Weill Medical School in Manhattan. The position with GRS, a public-health non-profit, would allow me to keep the door open for medical school, while also giving me a year to really dive into photography and video creation, and I did just that.
Since the Canon XSi didn’t have video capabilities, I managed to upgrade to a Canon T6i for my year in South Africa. I set it to manual mode, and never looked back.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
My biggest obstacle has been self-doubt. Partly a result of lowered self-confidence from my academic and athletic struggles in college, and partly from what I’ve heard referred to as “imposter syndrome.” The latter, which is a term I first heard while listening to the Chase Jarvis Live podcast, refers to the mental voice that says “You’re a fraud! It’s only a matter of time before everyone realizes you have no clue what you’re doing!”
It is and has been, an on-going process to quiet that screaming self-doubt and regain that confidence in my ability and vision to create great work. Understanding that many creators experience similar doubts understanding that this is a life-long learning process, and setting my focus (camera pun?) on simply improving each and every time I pick up my camera or get into the editing suite, has been a big stride forward in overcoming that mental voice.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I am a freelance videographer/editor and photographer, with the aspiration to join Red Bull’s pool of content creators.
Some recent projects that I’ve completed include luxury real estate videos, automotive promos, event videos, and a non-profit travel-style marketing video. Currently, I’m working with Miami startup, Box Cold Brew – a craft tea brewery, as well as an upcoming corporate video for a Colombian company called Pisos Huella Urbana.
The latter is a project I’m really excited about, as it’s a company that creates high-quality rubber floors from recycled tires. As someone who is passionate about environmental conservation and innovation, this project really aligns with my values, so I’m excited to create an impactful video for an impactful company.
Moving forward, I aim to expand my work in corporate and brand video creation, as well as automotive, action, and adventure sports.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Well… that depends on how far back. If I had to start over, I probably wouldn’t have gone to college or I would have rather done something like the two-year portfolio program at Miami Ad School. What this essentially translates to, is just more questioning rather than accepting.
I decided I wanted to go to college and to med school at 14 or 15, without ever really questioning if that was the best option or if I had any other interests to pursue. In regards to the video learning process, I think I would have just tried to shoot more.
There’s nothing wrong with going out and shooting, trying new techniques, and creating a one minute edit that never makes it out of the hard drive. You don’t have to make this big, grand final product… you can just go out and make something for the sake of creating and trying new techniques.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.SerFerMedia.com
- Phone: +1-336-624-1228
- Email: sergio.fernandez.g1@gmail.com
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