We recently connected with Sofia Bilbao and have shared our conversation below.

Sofia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’m majoring in Film and Media and minor in Theatre. This is my second bachelor’s degree, my first one was Communications Studies back in my country, Uruguay. I never stopped loving my country, I just left for better opportunities in my field, but I miss it so much :(. If I could go back in time and talk to my 15-year-old self, she wouldn’t believe where I’m today. My dream back then was being an anthropologist and discovering dinosaurs’ bones. But then when I asked one professor in the field to tell me more about the career, she told me that only 100 people finish the career, 4 get a job and only 1 work in what I wanted, and it wasn’t in my country, the rest became professors. I always loved audiovisual, and creating things became my passion. When I was a child, I used to have a huge imagination and created trains with chairs and imagined travelling fantasy worlds with my dad’s storytelling or making theatre plays with my cousins for my family. Then I grew up, and every time there was a chance of doing a video or something creative, I always chose that. That’s why I sometimes believe destiny shapes itself. I used to handwrite small stories when I was 6 years old, and my classmates loved them. In the quarantine I wrote a novel that I never finished, and I had fans. And now that novel is a movie, I still can’t believe it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi! I’m Sofia Bilbao Bardier and I’m an experienced Bilingual Filmmaker with a background in handling short films and documentary film productions. Director and Producer of MABEL (first feature film). Adept at planning and completing high-quality, artistic shots. Creative individual with an excellent eye for detailed and exceptional time management skills. Crew 2 times for Fall UDC in KU (once as a technical streaming crew and the other as wardrobe). Crew short films over the years of my undergraduate program. I have over 5 years of experience in artistic creations with an eye to the business of filmmaking as a precise Photo Editor offering 5-year background reviewing, editing, and manipulating photos to gain high quality images. I’m a creative photographer offering expertise in photography, sales and marketing, customer service
and project management. Talented at various photography styles, identifying client needs and providing innovative suggestions. Practiced in on-location shoots, studio set-ups and equipment
maintenance. I am proficient in Adobe Premiere, Photoshop and Lightroom paired with a strong understanding of
photographic techniques and photo editing processes.

I’m a senior student in film and media at KU, with a minor in theatre. KU wasn’t my first choice. I didn’t choose KU; I believe KU chose me. My original plan was to do an exchange program for only 6 months in 2021, to finish my Communications degree. I remember that I talked back then to a lot of professors, one of them, Laura Kirk, and she insisted to try to stay in the U.S studying something that I couldn’t do in my country. I tried applying to master’s in film and media here, but Joshua Miner said, no “Miss. Bilbao wants to do production and here we only do research”. So, at the end I’m kind of glad he rejected my application, and you can call destiny or luck, but that made me apply to this undergrad program in film and media (only 2 years because I transfer most of my credits of my other degree) and after that it just history. I have done so many projects, I have been director of photography, producer and director. My dream job is to work in Hollywood, but as James Cameron once said “Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director”.
I’m not religious but as my grandma said, “If you really believe in something, and you thought it to the universe, if it’s meant to be it’s meant to be”.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I believe that as a creative, one of the lessons I had to unlearn was that fast and quick is better than taking time to do things. As an anxious person, It was difficult for me to understand that my career has other times and deadlines. Some days I feel really creative, others I feel less creative and a lot of the time I don’t feel creative at all. It’s not about the end goal, it’s about the journey you have to experience, and I had to learn that by hard. Being in the creative world, doesn’t mean that everyday is a creative day, yes you can have amazing days were you write and produce a lot, but some other days are difficult. I always annotate my ideas on the phone, so I don’t forget later.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I believe that a lot of people think that we can’t have a job in our field, make a living out of it because of all the competition that already exists. I think that if you have a passion, something that you need to do because if you don’t you will ask yourself everyday of your life, what is my purpose? Of course we have to pay bills, and that is why a lot of people have a second job, but they still don’t leave the creative job, because that is what gives us excitement, joy and a although it’s not easy the life we have choose, what is life if you don’t include a little bit of adrenaline. Whoever is afraid of dying should not be born

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sofiabfotografia.wixsite.com/website/home-1
• Instagram: instagram.com/soffph_99
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/sofia-bilbao
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD2g_KPCVK9XAN_iGsqH51g