What No One Tells You About Our Team

In January, our Buenos Aires-based 3D-modeler, Guido Ventura, traveled 18 hours from Buenos Aires to Zurich, to meet the Zurich team and exchange knowledge with some of our skilled visualizers. This was an important meeting that has helped us developed the way we work together across continents, but it also showed us the complete and utter uniqueness of our team. Here Guido brings his story.

“I’ve found myself thinking back in time and remembering a special week back in January (which honestly feels like ages ago). This is a brief story about an unexpected trip that taught me more than I initially thought it would.”

“My name is Guido, I’m a 3D-modeler at Nightnurse Images’ Buenos Aires office. I am an educated Industrial Designer, former History of Design teacher, and Sustainable Design entrepreneur. In January 2020, I had the opportunity to travel to Zurich to be part of a personalized Cinema 4D training-week at our office there and this is the story of how it all went.”

“Back in June 2018, I was fortunate enough to be accepted as a 3D-modeller in Nightnurse Images’ Buenos Aires team and I quickly felt like I had been working there for quite a while. Last year (2019), we made a huge step forward software-wise in the company, as our Zurich and New York offices started running Cinema 4D. Meanwhile, we kept working with the same program (Rhino) in Buenos Aires.
Everything kept going as usual for us, adapting and improving our work and trying to help the northern teams as much as possible in this new adventure. However, with time we realized that if we really wanted to understand and match our modeling skills to the new situation, we had to roll up our sleeves and learn it. And so we did.
Around September 2019, I started watching youtube tutorials on my own. I asked some of our visualizers what the best tutorials were and I followed those. During this process, I actually came to model a creepy robot and a horrible airplane… But hey, it is still something. I kept learning until it came to the point that I felt like I needed to move to the next step and be included in some proper modeling work that was more directly related to the work we do in Nightnurse Images.
It was near Christmas when I had a video call with one of our great visualizers and librarians, Jennifer Keist, who was kind enough to bear with all of my questions, doubts, and errors. She quickly realized that in order to elevate my progress, it would be easiest that I went to Zurich and got to learn the skills hands-on”

“A month later, this January (2020), I hopped on an airplane and flew for 18 hours. Landing in Zurich I was met by the Swiss winter and my lovely and awesome Tereza Vyhlidalova, also visualizer in Nightnurse Images – and probably the best host I could ask for. That same day, jetlagged and all, a welcome party was thrown for me, without any sleep, I got to meet almost every member of the Zurich team. And I learned that it is pronounced [Zyree] and not [Zuritch], as we as Spanish speakers would say – or at least, I used to do.”

“I had talked to everyone via email and our common communication channel Slack before and perhaps had a phone call (an idea many Millenials dread). I had only ever met Lutz Kögler (one of our company founders) in person, who had traveled to Argentina before to check-in with us. So, meeting around 20 members of the team for the first time was a special experience.”

“I choose to leave out the details of the party, but I can assure you it was a lot of fun.”

“The next day, the week started. I met the rest of the team and the work began. I started my training getting trained by the almighty Cinema 4D master and visualizer Leandro de Oliveira. I still pop into Leandro’s Slack once in a while to ask something basic, which he solves with a shortcut, one he could do with his eyes shut. Sorry, Leandro!
In the following days, I was sitting next to Jenny where I worked particularly on learning to perfect my newly adopted skills and tried to rethink solutions to our current processes – all with her help. Jenny also introduced me to a lot of new bands that she was listening to, and moreover, I had the honor to see her in her element; creating beautiful images, and it was unique to see her as working as the artist behind these beautiful images.”

“All of the above was the work part of my training week in Zurich, which was absolutely great, but what was most definitely the best part was all that surrounded it: All the team members I got to meet and chat with, including the most diverse and awesome languages I got to hear and failed to learn, all the breaks losing and winning in the töggele, the lunches altogether and the after-work beers in the afternoon.
I also went to the Olafur Eliasson expo at Kunsthaus Zürich and even to an all-you-can-eat Raclette restaurant. I did my best to have the most swiss experience I was able to, all accompanied by my friends and colleagues.”

“I am fortunate to have learned from the best people and sitting with them in person, but what I am most grateful for is to have met an amazing team that is behind our great images.
I hope I left a good impression. To all the Zurich team: Always know that I do not take for granted the kindness you received me with and know that you have a couch available in Argentina to sleep whenever you come here.”

“Personally, I cannot wait until this weird moment in time is over and have the actual possibility of going back. For now, I thank destiny – or whomever you are thinking of today – that I can put a face and a memory on every name I read in my inbox emails every morning at work – also known nowadays as my living room.”