From a very young age, we’re taught that we should do anything in order to chase our dreams. If we feel that passionate about a job or a goal , it’s worth pursuing, and that’s a lesson that one California student took to heart.
With dreams of working at Pixar studios as an animator, she started an ambitious project in order to get their attention, and it worked.
In 2020, an art student with a dream set out on a new journey.
Jessie Plascenicia is a 22-year-old animation student who has always wanted to work for Pixar studios.
“I always just loved their themes and concepts, they’ve always touched me,” she explained when citing Pixar as her dream job.
Her studies were going well until the pandemic hit.
Then she, like many other students around the world, was left cooped up at home while partaking in online classes.
However, being kept inside only inspired her to make more art. She realized just how close she lived to Pixar’s headquarters in Emeryville, California, and came up with a plan.
She was going to display her artistic talents right outside her dream studio.
“One day, I decided it would be fun to just chalk draw there and work on something with my hands,” she said. “And local people started encouraging me. They were like, ‘You should post this somewhere.'”
So she did!
She began uploading her drawings to social media, namely using TikTok to record her journey.
Though she remains that this was originally for herself, saying, “I didn’t expect anything. Even posting it online, it was more just for me.”
However, her project got tons of attention.
She was originally drawing just general art, but she decided to start drawing Pixar characters specifically, and that’s when her videos really took off.
A few even went viral, and upon returning to the studio gates, she got to meet some Pixar employees who loved her work!
They encouraged her to keep going.
“To get that kind of confirmation felt really validating. It felt like, ‘OK, I’m not crazy. I’m not weird for having these childish dreams,'” she said, “The animation industry, it’s all about being creative and celebrating that outside-the-box thinking, so it meant a lot to me.”
Then she reached a breakthrough.
She was invited on a tour of Pixar’s campus!
While there, she got to visit the animation department to see some behind-the-scenes work done for Lightyear and even try some voice acting.
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Pixar then asked her to do one of her chalk drawings inside the studio grounds!
She even got to meet her personal hero.
Pete Docter is Pixar’s chief creative officer and has directed films like Monsters Inc. , Up , and Inside Out .
Her hard work really paid off, as not only was she given this amazing experience, but she also has a mentorship with one of the studio’s art directors.
She’s going to keep working hard and dedicating herself to her passion until she lands a full-time job.
“I’m OK with taking my time on this journey because I know some of the experiences I’m going to go through, I’m going to pull from and use as inspiration for my films or art concepts,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter who you are, you have a story to tell — you just have to trust that you can make it.”
h/t: Insider
