About
Hi there! So this is the part where I am supposed to tell you a few things about myself in the third person. However, I genuinely like to spice things up and gravitate towards non-traditional approaches. So instead, I want to give you the complete picture of who I am.
I would like to promise I'll keep it short, but at heart, I am a storyteller, and I don't get to use my creative writing chops that often, so grab some tea because this may take a hot minute.
My full name is Javier Eugenio Magdiel Fernández Escobar.
Long name, right? Well, that's the way lots of Latino family's do it. My 2 middle names reflect my father's name (Eugenio) and Abuelo's name (Magdiel).
So why Xavi Dussaq?
To be quite honest, after 8 years in the service industry, I decided to take a leap of faith and go full-time creative. I was struggling to find work under Javier Fernández Photography.
My mom saw the struggle, and knowing how much I am into movies, she reminded me that artists change their names all the time. So I decided to rebrand by adopting my grandmother's last name and changing the J for an X in honor of my French great grandfather.
Why creative content?
Since I've had a memory, I gravitated towards the visual arts. But, to be honest, I believe my life's purpose is to tell stories.
I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. However, I grew up in Guatemala. At 14, I joined the Guatemala Screenwriters Association and started writing short films shortly after.
In 2005 I won the national award for essay writing offered by The International Olympic Committee. In the essay, I talked about the importance of sports in culture and education. The prize allowed me to travel to California and search for universities, which fully encouraged me to pursue my storytelling career.
After finishing high school in Guatemala, I moved to Baton Rouge in 2008 to pursue my dream of studying film.
Out of all places in the world, why Baton Rouge?
I felt a genuine connection to the place, it haunted me in dreams, and I wanted to know more about this place where I was born in. Coincidently at the beginning of 2008, the film industry was booming in Louisiana.
I graduated from Baton Rouge Community College with an Associates in Applied Science and Entertainment Technology with a concentration in film studies at the end of 2011. A mouth full, am I right? I always thought it was a very fancy way of describing Film Production.
After graduating from BRCC, I worked for six months on four different films as a Production Assistant and BTS director.
While working on these movie sets, I discovered that the PA work didn't allow for my creativity to flourish. Creating has always been a top priority for me, and I knew that to truly enjoy what I do, I needed to build and tell stories.
Hitting a small wall, in 2012, I moved back to Guatemala to spend time with my family. There I started FreeFall View Productions to take advantage of the technology of aerial videos and the lack of people working in that field. I was the first individual to bring a drone with a camera to my home country, and this excited me. Fun fact, I had to "Frankenstein" the drone. The first DJI model didn't carry a camera, so I ordered a gimbal from japan, ordered 2x powerful motors, and attached a GoPro Hero 3 to it. Flying time was 4 minutes back then, crazy how fast technology moves am I right?
Despite success in Aerial Videography, I still felt like I had a higher calling, and I decided to move back to Baton Rouge to attend LSU and get a Creative Writing degree. It was then where I discovered my passion for photography and content creation.
During my time at LSU, I worked for the student newspaper, The Daily Reveille as a Photo Editor and Multimedia Specialist. LSU is truly a mecca for sports. I had always already gravitated towards athletics, and destiny had its way with me.
In May of 2016, I was awarded first and second place for the LA-MS APME competition in the College Sports Photos category - a competition designed to recognize Louisiana and Mississippi AP-member newspapers for outstanding performance in journalism.
Sports and photography were really clicking with me. So before graduating, Chris Parent from the creative department of LSU Athletics recruited me for a one-year internship as a team photographer.
During my time in Baton Rouge, I also had a small stint working as a freelance photographer for the New Orleans newspaper The Times-Picayune | Nola.com. After that, I joined the marketing company Main Street Hub later bought and rebranded as Go Daddy Social. I shot over 250 businesses in the DMV area.
After my internship with LSU Athletics ended, I moved to Washington D.C. in 2017 with one camera and one lens.
The rest is history. Most of which you can see in my portfolio on this webpage.
I currently serve as D.C. United's Sr. Manager of Creative & Photo, conceptualizing, leading, executing, and delivering marketing and content campaigns.