We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Blaine Chiappetta. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Blaine below.

Alright, Blaine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s go back in time to when you were an intern or apprentice – what’s an interesting story you can share from that stage of your career?

My first real job after college was at a company called Marvista Entertainment. It was a small production company when I joined it as a temp (its grown a lot since then), but was still churning out an impressive slate of movies each year. It was the kind of place where people wore many hats, and you could get experience in a lot of different areas depending on what needed to get done. I learned a lot while I was there, but I think my most important takeaway is to be honest in what you want and how you want to grow. Not just necessarily what you want to do, but (for me, at least) what you don’t want to do.

During my almost 6-year tenure at Marvista, I did everything from developing scripts, to providing rewrites, to giving notes on cuts/score, to visiting set and producing. A lot of this I found interesting and still use the knowledge and experience I gained, and some of it I kind of hated. Case in point: being a producer. I don’t like it. I don’t like going to set and I don’t like being responsible for such a wide array of problems over such a long timeline. There was a natural trajectory for me at Marvista to become a producer, and if I hadn’t been honest and just let that happen, then I probably wouldn’t be doing my (much preferred) job of writing from home that I have today. I made it clear to my bosses that this wasn’t an avenue I was interested in, and offered alternative ways to help the department.

Since I studied screenwriting and was hoping to be a screenwriter full-time one day, I started helping out with rewrites — getting scripts to the finish line in a way that made our buyers happy (which was often a very small, subtly-moving target). After a few years of this (and getting another education via this work in the process) I felt like I was ready to try pursue my goal of writing full-time. Before I left, I was offered the opportunity to stay with a nice pay bump and new title. It was definitely intriguing, especially since I was otherwise going to be freelancing and didn’t have any guarantee of getting enough work (not to mention the benefits) to stay afloat. But staying would have meant taking on a lot of executive and producing responsibilities that I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to enjoy. Thankfully, I was honest again and took the leap, and have been writing from home for the past 8 years. (I also have to mention that I have an incredible wife, Nasrin, who supported me in this decision. If you’re interested in a piece of non-career advice, the best I can give is to make sure you choose the right person to spend your life with. It makes the good parts of life so much better, and the hard parts of life so much easier.)

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 Blaine! I write movies that your mom likes, or that she at least has turned on in the background while doing something else. A lot of Lifetime thrillers and Hallmark Christmas movies. I love movies, animation, video/board/tabletop games, and I like to say reading because it makes me sound smarter but in actuality accounts for about 5% of my free time at the present. I’m married to my incredible wife Nasrin and have two wonderful kids, Nora (6) and Sam (2), who I get to hang out with all day, every day. It’s great. I highly recommend it.

I got my start in the entertainment industry because I’m easy to work with and because at the time I owned a truck. Really, those were my qualifications. One of my friends who graduated our master’s program at Pepperdine a year before me (shout out to John Burd!) had a job as an assistant at Marvista Entertainment, and the production department needed help moving to an annex office a couple blocks away. Enter me. That short stint turned into a job as an Assistant, then Coordinator, then finally Story Editor before parting ways and becoming a full-time screenwriter.

As mentioned, I write mostly thrillers and holiday rom coms, whether it’s original ideas or rewriting existing scripts. I think my biggest strength (aside from being easy to work with, which again, don’t discount the importance of this) is the ability to receive and execute notes to give my clients a script that they’re happy with and that will sell. I used to also pride myself on how fast I worked, but now I have two kids so it’s just a normal (but still respectable) speed.

The thing I’m most proud of is the fact that one of my movies, Snowmance, was the subject of an episode of the podcast How Did This Get Made? where they mercilessly tore it to pieces. It’s probably the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me. That, and the fact that if you Google me the first picture that pops up is some random, apparently interchangeable white guy whose identity still remains a mystery. I’m pretty sure my alma mater Pepperdine is responsible for uploading the wrong picture to their website, and I would kindly ask them to never fix this mistake.

If you’re in the market for a script, already have a script that needs some work, or want ideas and pitches, I’d love to help. And while most of my credits are for the above mentioned genres, I’m interested in pretty much anything so long as there’s a strong emotional core at the center.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Look, I’ll be honest, I don’t entirely understand NFTs. They exist in a space similar to bitcoin or calculus. (Sure, I’ve heard of it. I still don’t know what it means. Please stop talking about it.) But from what I’ve gathered I think it’s safe to say that I don’t like them at all. They’re like a digital receipt? That seems even less worthwhile than a regular receipt, and those don’t even make it out of the store before getting thrown away. Also, the word “fungible” seems gross for some reason. Keep it away from me.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I would love to create something that’s unique to me and scratches a very particular itch for both myself and my audience. I don’t need to write something “important” or “artistic,” whatever that means. Just something that occupies a weird little space in your mind that you find yourself coming back to by nature of being oddly cozy. One of the biggest examples of this for me growing up was the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete. It has such a unique tone, and world building, and characters. I had never seen anything like it growing up, and haven’t really found something that hits the same way since. Another example is the animated series Over the Garden Wall. Everything about it is perfect, and is a must-watch Halloween show. Go check it out.

Both of these examples are absolutely nothing like the kind of thing I usually write, but I’m taking steps to rectify this.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blainechiappetta/
• Other: IMDB:

  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5526583/?ref_=fn_all_nme_1