Inside the Magic: How James Cameron and Disney Are Revolutionizing Animation—Secrets Revealed by Pietro Schito
So, now let’s get into the main segment. Today, I am interviewing animation writer and producer Pietro Schieto. Here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome Pietro to the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Pietro Schito
Thank you. I’m glad to be here.
Ashley
So, to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up and how did you get interested in the entertainment business?
Pietro Schito
So, I grew up in Milan, Italy, a large Italian family. And since it was a little kid, I would basically spend all my afternoons creating movies with my camera or drawing one of the few Italians that doesn’t like soccer. So, my friends will be out playing and be inside drawing and a couple of encounters that I had with the animation industry really shaped and a possibility for me to work in what I think it’s the best, you know, art in the world, of course, it’s a subjective biased judgment. But I really loved, you know, from the first film I watched in the movie theater, which was The Little Mermaid, to then meeting a couple of Disney animators on a train from Milan to Rome. And I was mesmerized by the beauty of the trade and the fact that they were drawing, they gave me a gift as a kid. And I kept, you know, creating these stories by myself with my brothers and friends with an old handicap that my parents got as a gift. And, but I didn’t have any idea about any of the storytelling and narrative structures and principles that we can learn from up until college when a Disney screenwriter came to give a hands-on workshop. And this guy was amazing. And he ended up being the was his title was, I think, head of like a big name in Disney Plus, like, it’s just, I don’t remember exactly right now. But he moved to the States and worked at Disney for more than 20 years. But he really gifted me this idea of narrative principles, not rules, but principles that can really help you. So, I immediately thought about all those dozens of silly things that I used to create by myself with the camera, and suddenly understanding that, you know, if I had those principles in mind from the beginning, I could have done so much more, not as a regret, but as a, you know, something that basically opened up the world of narrative. And that’s the last job in the world. I mean, you bring these characters to life. And that’s how we got into screenwriting more professionally. And then and to animation, then I moved to LA to study at the New York Film Academy. And then I’m now in Mexico. And where I connected with the stop motion community that’s been fostered by Guillermo del Toro in a local studio here, and other stuff. But that’s kind of like the gist of how the passion started.
