Mariah Chappell '12 Shapes her Own Story
By Rita Deurdulian
Mariah Chappell isn’t just in the tv and film industry – she is in it. From very early on, she dabbled in all facets of moving a story from ideation to the big, small, and handheld screens until she arrived at her current role at Story Force – where her experience in a wide array of entertainment industry roles is helping to bring real stories to life.
Mariah credits her senior project at Potomac with fueling her early interest in film. She says, “I enjoyed my photography classes and wanted to see if I could put photos together to create a stop-motion film. As I worked on that, I found myself thinking, ‘This is really interesting. Maybe I’ll take some film classes when I go to Santa Clara University next year.’” And so she did.
But it was during an internship in her junior and senior years of college where Mariah really felt the spark. She worked for her current boss Blye Faust’s previous company Rocklin/Faust – the production company and producer behind Spotlight, which was awarded Best Motion Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 2016 Academy Awards. Excited by that experience, Mariah decided to move to L.A. and immerse herself in the industry. She recalls, “Being from Virginia, I felt like L.A. was a world away. I didn’t know anyone who was doing what I did, let alone making this kind of big move.”
From there, Mariah took a circuitous career path, “trying on a lot of hats” – and she is now grateful for those diverse experiences. She became Faust’s assistant, while also working two other jobs as the personal assistant for television executives. She recalls, “I remember this one day going to pick up my boss’s Emmy Awards dress, then having to stop on the side of the road to answer a couple dozen emails for another job. I spent all my time running around L.A. as both a personal and a professional assistant. It was fun, but I eventually realized that I needed an office, coworkers, and more structure.”
She began working as a showrunners’ assistant on season two of the NBCUniversal dance competition series World of Dance, executive produced and judged by Jennifer Lopez. “It was the most glamorous, or seemingly glamorous, job I ever had,” she laughs. While seeing JLo and Derek Hough each day was fun, Mariah knew she didn’t just want to work on physical production. She always saw herself doing something in the scripted space, telling true stories.
The scripted television department of the talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in L.A. was her next stop. Her department represented screenwriters, directors, and production companies, and Mariah had the opportunity to work as assistant to one of the agents. She is confident that this experience opened doors for her; from there, she moved to New York and worked in the book-to-film industry at New Leaf Literary & Media. Mariah says, “That job felt more like I was in the management space, with potential to really contribute to some projects. I had been there for a year, and then the pandemic hit and the industry really slowed down. So I moved back home to McLean to kind of regroup. Fortunately, Blye reached out to me again in December 2020, offering me a research position at her new company, Story Force. I felt like I was in a perpetual assistant role for a while there, but those early jobs got me to where I am today.”
Now, as Story Force’s director of development, Mariah oversees their slate of scripted and unscripted projects and runs the company’s internship program. She says, “I work with students who aspire to be in the tv and film industry. I tell them that many avenues are open to them, and they should jump in with both feet and see where the experience takes them. But I also say, ‘Always be aware of your North Star. Where do your talents and passions lie? What is it that you would ultimately like to do?’ Of course, it’s OK if they don’t know that yet. There are plenty of opportunities to discover your way forward in this Industry.”
For a brief moment before that December 2020 offer from Story Force, Mariah found herself pausing to assess her own path. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, she had booked travel plans for that time frame, which ultimately were postponed. She resigned from her job in New York, moved home to McLean, and in addition to trying out bread baking like so many others, took a job with the Office of Elections in Fairfax County. Mariah says, “It was an electric environment, being a part of the 2020 election, knowing you were in the ballot rooms. I thought maybe I should consider a 9-to-5 kind of job in government.” But then her old boss pulled her back in.
Mariah is grateful that Faust felt she had earned a spot in the documentary space at Story Force. She says, “I’ve always gravitated toward true stories, even from my initial internship. I found a love for documentaries and working with the subjects. Now, I enjoy the process of making a documentary more than working on a scripted project.”
One of the most notable docuseries she worked on was Amazon Prime’s Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, which centers on the Duggar family, best known for a series of reality TV shows based around their lives. The series probes the headline-making scandals that have surrounded the family and the cult-like religious group they promoted, the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Mariah recounts, “The project came to us from a production company called Chick Entertainment. We knew this was a really important story that went beyond the TLC reality show stuff, so we brought it to some partners that we worked with on another docuseries, LulaRich.”
She recalls helping to build the pitch materials they brought to their meeting with Amazon. “They decided they wanted to work with us on this, and it was pretty much off to the races from there,” reflects Mariah, who served as associate producer for the series. She likens the role to a jack-of-all-trades doing whatever is needed, from giving notes on episode cuts to offering feedback, shepherding the story, and generally supporting the editing process.
And then comes the marketing blitz. Mariah says the project team was blown away by the response to the documentary. She observes, “It resonated with so many people. It’s a story for people who grew up thinking the world was a certain way and now may be facing the fact that some of those assumptions aren’t entirely correct.”
Reflecting on what keeps her inspired, given the intense themes behind many of the projects she has worked on, Mariah says it’s the opportunity to contribute to productions that have a social impact: “Knowing that our work could potentially do some good in the world, or open people's eyes to something that they didn't know, or help people – that definitely keeps me inspired to continue on, even when it gets a bit hard.” She continues, “You’re on calls all day, just hearing really horrible things that have happened to people and knowing that in the end, we need to do our jobs so that things can change. Keeping that central to what keeps you going feels really powerful.”
Clearly, Mariah has found her own North Star.
Get to know Mariah
Currently reading: Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
Favorite Podcast: ABC News Podcast The Dropout
Work she’s most proud of: Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets
Would Like to Try: Masseria (restaurant in DC's Union Market)