Study in Uruguay. Manage. Manage again. Travel. Study more. Take the plunge. Do internships. Join Amazon.
That could serve as a summary of David Blankleider’s résumé. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication with a focus on Audiovisual Media and currently works at Amazon Studios as the Original Series Development Coordinator for Latin America at the company’s Los Angeles offices.
The Path
Blankleider graduated in 2011. Prior to that, he won the ORT Digital competition and directed *El día de la familia*(* Family Day*), which features Juan, a six-year-old boy who doesn’t understand why it doesn’t snow at Christmas in Uruguay. The short film, released in 2012, won multiple awards: it was named the most innovative film at the Golden Panda Awards in China, and Direct TV acquired it for international distribution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Xn4NmCm0E
Next came *Cubiertos de plata*, which was selected as a debut feature film in the Film Promotion Fund’s call for submissions for being “a sharp and personal account of the relationships within a family that struggles to communicate.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBPQjD4ozAQ
While he continued to write and brainstorm new projects—and worked in advertising, mostly in production—he decided to move to the United States. He arrived in Los Angeles in late 2012 and earned a certificate in Film and Television Directing from UCLA. For his final project, he directed the short film *The Cards*, which screened at festivals and won several international awards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGPWcu3fymM
“Once I graduated, my plan was to stay, so I had to find a job. The first thing I did—which helped me understand the industry—was to do a couple of internships,” he said. He worked at Latin WE, the company owned by actress and businesswoman Sofía Vergara, and later at Valhalla Entertainment, the production company behind shows like *The Walking Dead*, among others .
Internships were really helpful to me because that's where you learn how the industry works, who the key players are, and who does what.
His job in the Development Department basically involved reading scripts and summarizing them on a single page so that executives could get a quick idea of what they were about.
After his internships, he landed a job as an associate producer at a production company that specialized in commercials—something he had done frequently in Uruguay. While working there, he received an email from an Amazon recruiter asking if he’d be interested in interviewing for a position on the team developing original TV series for Latin America. He said yes and began the hiring process: about three or four phone interviews, various tasks and tests, and finally, spending a day at Amazon’s offices for more than five or six hours interviewing with half a dozen people. Ultimately, he started working at the company in February.
The Work
Blankleider joined an existing team that was still very new. “Amazon Studios didn’t start that long ago—about five years—and the international department has really taken off in the last two years,” he said. His direct supervisor, for example, has been with the company for 10 months.
The daily routine involves receiving pitches from writers and/or producers and evaluating the proposals: they decide whether they align with the type of content they are seeking for the Latin American audience. Once they decide to “greenlight” a project, it enters the development phase: they provide feedback on the story and characters and oversee all creative aspects. The goal is to achieve “the best possible result, the best possible series.”
I’m still getting a handle on how things work here. Basically, I’m constantly reading and evaluating proposals—especially in terms of the story and the characters—to see if they’re strong and if they align with what we, as a studio, want to do, or if they’re too similar to projects we already have in development. When we decide to make a series, we have to be involved throughout the entire process—basically providing feedback on the scripts—and then, once production begins, offering feedback on the execution. That’s how the industry works here; perhaps that’s the biggest difference compared to Uruguay—there’s a more industrialized system for how things are done: the entertainment industry.
Regarding the role of Amazon Studios, he pointed out that, on the one hand, there is the creative team—the writer(s) or producer(s) who create the series—and, on the other, the production company backing the project. At the same time, there is the studio—where Blankleider works—"which has a say in the format, quality standards, and creative direction of the project."
Expectations
“Did I ever imagine that? No, not really.”
Although she had always applied for positions at Warner Bros. and FOX, among other studios and production companies. “The truth is, I had never applied to Amazon; I’d heard how difficult the interview process was and how hard it is to get in, so I never actually applied,” she said.
In fact, he said he thinks he applied for a position at IMDb—which is also an Amazon company—and that, he assumes, is why they contacted him.
Honestly, to this day I don’t know how they found me or why they sent me that email offering me an interview. I think I was very lucky in the sense that, as a Latin American, I speak the language fluently and am familiar with the culture; at the same time, over the years I’ve learned how the industry works here, so I guess I combined two qualities that might not be so easy to find in a single candidate.
When asked about the future, he said he daydreams “about all sorts of things,” but right now he’s focused “on the day-to-day.” “I’m sure I’ll direct again someday—whether it’s a short film or something else—you never know what life has in store, and that’s something I love. But for now, my focus is on doing my job as well as I can.”
I would tell students that if you really put in the effort, you can achieve anything. There’s a saying here that goes: this isn’t asprint; it’s a marathon. You have to put a lot, a lot, a lot of heart into it. I put many hours of work into this; I used to work Monday through Friday, and the weekends were for writing my own projects, applying for jobs, or trying to improve the skills I lacked for the positions I was aiming for. I’m neither the first to arrive nor the last to join a company like Amazon.