Growing up between the leafy streets of Mosman Park and the sun-soaked suburbs of California, Jordana Ripp always felt pulled toward two worlds.
One was grounded and familiar; the other shimmered with possibility.
Long before stepping onto a Hollywood red carpet event or working behind the scenes at the Oscars, Curtin marketing graduate Jordana Ripp remembers discovering a love for movies.
Sitting cross-legged on the living room floor at the family’s California home, Jordana was blown away by a VHS copy of The Little Mermaid.
“We had just moved into our new house in California, and Dad brought home the tape, which had just come out, and I watched it so many times,” she said.
“I was completely enthralled by the film, and it opened up this whole new world of possibility for me.”
For many children, that kind of magic fades with age. But for Jordana, it stayed.
Back home in Perth – one of the world’s most isolated cities in the world – and a long way from Hollywood Boulevard, Jordana held onto the dream of one day working in the entertainment industry.
Determined to turn that dream into reality, Jordana enrolled at Curtin University, where she studied communications and marketing, blending her love of storytelling with her fascination for film, fashion and pop culture.
But like many graduates, the path ahead wasn’t instantly clear.
Following graduation, she worked briefly at her father’s construction company.
“The building industry wasn’t on my vision board, but there wasn’t really any outlet for the opportunities I was interested in,” she said.
“As the saying goes, if opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door – so I built a door and started Perth Style.”
What started as a side hustle soon became one of Perth’s premier local fashion blogs, covering fashion in film, reviews and photoshoots.
Jordana would go on to cover Perth events, new store openings, and rub shoulders with up-and-coming designers in WA.
Before long, those small local assignments grew into opportunities to cover Australian Fashion Week, collaborate with global beauty brands and attend New York Fashion Week.
Fifteen years later, that once-humble side hustle evolved into Unscrippted Creative -Jordana’s thriving digital marketing consultancy where she works with some of the world’s biggest entertainment brands.
Today, Jordanna has helped creators with a combined following of more than 26 million people and worked with powerhouse names including Sony Pictures, Netflix, Universal Pictures, NASA and L’Oréal.
But getting there required a leap of faith.
Leaving Perth to move to Los Angeles was both exciting and terrifying.
“I gave myself about six months to find a job,” she said.
Five months later, she landed a role at Sony Pictures.
For the girl who once dreamed of Hollywood from her living room in Perth, it felt surreal.
“My very first film premiere was The Equalizer with Denzel Washington,” she said.
“Standing on the red carpet on Hollywood Boulevard was such a dream come true.”
Over the next decade, Jordana built a career inside one of the world’s most competitive industries, working her way from Coordinator of People and Organisation to Digital Marketing Executive at Sony Pictures.
But beyond the glamour, Hollywood taught her resilience.
“Working in marketing taught me not to take rejection personally,” she said.
“I just tried to push boundaries as much as I could.”
That persistence eventually led her to one of the biggest moments of her career -working on the 2024 Oscars.
For someone who grew up watching award shows from the other side of the world, the experience was almost impossible to comprehend.
Yet behind the glitz, gowns and flashing cameras, Jordana discovered something surprisingly grounding.
“When you’re behind the scenes, you realise that the people running these events are just incredibly hard-working humans,” she said.
“It reminds you that even the biggest dreams are built by ordinary people who simply kept going.”
Despite everything she has achieved, Jordana says the most important lesson she has learned is not to fear failure.
“The biggest lesson I’ve learnt is to see failure as a necessary part of becoming successful,” she said.
“It’s not the end of the world if a door shuts. If you have the drive, you’ll always find another way through.”
Jordana Ripp, Head of Digital Marketing and Talent at Unscrippted Creative
Graduating from Curtin with a master’s in marketing (2011), Jordana is a passionate digital marketing and entertainment professional with more than 13 years of experience. Growing up in Perth for most of her life, Jordana decided to take a leap of faith and move to LA to pursue a career in entertainment marketing. Since moving, she has managed to work with global brands including Sony Pictures Television, Netflix, NASA, the 2024 Oscars, L’Oreal and Universal Pictures, plus many more.
