20th Century Faux

What happens when you want to make a movie and Hollywood won’t give you the money? After being told NO one too many times, filmmakers Jake Bradbury and Will Blank recruited a few friends to conceive and shoot a short film in just one day. And then they did that 16 times, creating a compelling series of shorts on modern life and relationships - each shot in one day with almost no budget. The audacious project caught the attention of IndieWire, Filmmaker Magazine, and No Film School as the epitome of indie filmmaking at its purest. Stick around after each episode for a postmortem podcast where the friends, all working professionals in the film industry, talk shop about making movie magic on a not so magical budget. Jake and Will moved to Los Angeles with the dream of making feature films. After years of making award-winning shorts and working on other people's projects, they found that the time, money, and resources to produce a feature film simply priced them out. So they took matters into their own hands. They planned to develop - and execute - 16 short films that could be conceptualized, written, and shot in a single day (one short per day), working with friends and using whatever resources were available. The result is a project unlike any other. 20th Century Faux is a series of surprisingly empathetic, funny, and sometimes absurdist takes by and about millennials. Several distinct themes can be seen throughout the body of work: for example, the experience of living in an era of dislocated hyper-modernity and the endless self-help channels and techniques designed to combat the isolation of living through screens. In the films of 20th Century Faux, everything and everyone is a bit sad and desperate… so you might as well laugh at it. Others present more light-hearted takes on the daily grind, searching for love and self-knowledge. Sex is explored in... surprising ways. The idea of escape is seen in the forms of drugs, VR, and quality time spent with oneself in nature. Blank, Bradbury, and co. explore these “heavy” topics with a light, funny, and ultimately empathetic take on the millennial experience. Will Blank is a director best known for his work with Academy Award Nominee Sam Elliott and Independent Spirit Award Nominee Raul Castillo on "Limbo," earning fans the likes of Guillermo del Toro, who described it as an “excellent” short film. After a successful run of the largest genre film festivals in North America, "Limbo" won the prestigious 2017 CineGear Expo Grand Prize for BEST INDEPENDENT SHORT. As an editor and assistant editor, Blank has also worked on hit TV shows, such as "Preacher" (AMC), "Sneaky Pete" (Amazon), "Counterpart" (Starz),and the upcoming Spielberg-helmed reboot of "Amazing Stories" (Apple). Jake Bradbury is a director and producer who has recently worked with Netflix, Maxim, and CBS as a Senior Content Producer. Bradbury has received numerous awards for his short films, including BEST THRILLER for "Darknet" from the IFS film festival, and BEST HORROR FILM RENTAL from the Las Vegas Movie Awards. Bradbury has also directed over fifty short films, which have amassed more than 6.1 million views on Youtube.