Who/What/Why is Blake Sherwyn?

Great question: I am. Below is a a little speed run about my journey, what makes me tick, and my plans for the future. Feel free to throw on the track “Quantum Physics” from Oppenheimer (2023) while you listen if you feel so inclined.

I was forged in the fires of Greenwich, CT where I excelled in rec league high school sports (I did not make the high school baseball team but would have made it to the league if I didn’t blow out my throwing arm).

At the age of 17, I did what all the other Fairfield County kids do and started school at Bucknell University, where I would partake in the most rigorous and emotionally taxing major, Sociology. Five short years later, despite a pair of Level-10 Matrix Attacks (debauchery-induced suspensions), I defied the odds, graduating just 2.3 grade points short of Magna Cum Lade.

From there, I leveraged my network (my Dad’s boy), to land a job at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a talent agency. I knew I wanted to make movies but I had no idea how or what went into that process. About 7 months in, the pandemic hit, we were put on furlough, and my career seemed to screech to a halt before it could ever get started. Little did I know, that’s where it would really began…

For most, the pandemic served as a prison sentence; a time to sit in your home waiting for big brother to allow you to live again. For me… well, I had never felt more free. I utilized this time to work on my scripts as much as humanly possible, “focus on myself”, and even get in some travel. It was exhilarating, I felt like a renegade (hey, that’s the name of the company!).

A full year and a half later, the party was over and it was time to return to the office. I spent the next year working a highly coveted job at William Morris as TV Scripted Assistant (think Lloyd from Entourage) where it slowly and painfully became abundantly clear to me that it was time to make some serious changes.

Each reason I had for leaving WME played off of the other, creating a calling that was impossible to ignore. Please find the reasons for my resignation below:

1. The taste of freedom during the pandemic was exhilarating; I had learned to optimize my time, work on deep and meaningful work, and became the version of myself that I had been searching for for years. Going back to a desk job felt like a regression in my development and I yearned for those better days.

2. At WME, I was given front row seat to how the Film/TV sausage was made and it was rather… disheartening; I witnessed titans of the industry time and time again have their scripts rejected by networks or shelved for a rainy day that would never come. If these guys were having trouble, I was absolutely screwed.

3. If the movies I had grown up on - The Hangover, Superbad, 21 Jump Street, etc - had not already fallen out of fashion, the pandemic marked a culture shift in America that would further bury them, making them relics of a more light-hearted and less regulated past. Someone had to bring this genre back, why not me?

With a clear vision for how I wanted to live at my life and the way I wanted to impact the world working in tandem, I put in my 2 weeks and walked away from corporate America. For good. I was officially unemployed self-employed.

I didn’t know exactly how I would do it, but I knew that I wanted to make movies with as little regulation as possible and it soon became clear that there was one clear answer: independent filmmaking.

I spent the next few months learning anything and everything there is to know about the space, putting myself through The Blake Sherwyn School of Film, which consisted of the following:

1. A proof of concept trailer. This was really a “run before you can walk type experience; three 15 hour days, 11 locations (most of them stolen), over 10 speaking roles, and a 2 month long edit. It was also maybe the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.

   

   A fake porno, the first thing I’ve ever shot. Poetry in motion.

2. A 25min short film (still being edited)

3. Over 100 hours of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast (highly recommend for anyone in the space in any capacity)

4. At least 1 all-nighter a week writing

5. 1 industry-specific book a month

Note: The Blake Sherwyn School of film is not an accredited university and is not recognized by the CHEA or US Department of Education.

The more I learned about the industry and the way it has changed and evolved over the years, the more it became clear that making films was simply not enough; you have to become a brand, at least if you want to achieve the levels of success that I aspire to.

Armed with this knowledge, it was time to put together my plan of attack, which you have become a part of simply by reading this, bringing us to where we are today:

1. Create a brand ✅ . The Unreal Renegade is the umbrella in which my aspirations fall under, which include everything listed below.

   Note: I am not calling myself “The Unreal Renegade” as that would be a little bit unbearable; I one day hope to bring in like-minded people and work together as a unit, a machine.

    

   

   Shot from my time living in Arizona during the pandemic / inspiration for this working logo.

2. Build an audience, which I am doing via The Unreal Renegade instagram page and newsletter. The newsletter aka The Unreal Weekly Roundup, a weekly publication that seeks to provide on-brand value to its readers, while keeping them up to date on my endeavors. (If I could not share it shamelessly on Linkedin, I wouldn’t, but hey, everybody’s gotta start somewhere). The rest of the Renegade is a work in progress that contains articles, previews of the newsletter, behind the scenes footage, and more. A podcast and more short form content is in store so stay tuned for that.

3. Build a portfolio. My first short-film was something of a trial run, but expect new titles to be added to The Unreal Renegade instagram page in the coming months.

4. Shoot my first feature (ie a full-length movie). Inspired by the both the micro-budget indie movement of the 90’s (Clerks, Mariachi, Slacker) + the mumblecore movement of the early 2000’s (Puffy Chair), my first feature - This Station Is: Chatham - will be a low stakes, no-budget exercise on story-telling. I am going to be putting everything I have into my first “real” feature (both time and monetarily), so a trial run absolutely can and will not hurt. Production for Chatham is targeted to start April of 2024.

5. Shoot my first “real” feature. I am still undecided on which title I will be making, but I know I will be putting together my first big project in August of 2024. This is what I hope jump-starts my career and validates the last 2 years of hard work. The frontrunner is Help Me I’m Stuck!, the script I made the proof of concept trailer for.

Well, that’s all I got for you, folks. Thank you so much for reading and being a part of this journey. If you have read to the end, chances are you are the reason why I am doing all of this, and I mean that sincerely. Can’t wait to see what the future has in store, and I am excited for you to be a part of it. See you on the field *salutes*