Deep Fake
A comedy-drama about
an Israeli startup
Creator: Yuval Niv
Screenplay: Eran B.Y. and Yuval Niv
Director: Dror Shaul
* Casting photos are for reference only.
General description
A successful Israeli high-tech angel tries to rehabilitate his image with a life-saving social startup - but soon discovers that the new venture is turning into a monster. So he is forced to choose between integrity, freedom, and the thing he holds most dear: his name.
Jonathan Oron, (Johnny), 49, a successful Israeli high-tech angel with a (seemingly) perfect family life - is in his best place. But - an article in The Marker shatters his public image and throws his life into turmoil.
The headlines crown him as "The Casino Angel of Death," who made his fortune from the misery of innocent people, who lost all their possessions to his gambling ventures (and no, the fact that his book is called "How to Turn Users into Addicts" doesn't help).
Johnny sets out to clear his name, proving to the world (and primarily to investors) that he is an ethical and good person. To achieve this, he establishes a beautiful and righteous startup and recruits an equally beautiful and righteous team: a female CEO, an Arab technologist, and a Black senior manager. Just like the beginning of a successful joke from the 90s. And the joke, sorry, the company doesn't really have a business model, but hey, you can't have everything perfect.
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Johnny, despite being a sigma male, elitist, and privileged, needs to work very hard - to fake it till he makes it - with his new startup and fix the massive reputational and financial damage caused by the article while dealing with the threat of arrest and trial.
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Of course, the good startup he set out with ("Our goal is to save suicidal teenagers") turns out to be a security gold mine and becomes a tool for exposing terrorist operatives, regime opponents, Arabs, and foreigners (though not necessarily in that order).
Johnny begins the season as an ethical man satisfied with his life. He believes in "internal success" and "doing things out of passion." He thinks the journey is more important than the results and all that.
But during the season, he learns that to win, passion isn’t enough. You also need to work hard, be committed to the end - and also fake it, inflate it, step on family and friends, and betray everything dear to you, because internal success isn't visible.
Series Tone &
Visual Style
Deep-faking , as it is called, deals first and foremost with forgery. In the gap between the visible and the naked and bitter truth, if such still exists in our world.
Just as the reason for establishing the startup is cynical, so too will be the place the venture reaches by exploiting it for the security industry. Of course, in the middle, there will be full of good intentions, both from Johnny and from others (Lia initiated the technology to help suicidal girls in need, because her younger sister committed suicide, or at least that's the official version).
The visual style of the series corresponds with this theme. It's influenced by the high-tech fundraising world, a world of bombastic presentations. Each time a new character is introduced, they will be presented with fanfare and flourish, as a dazzling success story, in a stylized graphic segment like an over-the-top high-tech presentation.
But behind the prestigious image presented by high-tech stars awaits an endless race, full of malfunctions, tasks, errands, administration, anxieties, addictions, and concealments. A journey where there's always a new milestone, and one can never reach contentment, let alone happiness. One must always ensure the balloon keeps growing bigger without bursting.
Each episode will begin with a childhood scene of one of the heroes, shedding light on their character and the emotional foundations of their personality. The basic assumption is that our choice of identities (or those forced upon us) determines our decision-making and dreams, rather than something more internal.
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Deep Fake is a dark comedy full of passion that isn't afraid to show edgy and funny things in an absurd world. Alongside tension and drama - reality closing in on Johnny - we'll encounter comedic situations, bizarre investors, unbelievable embarrassments, and a young, vibrant, medicated, and horny office atmosphere. All these moments are based on the creator's real-life experience. The series contains bizarre yet completely authentic scenes (the sanitary pads in the armpit? A true and scarring story).
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Additionally, we intend to incorporate the central product they're developing into the series. The technology, which claims to expose "real emotions," will appear on screen while the characters aren't always aware of their concealment and deception mechanisms. This way, we'll glimpse how technology understands the people around it, creating a unique and original block that will stylize the series graphically.
"Technology has a frontend and a backend. What you can see and the engine behind it. And as in humans, the interface does not necessarily say anything about its technology."