This post was updated Aug. 6 at 6:09 p.m.

George Monday and Gunal Nepoleon are shooting their shot in film.

The two alumni dove into their filmmaking endeavor during their third year of college, pioneering the YouTube channel Jilted Generation. As his father works in the film industry, Nepoleon said he was exposed to the art of cinema at a young age. Monday also harbored a childhood appreciation for movies, often exploring the arthouse scene beyond run-of-the-mill cinema, he said. Monday and Nepoleon connected while roommates in college, Monday said, bonding over the considerable role of film in their lives and the shared memories the art evoked. Thus, they decided to channel this passion into their own filmmaking, collaborating on three pieces of work over the past year, Monday added.

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“We’re outcasts ourselves – we didn’t really enjoy the typical parties and stuff,” Monday said. “Our idea of fun was going to New Beverly Cinema on Melrose. So, (we said) we’re so passionate about this, and we love it, and … this is the only time in our lives you can really jump wholeheartedly and do it, why not just try it? And that’s what we did.”

As film buffs, the duo was heavily influenced by classic movies such as “Five Easy Pieces,” as well as Russian films, Monday said. Additionally, he said the exposure to texts in his philosophy minor shone through in certain humane themes and dialogue within their own projects. Nepoleon’s familiarity with the behind-the-scenes work made him suitable to hone in on the directing and filming, Nepoleon said, while Monday took on script writing and acting. Despite these larger distinctions, their roles adopted a fluid structure, with each film inspiring a different focus for each person, Napoleon said.

Nepoleon said he prefers film to the one-dimensional nature of other art forms since it is a harmony of the senses – photography, videography and music blend together to form a cohesive product. When vision and sound meet in a dark room, it creates a full-bodied, profound experience of film that is rarely achieved by much else, he added.

Furthermore, Monday said the accessibility of this artistic avenue to reach a larger audience made it the ideal medium for the two to express their messages. Arturo Gomez, fellow alumnus and friend who aided in acting and filming, said his love for cinema has grown proportionately with the time he’s spent with the duo.

Beyond the friends’ passion for monumental film, Nepoleon said their fundamental hope to be different and stand out in the endless sea of film propelled them to produce eclectic pieces of work. Their drive to produce films that they would enjoy watching enabled them to push the limits of cinema, Monday said, which manifested in the short films “Meathead” and “A Girl is a Gun” and a music video for affengriffon’s “I Just Wanna See You.” Their channel’s name, Jilted Generation, lends itself to this goal, Nepoleon added. Originating from the English grunge group “The Prodigy,” the name comments on the subdued and monotonous nature of the current generation that Nepoleon said the duo’s films are striving to break through.

“I feel like, especially our generation, we don’t have a certain grasp on what our future is,” Nepoleon said. “A lot of us are really jaded, and there’s not much appreciation for variety, … so we just wanted to take that name and carry it on to our work, which is very eclectic and weird and not what you would see every day.”

The pair’s first short film, “Meathead,” followed the trajectory of an antihero tragedy, Monday said. Being outcasts throughout their lives, Monday said he and Nepoleon wielded the feeling of being left out to convey the loneliness of the world in the project. Though this was their first venture into cinema, Nepoleon said their in-sync energy and seamless, nearly one-minded communication during the film’s composition made it their favorite body of work. By exploring high-contrast black-and-white formats to guide the visuals, they dabbled in unusual cinematic tools that added to the joy of creating the film, he said.

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“A Girl is a Gun,” a shorter film that they submitted for the UCLA Campus Events Commission’s Shorttakes Competition, portrays a social critique of the pressures of the future. Describing the psychological dilemma of choosing a career path, either getting stuck on the corporate track or pursuing an artistically-inclined life, the film follows the conversation between these dialectically opposed futures, Monday said.

Relating to the challenge, Monday said he and Gomez have chosen to go down the corporate route after their recent graduation, while Nepoleon will likely invest in the creative life of an artist and continue his filmmaking journey. Yet, Gomez added that the creative experience of working with the duo is unlike anything he has been a part of, and he hopes to retain this pursuit as a portion of his life. Nepoleon said the friends’ struggles to determine a path of their own enabled the film’s creation process to resonate strongly.

“We’re both obsessed with a big finality, (and) ‘Girl is a Gun’ is about leaving college, and what’s next?” Nepoleon said. “Since we’re both in that headspace, I think it came pretty easy.”

Reflecting on their filmmaking journey, Nepoleon said the duo’s goal was to bring back risk and wackiness to the film industry. However, he said their aim now is to produce films that fellow cinephiles can enjoy and seek out. Through their eclectic style and easter-egg references to classic movies, they hope to find an artistic home in people who are just like them, Nepoleon said. Their rebellious college selves wished to shy away from mass appeal to protect the credibility and authenticity of their film’s messages, a mindset they now would modify to expand their audience, Monday said. However, Napoleon said the desire to be daringly different in the face of the predictability of modern cinema shines through in their work thus far and in the films to come.

“I hope they (the audience) think to themselves, ‘Oh, cinema is not dead. Outside-the-box thinking is not dead,’” Nepoleon said. “That was our goal. It wasn’t to be a masterpiece or anything because we’re young kids – we don’t understand life. But it’s just to be bold.”