Director Sharp stays true to her indie film roots

Bridgit Brown

Jennifer Sharp, director of “I’m Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks),” knew she wanted to be an actress at a very early age, so after graduating from high school, she studied acting at New York University.

But once out of college, the dreadful reality hit her — she was neither “Halle Berry beautiful” nor the “ghetto girlfriend” type that most producers were looking for.

Though daunting, this realization about Hollywood helped Sharp transition her career into what turned out to be the right direction.

“I started writing my own scripts for my own parts,” explained Sharp. “Then I started directing them, and realized really soon that I loved directing more than acting, and that I was much better at it.”

In 2004, with one short film under her belt, Sharp began working on “Boxed,” her second short film. Having no money to finance the project, she launched an ambitious fundraising campaign that included getting 2,000 people to give her $10 apiece. Over a period of a year and a half, she was able to raise $18,000 to help finance “Boxed.”

“There’s a million ways to raise money,” she said.

Sharp’s fundraising inspiration came from filmmaking brothers Ethan and Joel Coen, the Minnesota masterminds behind such critically acclaimed fare as “Raising Arizona,” “Fargo” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

“They raised the money for their first movie, ‘Blood Simple,’ by going around to rich neighborhoods in Minneapolis and giving presentations and asking for a minimum investment of $10,000. I actually know someone who went in there,” said Sharp. “She and her neighbor both put $5,000 each in. They were excited because they were making a non-risk investment. ‘Blood Simple’ ended up blowing up, and the Coen brothers are now huge.”

Another critical element, Sharp explained, is figuring out the budget of the film. Since “Boxed” was short, she had to be mindful of the fact that she would be asking people to donate without getting their money back. So she decided that she wanted a budget between $20,000 and $50,000, and that it would take asking a lot of people for small amounts of money.

“The key is to have a really specific plan, and it has to be thorough, and it has to be well laid out and it should look professional,” she said.

And it doesn’t hurt to have a lot of friends.

“I went through everybody that I ever met in my whole life. I made a list of everybody that I could remember, and I tried to research and find them. This included my best friend from kindergarten. I remembered the name of the street she lived on,” said Sharp. “I went through the phone book and I found her parents, still at the same address. I contacted the friends of my sister and brother; my aunt; any doctor that I had, any teacher that I ever had; my gynecologist from New Jersey.”

On top of that, Sharp also mailed 5,000 postcards of herself as a homeless person, with video in hand, on the streets of New York City.

“On the back of the postcard, there was a link to a Web site [with all the information], and I was very thorough about my plan, the amount of money I needed, and I had clips of my work,” she said. “I made sure that people could see where their money was going. I really made it professional, and that was the key.”

Producer Lia Johnson brought Sharp in on “I’m Through with White Girls” after seeing “Boxed.” Sharp says working with Johnson, who also plays Catherine in the film, was great because Johnson gave her the freedom to do what she wanted.

In fact, Sharp’s signature scene comes halfway through the film, when Jay (Anthony Montgomery) and Catherine are standing outside of a nightclub locked in an embrace. They look around and begin to prejudge the people around them — only to find that they were so wrong in their judgment.

“The original script had them outside judging people, and they were always right,” said Sharp. “So it was like you were watching them judge people. I was thinking, ‘What’s the point of that?’ Because isn’t there supposed to be an underlying theme that they are different and they’re on the outsides of their society? So why would they be judging people?

“I thought the only way to have that scene is if we turned it around and made it more relevant to the theme of the movie.”

Sharp stressed that prospective filmmakers should make sure that they get a director’s cut of the film they made. A director’s cut is basically the final cut of the film after it has gone through the editing and the post-production process, but before the producers get their hands on it.

“I didn’t understand the concept of a director’s cut and getting a contract, but from now on I will make sure that I get a director’s cut because you can put so much of your heart and soul into a project and then in the end, it’s not quite what you were expecting and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Sharp.

Sharp says her next script, “Native Honkies,” deals with race issues. The script has been accepted into the New York Independent Film Project market, one of the biggest marketplaces for independent film scripts.

She hopes to come out of the market with some production deals that will allow her to shoot the film next summer.