About The Film

Impenetrable fortresses, SWAT trained security forces, the occasional piece of malfunctioning gear; it’s all in a day’s work for corporate thief Veronica Sharpe. But business turns anything but usual when she’s hired by her underworld boss Rory Dex to steal an exotic codebreaker from a high-security skyscraper.

After rallying with her mentor, a grizzled Russian named Karloff Bryce, a plan to breach the tower’s defenses is born. However, the one contingency Veronica could never anticipate is the strain the job will place on her morality and skill once she’s confronted with the dark reality of the codebreaker itself.

Set in a near-future world where corporations strangle the globe, RAZOR SHARP blends a surprising amount of humor with pulse-pounding action to create an experience that is truly criminal to miss.

A Hollywood film without the studio…

… This was the simple (and nearly impossible) mantra of a project that, in its origin, was born from the dedication of a group of action-addicted filmmakers. RAZOR SHARP is the result of an exhausting three-year period of scrounging for pennies, cutting deals, begging, borrowing and stealing resources, and getting more than a little lucky along the way. Despite its polish, millions were not spent to bring the film to life. In truth, it was closer to thousands. No one involved had any family working in the film industry, and the only ace-up-the-sleeve that RAZOR SHARP had was the passion of its architects.

The idea of attempting the film first crept up in the mind of writer/director Marcus Perry in the summer of 2003. Both Perry and a longtime friend, producer/editor Brian Pianko, had been anxious to get a project off the ground. But they wanted something that could push the boundaries of what was traditionally thought possible for low budget filmmaking, something that could deliver the same production value found in major motion pictures. To them, the answer was an action-adventure film.

Using favors amassed as an unemployed screenwriter hustling for work, Perry enlisted the help and guidance of several Hollywood production companies. As a result, he was paired with producer Alisa McCoy whose hands-on experience turned RAZOR SHARP into much more of a reality.

Ultimately made possible through fiscal sponsorship by the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco, Perry began fundraising in the winter of 2004. Concurrently, he and conceptual artist Jeff Henderson began what would become a year-and-a-half process of designing costumes and sets for the project’s demanding near-future needs. In addition, the film was storyboarded and compiled into a comprehensive graphic novel, focusing on its comic book tenets. Henderson proved a perfect fit for the challenge, utilizing his experience as a comic illustrator to capture the desired feel.

On the strength of this art compilation, the filmmakers were able to attract a host of talent, all willing to generously donate their time and energy. With free cameras and lenses courtesy of Panavision Cameras, and a handful of enormous sets built almost entirely out of styrofoam, production kicked off in Los Angeles during the summer of 2005. Original estimates suggested that a 20-day shoot would be tight for the film’s arduous needs. The reality became 9 days of full-throttle production, cranking through an average 40 camera set-ups during each. Helmed by award-winning director of photography Nelson Cragg, the set-up count rose closer to 60 when action scenes were the business of the day.

With principal photography complete, the film began an eight-month journey through post-production. The first stop was picture editorial, a daunting task considering what little budget had been raised for the short was spent on production. Fortunately, editor Brian Pianko was able to pool his resources and arrange nearly gratis post, including telecine of all film dailies, and a high-definition online of the completed short. Running in tandem with editorial were RAZOR SHARP’s mountainous visual effects, crafted by 3D animation and compositing veterans Tim Everitt and Aaron Kupferman. Together they produced 120 shots for the film’s 25 minute run time; approximately the same ratio of CG shots found in the first 20 minutes of Steven Spielberg’s WAR OF THE WORLDS.

With picture locked, sound designer Jamie Hardt was able to secure a 5.1 surround sound mix on one of the foremost stages in Los Angeles, all on the strength of favors. In addition, composer Christopher Brady recruited an army of fellow musicians to sound the trumpets of the film’s orchestral score.

The final brush stroke came in the form of colorist Santiago Padilla at R!OT in Santa Monica, California. Using a DaVinci digital color timing station, Padilla put the last polish on RAZOR SHARP’s uniquely futuristic look.

Says writer/director Marcus Perry about the production:

“RAZOR SHARP was an idea I started kicking around in college, but it really firmed up once ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ went off the air. I’m a huge geek for that show (as well as comic books) and with it gone there just wasn’t a role for women that I thought captured the same playful spirit. I felt like there was room for a strong woman with some real vulnerability and humanity. So that’s what I wanted to try and create with Veronica Sharpe. She’s not a bulletproof, one-dimensional ‘tough chick.’ She’s human, and she’s a little klutzy, and she gets in way over her head when it comes to her adventures. Sure, she wins in the end, but it’s definitely a bumpy ride.

What everyone on the team tried to accomplish with the short is what I call ‘Indiana Jones Syndrome.’ The thing I love about those movies is that Harrison Ford is clearly the right man for his job, but that doesn’t stop him from getting bruised and beaten up in the process, not to mention embarrassed. There’s something undeniably real about his performance. I think that’s one reason they’re so seminal as adventure films, because they’re fantastical while still being relatable. After all, most people lose as much as they win, if not more, and I think it’s really interesting to see that dynamic in adventure flicks. That hybrid is what we were after with RAZOR SHARP - and I’m not presumptuous enough to assume we succeeded. But that’s certainly the tone we were going for.

I also loved the idea of starting Veronica off as a villain - a thief - and putting her in a situation where her morality would be forced to bubble to the surface. She’s a reluctant hero, which to me makes her a lot more relatable. After all, the right thing and the easy thing are rarely the same, and I felt like people would be able to identify with her crisis of conscience.

The setting of the film also has a lot to do with her ambiguous morality. The entire world of RAZOR SHARP exists in the shadow of big business; a no-man’s-land where corporations have essentially overrun the world and are stabbing each other in the back as fast as they can to get a larger piece of the consumer pie. Their weapons of choice are corporate thieves - data grifters - and in this landscape, the craft has almost become respectable in a way. Which is why Veronica doesn’t see herself so much as a villain. In her mind, technology is always on the march, so by brokering information she’s just hurrying it along. In fact, that’s why she only steals secrets and not art or jewelry. By her own admission, she’s a thief and not a crook. Which makes the revelation that she’s been hired to kidnap a child all the more horrifying for her.

But in addition to the character stuff, there’s plenty of action too. I wanted to turn out a film which had everything that I stand in line for hours to go see: a great story, quirky characters, killer costumes, crazy sets, cool stunts, tons of special effects, and humor. It’s everything for the kid in me.”