Taylor Sharp ’16 is a director and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. The alumnus co-founded the independent production company Blue Cup Productions with Holland Randolph Gallagher, a writer and director. On today’s episode, Taylor shares other memories from UNC–Chapel Hill, how conversations at He’s Not Here (a famous haunt on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill) led to the founding of Blue Cup Productions, his work with Shaquille O’Neal and the NBA G League, and more.
Taylor Sharp ’16 is a director and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. The alumnus co-founded the independent production company Blue Cup Productions with Holland Randolph Gallagher, a writer and director.
Taylor spoke with Catalyze at a neighborhood cafe a day after the 2023 New York City Regional Event for alumni and scholars.
Hailing from a creative household in Burke County, North Carolina, Taylor recounts his upbringing alongside two older brothers, both Carolina alumni, who immersed themselves in music and imaginative projects (Taylor’s brother, Jacob, is one of the founding members of the string band Mipso). These early explorations paved the way for his career in filmmaking.
As a Morehead-Cain Scholar, Taylor interned at the Zimbabwean nonprofit Hoops 4 Hope, experiences that informed his 2017 documentary, Hoops Africa: Ubuntu Matters. He also worked at a sports agency with Jim Tanner ’90, president of Tandem Sports + Entertainment, and in New York with Malcolm Turner ’93, then president of what would become the G League.
On today’s episode, Taylor shares other memories from UNC–Chapel Hill, how conversations at He’s Not Here (a famous haunt on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill) led to the founding of Blue Cup Productions, his work with Shaquille O’Neal and the NBA G League, and more.
Earlier this year, Taylor and John Zimmerman were inducted into the Southern Fly Fishing Hall of Fame for their humanitarian contributions within the sport. In 2012, they co-founded Casting for Hope, a nonprofit that supports women with ovarian and other gynecological cancers, which has since raised over $1,000,000 for its financial and emotional assistance, programming, and fly-fishing retreats.
A natural fundraiser, Taylor is also a Morehead-Cain Class Ambassador, collaborating with peers to support the Foundation’s annual fundraising campaigns.
The episode’s intro song is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.
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Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.
(Sarah)
Taylor, thank you so much for speaking with Catalyze tonight.
(Taylor)
Oh, it’s so great to be on. Thanks for coming out to Brooklyn.
(Sarah)
Yes, we should mention we’re sitting at a café here in your neighborhood, and I wanted to ask when you first moved here and how it’s been for you so far.
(Taylor)
So I moved in October of 2021, so I’m coming up on two years. It’s been really wonderful. I’ve had a lot of experience with New York. I spent my third summer, Morehead summer, here working at the NBA. I was living in Spanish Harlem at that time. I have two older brothers, both of whom have spent a lot of time here. My oldest brother has now been here since he graduated from Carolina 14 years ago, and my middle brother, Jacob, was here for like five years before he moved to L.A. So New York has always felt familiar to me, and I’ve come here many times for projects and meetings and seeing my brothers. But I came here this time, moved up with my production partner for no specific reason other than we both were flirting with the idea of moving to L.A. or New York at some point. We really loved our years in Durham and all of my years in North Carolina prior, too, but it just felt like a nice time when we had some new projects coming up in our slate to be surrounded by a new creative community and to have a chapter here. And for me, there’s no defined end to that chapter. I’m here, and it’s really nice to have North Carolina waiting on me should I ever want to go back.
(Sarah)
How would you describe the kinds of communities that there are doing similar things like you?
(Taylor)
I was fortunate in that I feel like I had a lot of good connections to the music and comedy and film communities, in some ways through my brothers and also through people who I had worked with or had meetings with in the past. So when I came up with my production partner, we were interested in being around that. It’s nice just to be around other people who are performers or pursuing a creative path full time, and so many of our friends here are that way. That’s been really nice just to kind of almost every night there’s someone’s show to go to or some screening of a film, and oftentimes there’s a personal connection there. So that’s just been really wonderful energy to be surrounded by and supported by. But really it was just us, like, wanting a new chapter for ourselves and for the projects we’re working on. And the company, even just in our neighborhood at a café like this, we will sometimes run into a conversation with someone who’s talking about a festival or script they’re working on. And we’ve pretty naturally made some filmmaking buddies just right here in this neighborhood. But, yeah, it just felt like the time to give New York a try.
(Sarah)
And you’re the founder of Blue Cup Productions. I was curious if that has any roots to He’s Not Here and their Blue Cups.
(Taylor)
Oh, most certainly it does. Yeah. Perfect audience for this backstory. It doesn’t always get told in a meeting with a Netflix or the NBA, like what the story is. Um, so my production partner who I mentioned, Holland Randolph Gallagher, he was my year at UNC. And we knew each other through an entrepreneurship minor class and pickup basketball and having some buddies in kind of a similar creative circle. But we didn’t know each other well. And it was only after school when I had independently put out the first documentary of mine, and he was working on a web series that he had written and was going to direct in Durham when he reached out, was like, “Hey, we’re two people from UNC who knew each other who are now doing film related things. Let’s talk about that.” And we met up at He’s Not Here and a couple of Blue Cups later, we had a lot of similar ideas. And that’s where really, our creative partnership and friendship was really forged. So, yeah, I think it was really just when we made our first short film and we needed to create an LLC for production insurance and renting equipment and the payroll company we were using to pay our crew and stuff that we needed to formalize things.
But the notion behind it, I suppose, was something to do with like, there are so many possibilities for collaborators all around you. If you have an idea, there are people around you who might want to embark on that with you. And all it took was a couple of Blue Cups for us to realize that. So we felt paying homage to He’s Not was in a subtle, maybe not so subtle way for a UNC person, felt fitting.
(Sarah)
And I think that kind of goes into your whole style, which is on intimate documentaries and narrative storytelling. And so it feels like you’re up close and getting the humanity of the conversation. If you could clone yourself or just to, say, have infinite time and resources, what are a few projects that you would love to take on right now?
(Taylor)
Oh, gosh, that’s a good one. I think I wouldn’t take on any more as much as I would just be able to devote more of myself to finish the ones we’re currently working on. And some of those just take time because the stories are still unfolding or the emotional or the creative fabric is still being sewn somehow to where even if I had more time, I don’t know if it would service it to finish it right away. So I think there’s a healthy amount of patience that has gone into them because it serves the project. But we’ve been working on a few, one in basketball, one in rap, and one a very personal story about grief related to my mom and my family that incorporates my brothers. Those are three independent projects that we’ve just worked on as our company and for the past few years, and we’ll probably wrap up in the next year. I think this summer is an opportunity to sink our teeth back into those a little bit because this past fall to spring and upcoming in this next fall to spring, we have a lot of projects ongoing with the NBA G League.
(Taylor)
So I kind of view this summer as a time to recalibrate and focus on some of those personal projects as we prepare for the slate of documentaries that we’ll be doing for the NBA in this upcoming season. So that’s kind of our balance is navigating the projects that we have put on our plate personally versus the ones that we’ve taken on in partnership with other people. And naturally, the latter requires a certain timeline and the former is more on our terms.
(Sarah)
And how did the partnership come about with the NBA G League? And is it true that you have Shaquille O’Neill’s phone number?
(Taylor)
Yes, yes. I'll answer the second one first. I can’t say that I’m utilizing that phone number every day. I'm going to wait for the right moment there. But yeah, we were able to work with Shaquille as the narrator for the documentary series we did with the G League this season and that we’ll be doing another season of next year. And he was really wonderful to work with, really validated us, and was kind and fun to work with. It was always exciting working with him, but he’s a true professional that made us—I think there’s a lot of pressure to work with someone that high caliber and well known as Shaq—and from the very beginning, he was really respectful to us and gave us his best and was also fun to work with and friendly in such a way that now it feels like we just have a friend who we’re collaborating with with the G League. Yeah, that’s a great, Morehead-Cain story. I can’t say that we would be doing any of that if it weren’t for my connection to the Foundation and my summers as a scholar. I spent all three of my summers during college in different sides of the basketball world, and particularly the last two had very specific alumni influences because I had worked for Jim Tanner at Tandem, in the sports agency capacity my sophomore summer, and then junior summer, I worked for Malcolm Turner when he had come on as president of the NBA Developmental League, which is now the G League. So I have been involved with the G League since that summer of 2015 when I was here the first time. And looking around the G League, there aren’t all that many people who have been around for those eight years. There are some people I’ve known who have worked full time for the G League since then, who have really been long stays there. But so many of the people who are there now that I’m working with are talking to me and asking me questions about when I was first there with Malcolm. So there’s a huge credit to Malcolm for hiring me as a project employee while I was still in school to work with him for the summer. And even in my senior year, he hired me back to work at All-Star and to work other events. So my journey at the NBA got started because of Malcolm and because of the Morehead-Cain.
(Sarah)
And can you share about the documentary that involved following three players who had very different prospects and stories and backgrounds, and how you selected them, and just what it was like to follow along journeys that you didn’t know how they would end?
(Taylor)
Yeah. So the project we did with the NBA G League over the course of this past basketball season followed three of the marquee players of the G League, which is the minor league of the NBA, and we wanted to have three diverse stories that would ultimately showcase what the league is as a whole, who are the types of people who make up G League players. So we chose a veteran, someone who had been in the NBA but then had fallen out of the NBA, was trying to make their way back. And we chose Norris Cole. He played with LeBron on the Heat in his first two years, won an NBA Championship. So he’s been to the mountaintop there, and he’s trying to get back. And then we also chose a player who has the opportunity of getting called up from the G League to the NBA. So every night he’s playing for that opportunity to make his dream come true, right. And to get to the NBA, to have an NBA contract. So we chose Mac McClung, who was a fan favorite, was Rookie of the Year in his last season. And we knew that he had an opportunity to make an NBA roster by the end of the season. So we just loved the idea of potentially being able to capture that. And then the other one, which is really indicative of the uniqueness of the G League, is that we chose a draft-eligible prospect, a young player who’s going to be a future NBA star. But for right now, he’s the youngest American to sign a professional contract in the US, 17, bypassing his last year of high school and college to go become a professional with the G League. His name is Scoot Henderson from Atlanta. So we chose these three players because Scoot’s going to be a top draft pick next month, and he’ll be a franchise player for many years to come. But his time is tomorrow. But Mac is shooting for his time today, and Norris has kind of already had his moment, and he just wants to scratch that again. So those three players in some ways represent the G League, and we thought embedding ourselves in their storylines for a season would give a really good inside look at what the G League is all about.
(Sarah)
How are you thinking about this upcoming cycle? And maybe not how you do it differently, but just what goes into the strategy and those conversations with your business partner about how to approach it?
(Taylor)
It was a really new thing for the G League to do this, and wonderful for us to take on that type of partnership because it was a high visibility, high responsibility project, and we were leading the way on capturing and editing all of this, maintaining the relationships with those players. And it was a big part of a massive partnership that they had brought on with the General Insurance, who is sponsoring this. So for us, we really just wanted to deliver a docuseries that was going to be entertaining for viewers and that the players who are participating would be proud of and feel properly represented by. But also we were thinking like, we got hired to do this, we need this to serve the NBA G League’s expectations as well, and hope that the General Insurance was going to be happy about it since they were paying for it. Now that we’re through season one, everyone’s very happy. We got gifted with some amazing stories. We learned a lot through making it. It was a success by the opinion of everyone involved, and we’re coming on for season two. So now it’s just a matter of replicating that, hoping that we have as amazing of stories on court and off as we were fortunate to have this year.
(Taylor)
And I think for us now, we have a level of confidence of, all right, we were navigating through some murky waters of how to do this in season one, but now we’re confident in being able to do that. And I think that will allow us the creative flexibility to push ourselves even further, to try some things that we didn’t last year. So we’re excited, not only to replicate, but hopefully to make it even more compelling storytelling in season two.
(Sarah)
It seems very innovative of the G League to even think about narrative storytelling and doing this kind of content. And so I’m wondering if other similar types of leagues will do that as well, which might be a complement to the sort of playbook that you’re demonstrating to them.
(Taylor)
Yeah, I hope so. I’m really happy that they were willing to see the value in documenting the story of the players in their league. They are creating a time capsule for themselves as a league and all of the amazing stories that are contained within it. The G League has grown so much like flipping it back to Malcolm Turner. There were, I think, 12 or 13 teams in the G League when he was hired in 2015, now there are 30. And that was a big credit to his growth strategy for how this league could become a much bigger thing than it was. And I think there are just such amazing stories that have happened in the time that he was hired since I’ve been involved now. And it’s important to document those because when we flash forward a little bit, some of these players who we’re documenting now are big NBA stars. It’s important for the G League to be able to have those moments when they were G Leaguers captured. So, for me, as someone who’s been involved in the G League for a while, there’s a lot of pride in showcasing the special stuff that’s happening there. And I think on their end, it’s really important for them to just to be able to kind of show what they’ve been doing this whole time.
(Sarah)
Going back to having your hand in many different areas of the basketball world, do you feel like those experiences, even though you ultimately didn’t decide to become a sports agent, that that’s helped in a way because you’re still in the business from the stories angle, but I’m sure you’re seeing a lot of familiar things that you were exposed to in college and afterwards?
(Taylor)
It’s amazing the ways that all of those experiences and communities and connections and worlds have continued to coalesce in some way. I work with agents all the time in that when I am doing something with the G League or I’m doing something independently, whatever it may be, when we’re working with a player, oftentimes I’m communicating with the agent at some point. And it’s nice for me to have that perspective of what that relationship is like. It’s nice that I have some level of fluency in what a player experience is like, what someone out of league’s experience is like, what an agent’s experience is like. So that when I’m partnering with these people on telling someone’s story, I can make it as easy as possible for them to understand what they need to so that we can all really feel like we’re collaborating together and deciding what access that I then get to be able to capture someone’s story. So, yeah, it’s been really helpful, I think, for me in that I think whenever you’re familiar with the territory you’re navigating, it’s just a little bit easier to move forward. So I think, as opposed to me being an outsider to the basketball world, having had a lot of experience in different areas of the basketball world before even becoming a filmmaker, it’s really helped on the filmmaking side of things because I think they trust me to understand the nuances of everything, and that’s been really beneficial.
(Sarah)
And was it going back to Africa to do the documentary there that was the turning point to decide, I want to do film, and maybe that’s in basketball or maybe it’s elsewhere, or when did that, I guess, turning point happen for you?
(Taylor)
Good question. Yeah. At that time, it really goes back to my public service summer, which was the summer of 2013 after my first year. And I felt like I had this unique opportunity to spin a globe and put a blindfold on and put my finger on it and make it stop and see where I wanted to go. Because there are plenty of NGOs where I could have gone and a lot of interests that I had and past scholars’ experiences that I was reading their reports from, trying to decide where I was going to go. And I actually was taking a break from the research, and I was reading an ESPN article about the Boston Celtics and their relationship with this Zimbabwean nonprofit and this African philosophy of ubuntu. And that’s how I learned about Hoops for Hope, the nonprofit that ultimately I spent that summer with. I called the founder on that day and told him about my opportunity to volunteer with an organization, and I told him about the Morehead-Cain, and they were receptive to me coming. And fortunately, the Foundation allowed me to do so. And it was my summer there that ultimately would push me into filmmaking, because as a result of that summer, I fell in love with what Hoops for Hope did.
I had a host little brother who had a dream of making it to the US through basketball, and I left that experience really wanting to shine a light on all of that. So my first film was because of my love for Hoops for Hope and the work they do, and because of that desire to shine a light on Watida’s story. I wouldn’t have otherwise found my way into film if it weren’t for that formidable experience. And I think it’s the summers that came after it that enabled that project to actually come together in a serious way.
(Sarah)
And you also were part of the script writing process for an evacuation love story that was played at the Varsity Theater and have since also done a documentary, a short film on your brother through the Visit North Carolina series, which you won as well. So congratulations for that recognition. How do you decide that this is something that you want to invest in as a project?
(Taylor)
I’ve always been guided just by what stories were really gnawing at me in a way of like, I don’t think we’ve ever really worked on a project where it wasn’t, the feeling of this story has to be told. And no matter how, we will tell it, even if it can’t find funding, we’ll do it independently or go out and find the right partner for it. So those in particular, the first one that Camilla, Keep Your Word, the first narrative film I’d worked on, a short film that I worked on with Holland, was a personal experience for him as someone whose family evacuated Hurricane Katrina. That’s how he made his way to North Carolina. So that was my first way getting into, my first time getting into scripted work. And we’re doing a lot of development on that side now. So I’m really fortunate that Holland came into my world because it broadened my horizons beyond documentary work and into the idea of working on scripted stuff. And I think there’s a very full chapter of that to come for us. And then, yeah, the short film that we did on my brother, Jacob, was really fun because that’s a story I know so well and a story that I have so much care for and a heart for and fortunately Visit North Carolina, North Carolina Tourism, commissioned some filmmakers to do short films set in North Carolina. So they came to me, and I got to pitch them on doing a film about my brother. And fortunately, they funded it. And fortunately, with the help of so many in the Carolina community, we were able to win that contest. So yeah, every project feels somehow very different, yet ultimately connected, because so many of them are projects that we’re pretty passionate about, and it feels a lot less like work and a lot more just like needing to tell the story.
(Sarah)
And we are on a podcast, so we need to mention your childhood at least once. But I’m curious where you get your knack for identifying stories. Is that something that was a big part of your family or just something innate in you? Because it’s not natural for everyone to see things that need to be told.
(Taylor)
I am the youngest brother of three, three brothers who all went to Carolina. Go Heels! I’d like to say that I was actually the biggest Carolina fan of the three. And in fact, the older two were looking into other schools and the younger brother, who was just obsessed with Carolina was like, well, if you want me to visit you, it should be Chapel Hill. And thank God the two of them went because I was really young. My middle school and high school years were visiting my brothers. So I felt like my Carolina experience started much earlier than most people’s Carolina experience did. But growing up in our house, it was always a creative home. We were taking piano lessons and my brothers especially were really into music from an early age. My oldest brother and I would make home videos replicating James Bond and Indiana Jones movies. So always we were, the three of us, playing. And oftentimes that was musical or somehow storytelling related. Sports took on a big part of my life as I got older. But, yeah, growing up, we did have a lot of creativity in the house, and I think that’s a testament to our parents for allowing for that imagination.
And then after Carolina, when we decided to pursue these creative paths professionally, them not recommending we not. I think there are a lot of parents who would suggest, maybe you shouldn’t be a comedian or a musician or a documentary filmmaker. These paths aren’t exactly, they don’t exactly guarantee a great income. And fortunately, we had wonderfully supportive parents who wanted nothing more than for us to pursue what we felt was truest to us. And that allowed our passions to kind of rise to the top in how we spent our time, and that manifested us all having creative careers. Now, I guess if you can say the word career at the end of that. So, yeah, both my brothers and myself, I think, are really fortunate for that upbringing.
(Sarah)
Do you have any guiding questions that you have turned to in trying to make a decision about what to do of, is this a place I want to live, or is this an issue I really care about? What goes on in your mind when you’re making those kinds of calculated decisions, when it might not be just about money, is what I’m hearing.
(Taylor)
It’s been a challenge for me at times to know where to put my energy because I’ve had so many different projects, some that we haven’t even spoken about that I would never want to give up. So when deciding on the next thing, I always have to consider all the other things that I’m already doing. But I think it’s also been helpful because it’s really made me be incredibly intentional about what I decide to do because there are already a lot of important things in play. There are already a lot of balls that I’m juggling that I would not want to drop or put down. And I think that’s been a helpful guiding force because it’s really forced me to not take on a project unless it had a really good reason for being there. The give and the take there, I suppose I feel like I haven’t even since high school, had a blank slate to decide what will I put there, but rather, it’s been I’ve had this wonderful tapestry of these things I care about that I think have given me a barometer for deciding what would enter that equation. So generally, when I embark on a new project or a new idea, there's a really good reason that it’s there. So I just trust my intuition in that way and try the things that feel important to try and see where they lead.
(Sarah)
So I wanted to ask any final advice you might have for scholars who are interested in getting into film or about changing from, you’re doing the basketball thing, might be a sports agent, but deciding to follow this other concurrent interest in film, I think?
(Taylor)
I think it’s just to give yourself the opportunity to pursue these new fascinations that you have. For me, my experience as a scholar really validated my multidisciplinary approach to things. I think my entire college career was very interdisciplinary, but that was aided in a serious way by the variety of experiences that I was supported to do by the Foundation. And I don’t think that that necessarily has to stop as you leave Carolina. I think the idea that you can always be evolving and that you can be mindful of that and that you can surround yourself with the things that most make sense with that evolution is totally okay, and the perfect time to do that is when you’re a college student, but a pretty great time to do it is in the years after, as well. So that would maybe be some of my advice, is just allow yourself that opportunity to check in with yourself and pursue the next idea, if that’s the most important idea to you now.
(Sarah)
Thank you. And thank you as well for all of the calls you’ve taken from current scholars who are trying to explore these very questions of what they want to get into, as well as being a class ambassador and helping us out for Day of Giving and rallying up your classmates. Why do you get involved in those ways? And what might you say to another classmate who would be interested in getting engaged in some way with the Foundation?
(Taylor)
I’m always happy to chat with someone who’s a part of the network. I mean, I feel like, and more broadly, anyone who’s interested in film or basketball or nonprofit work, whatever it may be. I feel like so many things in my own projects were made possible by something I learned from someone else or some connection that someone else made for me. So I feel indebted in many ways to the people who answered my emails or were willing to get on a call with me or take a coffee meeting. And so anytime that anyone else wants to do that with me, who am I to say no? So I’m really appreciative of the interest that any scholar has in talking to me and very willing to do so and am hopeful that they are willing to look around the network that they’re a part of and be willing to intentionally reach out to those who are especially fitting for them to do so, and that later on in life, they’ll do the same because it’s a special treat, I feel like, to be able to remain connected to a community that was really beneficial in creating the world that I kind of have around me now.
(Sarah)
We really appreciate it. Is there anything else you would like to share about what people can expect to see from Taylor Sharp or Blue Cup Productions in the coming months? Or anything else you’d like to share about your projects?
(Taylor)
Well, I’ll say I’ll thank anyone who was voting for that film contest you mentioned earlier, because I would certainly need to apologize if we didn’t win after all your efforts. And it’s a fun thing that I don’t even know the projects that I’ll be wanting to point people towards a year from now. There are a lot of things that are in the works that will come out when there ready. And for now, I’m just appreciative of all the support that the UNC and Morehead-Cain community has given me. So thanks for listening.
(Sarah)
Taylor, thank you so much.
(Taylor)
Thank you.