HOLDERNESS — Jamie Sharps making a name for himself with blood and guts.

Sharps, 33, of Holderness the director and producer of "Tucker's Crossing," won first place in the horror category at the recent SNOB (Somewhat North of Boston) Film Festival. The honor marks the second time Sharps has produced an independent horror film that has enjoyed a major screening. His film was picked first among 80 entries.

The latest win, he said, put him in touch with independent filmmakers from throughout New England. As he continues to hone his craft, he predicts that after making a sequel to his first film, "Half-Dead," finished in 2005, he may try his hand at a comedy.

"Being at the festival has really opened some doors for me," Sharps said, explaining his supporters are now pushing him to secure funding for a production film that will allow him to hire an all professional cast.

"It's fun to have a big audience and get immediate feedback," he said.

Always fascinated with slight of hand, Sharps says the special effects he employs in his filmmaking are largely self-taught. He credits the hours he spent watching movies as a kid combined with a desire to figure out how special effects were created with helping him learn the tricks of the trade.

In his latest movie, the appearance of a heavily scarred eye was created with the help of a $600, specially designed contact lens. The pricey prop created the look of a caul-clouded eye — just the creepy effect needed to create the movies' heart-pounding conclusion.

"I like to think about how to do it in my head. It's like doing a magic trick on a movie screen," he said.

The entire movie was filmed in Ashland and Holderness and includes some panoramic footage of Rattlesnake Mountain and Squam Lake. Since taking top prize at the film festival, Sharps said, hits on his website www.sharpsfilms.com have grown dramatically along with sales of disks of Tucker's Crossing.

He recounted that the filmmaking bug bit him when his parents, Steve and Leigh Sharps, gave him a camcorder when he graduated from Plymouth Regional High School in 1992.

"He's been doing this all is life," said his mom, Leigh, laughing while she recalls her reaction to Jamie at age 9 coaching his youngest sister, Kelly, how to act as he encouraged her to approach a window at the side of her house so he could "surprise her" with a fake knife stuck out of her side with fake blood spurting.

Sharps says his love of "shock value," or people's reactions to what he puts on film, is what keeps him willing to max out his credit cards and work long hours on his work. He began working on Tucker's Crossing in October 2006 finishing the following June.

"After making countless short films and having my little sister, beat, maim, slash or shoot whoever dared to step in front of the camera, it was time to get serious," said Jamie.

He headed to the big city in 2002 to enroll in a two-month long crash-course in filmmaking at the New York Film Academy.

The names of the two SNOB chairmen with me are Mike Eschenbach and Kristen Harbaugh. Click here to view Foster's prints for sale

"I had the time of my life. We were using 16-millimeter cameras and had the opportunity to play around in Manhattan," he recounted.

Characterizing the intensive workshop as a "guerrilla filmmaking seminar," Sharps said it gave him the hands-on knowledge he needed to get started in the field including editing techniques and tips on lighting. Initially armed with a film camera, Sharps said, he was fortunate to get into filmmaking at the cusp of the digital revolution. He quickly realized how expensive it would be to use actual film, and saw the problems associated with having to send film out for chemical processing before being able to see it. But digital media offered immediate feedback, so he could see within seconds of videoing a scene what he had actually captured. So he sold his film camera on eBay and replaced with a digital video camera that shoots 24 frames per second, resulting in a filmlike look, he explained.

"I wrote all the dialogue and essentially did everything. It was so much fun. We had a ball," he said.

His first film was 40 minutes long and his second stretched 60 minutes. He hopes his third will be feature length.

The SNOB festival now in its sixth season is an ideal venue for him to show his work, he said. The festival is held in the newly opened Red River Theater on Main Street in Concord. This year the festival screened 80 films over three 10-hour days.

"The screening was intense as the crowd went into a frenzy due to the over-the-top death scenes and campy humor throughout," Sharps said of the reaction to his work.

While his first independent film relied solely on family and friends as actors, he said, the success it enjoyed help attract some professionals to his second effort.

"People didn't know whether I could do it so they were pretty reluctant at first," he said.

By the time he began gearing up for a second season of filming last October he was approached by three actors with professional resumes, including Heather Hamilton, a theater professor at Plymouth State University, Ryan Sturgis, a regular on stage at the Barnstormer's Theatre in Tamworth, and local actress Lisa Lovett. Hamilton plays the female lead, Heather. Sturgis plays an investigating police sergeant, and Lovett plays Aunt Lisa.

Despite the interest of professionals however, Sharps stayed true to his small-town roots and again used family and friends to fill the bulk of the character roles.

While the majority of the film was shot outdoors, prompting work to be completed at the Mother Nature's mercy, Sharps said, it did prove fortuitous. Local resident Randy Currier allowed his run-down farmhouse to be used in the project. An accidental fire broke out later one night inside the building. Although the blaze was contained by the fire department, the damage was considered severe enough the decision was made to allow the department to "torch" the house as a training drill. Sharps was on the scene with his camera and captured the burn, editing it into the film making for a dramatic and realistic scene linked to revenge.

An avid outdoorsman, Sharps recounted how his most recent film was named. For several generations his family and their friends have made an annual fall trek to a hunting camp in Pittsburg in pursuit of deer. Ralph Tucker of Laconia, a longtime friend of Sharps' paternal grandfather, was a regular on the trips. Sharps explained Tucker found a "sweet spot" and bagged so many big deer that the area was soon dubbed "Tucker's Crossing" in homage.

Quick to point to his cast and crew as primary reasons for his recent success, Sharps noted 14-year-old Jareth Ryan plays Jareth Tucker, a young boy who is mentally and physically abused by evil Uncle Roo. He also cited the performances of Al Gilman as the bow hunter; Reggie Provencher as Uncle Roo; Dick Miller as Chief Dusty Miller; his father, Steve Sharps and his hunting buddy Jeff Sawin; his brother-in-law Sean O'Leary; and Rod Sandy as the unfortunate mountain biker and the mirrored sunglasses-wearing police officer Joe Cadorette.

He also offered a special thanks to Mike Eshchenbach Chairman of the SNOB Festival for his efforts to promote independent filmmakers and for providing the critique used on the cover of the DVD and on his website.

More information about Sharps and his work can be found on www.myspace.com/sharpsy