While she was in college, Deborah Jane created a musical theatre piece called Strange Fruit: The Hip-Hopera, which was performed at her school. Encouraged by the success of the stage production, Deborah collaborated with Jamie Burke to create a pitch package, a genre that aims to win backers to invest in a project. Deborah and Jamie had the goal of getting financing to make a film based on Strange Fruit. They researched the pitch package genre and decided to include a synopsis of the plot, individual character breakdowns, character relationship dynamics, and brief biographies of the production team. In addition to writing these sections of the pitch package, they hired actors and arranged a photo shoot, did research on the financial success of other musical films, and presented a financial analysis. They created and distributed the pitch package digitally.
