Project and Intoduction

This report concerns a project undertaken by the Film Producer class FIL-4661 offered by the Film Department at the University of Central Florida in the Spring of 2009. The class included a series of lectures by experts in marketing including, Shannon Lacek and Rich Grula (both are previous marketing directors of the Florida Film Festival), producer Christine Vachon, FFF programmer Matthew Curtis, former students Tom Hurter and Nick Martinolich, and Professor Randy Finch.

The class was divided into 20 teams. Each team was assigned a film that would screen in competition at the 2009 Florida Film Festival. Working with the FFF staff and the various filmmakers, the students in FIL-4661 were responsible for the guerrilla marketing of the competition films.

Our team consisted of Michael Lighston, a Cinema Studies student expected to graduate in the fall of 2009, Juan Sanchez and Jared Smith, who are both Cinema Studies students expected to graduate in the spring of 2010. We were assigned a film in the documentary competition entitled Pressure Cooker. The filmmakers were Director, Cinematographer and Editor Mark Becker and Director/Producer Jennifer Grausman.

The following is a report on what we attempted, what we accomplished and, most importantly, what we learned.