I finished my first semester as a college professor... what a trip that was. I enjoyed the energy and passion of the brightest students but it was a great deal more work than I had anticipated.

The class was called Guerrilla Marketing for Independent Filmmakers...

The class was called Guerrilla Marketing for Independent Filmmakers, which is a strange way to encompass the extremely broad topic of screening and selling your film once you've made it. I designed the class myself, which basically amounted to teaching everything about the indie film business I wished I had learned in film school.

The major project of the class was amazing -- teams of students were paired with filmmakers who had projects playing in the Florida Film Festival back in March and had to act as local publicists for the films. They had to write press releases, distribute flyers and help the filmmakers create buzz for their movies.

Some students even managed to sell out their screenings and developed friendly relationships with the filmmakers, such as the team working on Ryan Esslinger's Madness and Genius. According to Ryan, "The best part of the FFF had to be working with the UCF students."

So this past weekend I finally saw their student films at the year-end screenings. As with most all student film shorts, many of them needed another day or two in the editing room, but overall I was impressed with the quality of work. Of the students who graduated, some of them are moving away to NY and LA, and some of them are gearing up to make indie features. I'll track their work here in my blog, as they premiere their shorts at festivals around the world and make the transition away from the protective umbrella of film school and into the real world of art and filmmaking.