About FFMP

The Film Fest Marketing Project (FFMP) website is the result of the work undertaken each year at the Florida Film Festival by students in the undergraduate film program at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando.

The lecture ideas and exercises posted here started in a one-time- only “Guerilla-Marketing For Filmmakers” class that Mike Monello taught at UCF in 2004. FFMP wasn’t Mike’s first project. As a co- creator of The Blair Witch Project, Mike played a small but significant part in changing how film marketers approach the Internet. After he got the FFMP ball rolling, Mike’s “immersive marketing” business (e.g., Shark Week) continued to grow. In 2006, Randy Finch took over teaching the FFMP course at UCF. Because Randy is a film producer, the class covers filmmaking issues and marketing from the perspective of a producer. But, as when Mike first taught it, the centerpiece of this class is the Film Fest Marketing Project.

2011 Florida Film Festival and UCF

In the most recent class to undertake the FFMP at UCF (Spring 2011), 65 students met once each week for three hours. Those class meetings were for lectures or panel discussions with Rich Grula (former Marketing Director of the Florida Film Festival and current UCF faculty member). In addition to class time, the students were divided into teams, with each team marketing a film (in collaboration with the filmmaker and the festival staff) at the Florida Film Festival.

The documents, tutorials and lecture ideas offered on this website illustrate some of what we teach in FIL 4661, but you should know that Rich Grula and the guest speakers also talk about a variety of issues of importance to filmmakers and film marketers, including viral marketing, the evolution of the role of the film producer, how film festivals fit into distribution today, traditional motion picture distribution, managing a crew and communicating online, etc. The goal of FFMP is to teach a wide variety of motion picture production and marketing skills, while also offering hands-on film marketing experience.

This online version of the Film Fest Marketing Project was developed by Randy Finch, Nick Martinolich, Sam Torres, Alex Bowser, Morgan English, Masha Murakhovsky, Jeph Alexander, and the faculty and students of the University of Central Florida’s Film Department, working with the Florida Film Festival, and with the support of the Sarasota Film Institute.

Contact

For questions, comments, or to upload video or text about your experience marketing at a film festival, write us at filmfestmarketing@gmail.com.

Permission to Use

Whenever you use FFMP materials please give us credit using the following text:

Licensed by Randy Finch and Nick Martinolich under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. This license allows you to copy, distribute, and transmit this work as well as create derivative works. Any copies or derivative works may not be used for commercial purposes, must be distributed under a same or similar license, and in addition must contain the following language: The Film Fest Marketing Project was developed by Randy Finch, Nick Martinolich, Sam Torres, Alex Bowser, Morgan English, Masha Murakhovsky, Jeph Alexander, and the faculty and students of the University of Central Florida’s Film Department, working with the Florida Film Festival, and with the support of the Sarasota Film Institute.”