Burnt Orange Productions

In 2003 the University of Texas set out to give film students a way into Austin's independent film business. Because the university cannot own a for-profit company, it created the UT Communication Foundation, which owned nine corporations that would produce the films. The parent production company was Burnt Orange Productions, LLC. The Daily Texan later called the arrangement possibly a first for a public university. UT hired Carolyn Pfeiffer, a vice-chair at the American Film Institute Conservatory and a producer of Kiss of the Spider Woman, as president and CEO. The company rented a downtown warehouse on Fifth Street, where the new UT Film Institute, led by professor Thomas Schatz, worked upstairs and Burnt Orange downstairs.

The model put students on professional sets. Under an agreement with the stagehands' union IATSE, some students apprenticed in union positions such as second assistant camera and assistant editor, while others worked as interns. All of them earned screen credit and academic credit. Each film had 40 to 50 students attached. The first feature wrapped in Austin on October 17, 2004, under the working title Dot, with Edie Falco and Elisha Cuthbert. It was released as The Quiet, directed by Jamie Babbit. Three more followed: Jacob Vaughn's The Cassidy Kids, Adam Rifkin's National Lampoon's Homo Erectus, and Will Geiger's Elvis and Anabelle. Budgets ran up to about $1 million, with partners sought for larger films. Elvis and Anabelle, shot in 2006 in Austin, Lockhart and South Padre Island, cost about $2 million. Pfeiffer told the Austin Chronicle that her development staff had received 500 to 550 scripts, and that the South Carolina Film Commission had asked how to copy the program.

The money never matched the plan. SEC filings showed $3.35 million raised from 14 private investors against an $8 million goal, and the university also paid for space and staff. None of the four films made a profit. College of Communication dean Roderick Hart said administrators decided to stop production after the films had little financial or critical success. Filmmaking ended in 2007, and the foundation carried a negative balance of more than $760,000 for years afterward. Investor Eddie Safady told the Daily Texan that everyone lost money but that most investors had expected to.

More than 200 students worked on the films. In 2013 some, including Kate Ridgway, who went on to work in Los Angeles, credited Burnt Orange with starting their careers. The Film Institute continued on a smaller scale.