A Burnt Orange Productions primer

Austin production team makes local low-budget movies with UT students.

"The Quiet" is the first feature film produced by Burnt Orange Productions and the University of Texas Film Institute, an Austin filmmaking team launched in 2003. Their focus is producing low-budget, digitally shot movies in Texas using both professional crew and UT film students as on-set interns.

Sony Pictures Classics Read reviews of "The Quiet."

Burnt Orange is an off-campus, for-profit company that contracts with the not-for-profit film institute, which the university describes as a research unit within the College of Communication. Veteran Hollywood producer Carolyn Pfeiffer is the president and CEO of Burnt Orange. Radio-television-film professor Tom Schatz runs the UT Film Institute.

Since "The Quiet," shot in Austin in 2004, the team has made three more features in Austin: "The Cassidy Kids," which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival this year and was directed by Austinite Jacob Vaughan; the romance "Elvis and Anabelle," starring Max Minghella, Blake Lively, Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen and Keith Carradine; and the caveman comedy "Homo Erectus," starring David Carradine and directed by Adam Rifkin. "Elvis and Anabelle" and "Homo Erectus" are in post-production.

Learn more at www.burntorangeproductions.com.

— Chris Garcia