Biography
Mike Erwin-Executive Producer/Producer
Erwin began his career as a producer of national television commercials at Sunset Pictures, a boutique commercial production company in Hollywood. Erwin produced national spots for Rosarita Foods, Chevrolet, Hires Root Beer and Quantas Airlines, among many others.
Erwin then joined famed television production company, Smith-Hemion Productions as staff Stage Manager, working with the celebrated television director, Dwight Hemion. Smith-Hemion is one of the most honored TV production companies of all time, having been nominated for and winning more Emmys (47 nominations and 17 wins) than any company of its kind.
Erwin is the recipient of three Recognition Awards for Excellence in Television awarded by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) for participation in the programs Baryshnikov on Broadway; Bette Midler, Ol' Red Hair is Back, and Steve and Eydie Celebrate Irving Berlin, all of which were voted Best Variety Special by Academy members. Erwin was further honored with a Directors Guild of America Excellence Award for the Barishnykov production.
In addition to the Emmy awarded programs, Erwin also stage-managed many notable programs such as Elvis In Concert (CBS) and The Star Wars Holiday Special (ABC), on which he worked with the entire cast of Star Wars.
In total, Erwin participated in the production of over 50 network (NBC, CBS, ABC) Prime Time programs, over 30 of which were nominated for Emmy Award consideration.
Additionally, Erwin has been awarded two Platinum Sales Awards (Over $1 million in sales of DVD) and one Gold Sales Award (Over $500,000 sales in DVD) from the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) for retail and ancillary market sales of various productions.
While enduring a union strike by the Director's Guild of America, and seeing an emerging market for home video, Erwin then moved into motion picture production for domestic sale to home video and international sales for theatrical and television. Correctly identifying the new market demands for direct to video content Erwin produced eight feature films with budgets ranging from $1.5 to $2 million specifically for domestic video consumption. In doing so, he enjoyed relationships with end-users such as HBO, Showtime, ABC Home Video, New Line Cinema and Miramax Films as well as virtually every major distributor servicing the worldwide market for video content at the time.
Partnered with then television heart-throb, Lorenzo Lamas, Erwin produced a series of three action films starring the actor which enjoyed success throughout the world. In 2001, Erwin produced Bluehill Avenue, an urban drama. Despite a relatively small budget of $1.3 million, the film enjoys ongoing popularity. The title won Best Film at the two most important "Urban" film festivals, The Acapulco Black Film Festival and Urban World. To this day, the film enjoys cult status. It is currently rated 92% by audiences on Rotten Tomatoes after over a decade in release.
Erwin collaborated with his then film completion guarantor to form a unique production partnership. The partnership focused on the creation and implementation of a wholly new business model, the Government Tax Credit and Rebate program. Today, such an arrangement is enjoyed by hundreds of producers worldwide, but was spearheaded by Erwin and his Canadian partners when no such program previously existed.
While Erwin had previously produced a "behind the scenes" documentary, nothing could have prepared him and his partner for the challenges of the documentary film, A River Below. The film, shot over three years in the Amazon jungles of Peru, Colombia and Brazil, has been an overwhelming critical success worldwide. The film enjoys a 100% rating by film critics on Rotten Tomatoes and, as previously stated, was originally acquired by Netflix. In addition to Netflix, which licensed the film for North and South America, A River Below is distributed worldwide by Journeyman Pictures (London). Recently, the film ended its Netflix run and currently on Amazon Prime and across multiple platforms.
A River Below was an invitee to South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival. SXSW is rapidly emerging as the top event of its kind in the industry, with placement in the festival at a premium and highly sought after by producers. The film then received a Jury Selection at Tribeca Film Festival and numerous others. Additionally, the film won Best Film at the largest European documentary festival, Sheffield Doc Fest, attended by over 100,000 documentary fans. The film was awarded Best Environmental Documentary along with a sizable cash award. The film then won the Audience Award at the Zurich International Film Festival and was again a Jury Selection or Best Film winner at international festivals throughout 2017.
A River Below has also been awarded several government citations, including being chosen by The Hague for exhibition in Movies That Matter throughout the European Union. The film is still enjoying considerable success on the festival circuit over years after its premiere at Tribeca. In the execution of producing films in all genres, Erwin has become well versed in how to sell and market entertainment programming. More importantly, with the recent production of A River Below, Erwin learned the more important skills of marketing and creating a "Branded" product through deliberate, designed, publicity and social media campaigns.
Wishing to utilize emerging technology for financing and distribution of content, Erwin became a student of digital marketing. In the process, Erwin was introduced to Ron Daw, CFO of The Chosen. The Chosen had become the most successful crowdfunded financial raise in history ($11 million) and also embraced the views and sentiments Erwin also wished to capture in his future projects. Additionally, Daw brought existing relationships with digital marketeers expert in crowdfunding and audience building. The two then co-founded Cayo Films and are producing the pilot episode of its first offering, The Covenant. Written by noted novelist and screenwriter, Andrew Klavan (Gosnell), and Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (Infidel) is an eight part series to be launched on the companies own servers. Along with Hollywood super-agent Emmanuel Nunez, Klavan and Nowrasteh will also serve as Executive Producers of the series.
Simultaneously, the group will be engaged in powerful audience building techniques, and designing independent platform strategies for release of the series to its specific audience.
