Michael made his first super 8 films while attending Malibu Park Junior High, then Crossroads in Santa Monica. After graduating from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, he worked with director Brett Ratner, wrote features for M. Emmet Walsh, Vincent Schiavelli and Daniel Baldwin and directed his first feature effort with no-budget in Southeast Asia. Since then he has written and directed Fear House, The Fugue and The Dark Forest (in Guangzhou, China) featuring Michael Biehn.

Michael directed and played the ninja in a super 8 movie starring a young Jack Black (then in 11th grade).