An accomplished director and cinematographer, Michael’s directing credits include the 2019 feature Mary starring Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer, Nashville, American Horror Story, and Pretty Little Liars. He also wrote and directed the features Megan is Missing and Voyeur.  His cinematography credits include American Horror Story, Mary, Web Therapy, Glee, Scream Queens, Bloodline, The New Normal, Mr. Sunshine, My Name is Earl, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Life on Mars, The Mentalist and many other shows and features.

As a Director of Photography, he has earned Emmy nominations for his work on American Horror Story, Glee and My Name Is Earl.  He also landed American Society of Cinematographers nominations for The New Normal pilot, American Horror Story, and TV movies The Fixer and Judas.

Michael is a past president of the American Society of Cinematographers, serves on the Board Of Governors of the ASC, and is the editor of the 10th Edition of the ASC Manual. He was made an Honorary Member of the Indian Society Of Cinematographers (ISC) in 2010 for his efforts to increase international collaboration and communication amongst the world’s cinematography organizations. He was appointed 2018 Kodak Cinematographer-in-Residence at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Michael has appeared as a guest speaker at the American Film Institute, the University of Southern California, Walt Disney Animation Studios (for whom he demonstrated ice and snow lighting concepts for animators working on the film Frozen), CineGear, IBC and many other international industry events. He is a member of the National Executive Board of the International Cinematographers Guild, the Directors Guild Of America, the Academy Of Television Arts And Sciences and the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences. He regularly mentors students for various industry programs. An unrepentant movie buff, he has been known to spend all night in his home theater watching selections from the over 18,000 films in his collection.