Michael Reed McLaughlin grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, went to Newport Harbor High and then Del Norte High School, before attending film school from 1993-96 at BYU, where he shot several short films, including Student Emmy award-winning The Fourth Trimester, as well as a feature length version of that film. Believing that one learns more by doing than by study, he also wrote, directed, shot, edited, and sometimes acted in a scene on video every week as well as watched fifteen classic films outside of class each week. Just before graduating, he came back to Los Angeles and formed a production company to shoot an independent film. The company was MRM Productions; and the film was Of Love & Betrayal, a simple story he planned on shooting in 16 mm on his own sailboat with some friends from film school. The project snowballed into a 35 mm project shot on a 76' schooner on location in the Bahamas. Filming was quite an adventure. There were several tropical storms, two hurricanes, deali