Michael Picarella’s fascination with movies began when he got a super 8 camera on his tenth birthday. He shot everything from sights at Disneyland to commercials that advertised his own imaginary amusement park.

In his first year of high school, Picarella made animated cartoons, using the school’s video equipment. He eventually convinced his parents to buy him a video camera of his own and made plans to create as many animated projects as possible.
In his spare time, Picarella made live action skits for fun on video. His audience grew after each piece.

In 1995, Picarella began his first semester at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco with a goal to be a motion picture director. It was there that he met his future movie partner, producer-editor Steven Napolitan.

Picarella volunteered to help on as many student projects as possible so that he could learn every aspect of moviemaking. He worked every position from dolly grip to camera operator to production assistant and became familiar with every job on the set.

In 1998, Picarella was making a short movie and asked Napolitan if he was interested in operating camera. That was the first serious collaboration between the two filmmakers.

The next year, Picarella wrote and directed a short movie that Napolitan produced and edited. The collaboration was more successful than the first and it lead to the making of the feature-length movie, “1 2 3.” Picarella wrote and directed the movie and Napolitan produced and edited.

In 1999, Picarella graduated from the Academy of Art and moved to Southern California to work in the motion picture industry. Almost every weekend, he drove up to Northern California to work with Napolitan to finish “1 2 3.”
Following the completion of “1 2 3,” Picarella and Napolitan immediately began work on a second feature-length movie, “Punchcard Player.”

Picarella and Napolitan have many ideas for the future. They have several concepts for new movies. Picarella is currently writing the next project.