A native of Key West, filmmaker Michael Baumgarten attended high school and film production classes in Orlando, Florida. His first professional year in the biz was spent doing production assistant gigs on commercials, indie film projects, an MTV Spring Break special, and the studio movies "Oscar," "Honey I Blew Up The Kid," and "Problem Child 2." Michael later moved to Los Angeles in 1995 where he did assistant director gigs, worked as an executive assistant for a Century City film finance company, and then held assistant to the producer positions on movies such as "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Kiss Toledo Goodbye." Michael also devoted over 3 years to the theatrical distribution company Legacy Releasing where he served as the Director of Acquisitions. After a decade of experience under his belt, Michael started writing and producing with the comedy/drama feature film "Roomies." Michael followed that up with 3 seasons of segment producing the hit show "MTV Taildaters" and moonlighted as a line producer on award-winning films such as "Exodus Fall." Michael also wrote and produced the award-winning feature "Smitty."

As a screenwriter and director, Michael has directed 6 features from his screenplays and is best known for writing and directing the award winning anti-bullying comedy/drama "The Martial Arts Kid" and the award-winning action-comedy "Paying Mr. McGetty." Michael also wrote the screenplay for LionsGate's sci-fi/family film "The Adventure of A.R.I.: My Robot Friend" (2020) and he has ready-to-produce screenplays available that include the teen crime drama "Suburban Gangstas," the sequel "The Martial Arts Kid 2: Payback," the buddy comedy "Man Campers," the female in danger drama "Cyber Star," the teen romantic comedy "My Social Media Nightmare," and the action-packed vampire trilogy "Blood Walkers."