Many independent feature films are led by a director who has also penned their screenplay. So, what should you do if you have a script but aren't a director yourself? The answer is to find a director and do so early in the process. For us, a key part of building our core team was finding a director who was a good fit for “Turns Out” and our specific brand of comedy. Fortunately, we connected with the team from Evening Squire Productions while showcasing our short films at various festivals, and one half of the Evening Squire team is the very talented Director Mike Hayhurst. Fresh off making his first indie feature, “And Through the Portal We Go,” we have loads of questions about what a director does at this phase of a film's development. WHAT IS IT YOU DO, MIKE??!?!

Mike Hayhurst is an award-winning director and producer for film and theatre. Born and raised in the UK, he co-founded Evening Squire Productions in 2016 and has created multiple award-winning short films including BEAT; Cook With the Heart (currently in development as a feature film); Upside Down Plain Face; 15 Down; Oma starring Lynn Cohen; and The Pits, a live-action puppet short about a lonely avocado in NYC that Frank Oz called “really good and very sweet.” Most recently, his proof-of-concept mockumentary about professional Finnish hobby horse, Ava Keppihevonen, went viral and generated over 14.5M views.

His directorial feature debut, And Through the Portal We Go, premiered in 2024. Additional feature credits include Buck Run, The Trip to Bountiful with Cicely Tyson, and A Day Late and a Dollar Short with Whoopi Goldberg.

Previously, he spent four years as an Associate at Bill Haber’s Ostar Enterprises (Rizzoli & Isles, TNT; Beauty and the Beast, CW; Nothing to Hide, directed by Neil Patrick Harris at Signature Theater; various Broadway projects).

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