Our Team.
LENNY SHAPIRO
CEO . Founder
Most recently, as president of Good Deed Entertainment, Lenny acquired and oversaw the north American distribution for the Academy Award nominated film, “Loving Vincent”. Lenny Executive produced and helped oversee the domestic distribution of the feature film, “Nightmare Cinema”, featuring some of the top horror directors of our time in one film, such as; David Slade, Mick Garris and Joe Dante.
As Executive producer, Mr. Shapiro has recently worked on the documentary films, “2nd Unit – invisible Action Stars” and “Women – Hollywood’s Hard Hitters”. These two films feature some of the biggest film and television stars in the world including; James Cameron, Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Zoe Saldana, Chad Stahelski, Helen Mirren, Shemar Moore and many others. Lenny also arranged the deal with MGM for the movie, “Trigger Happy”, starring Richard Dreyfus, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne. In addition, Mr. Shapiro is a marketing and distribution representative for Peninsula Films Inc., a full marketing, production and video distribution company. The first project of the company was “Dahmer”, The Jeffrey Dahmer movie starring Jeremy Renner, which Lenny was also the Executive producer. Dahmer was released by Blockbuster Video.
From 1982 to 1996, Mr. Shapiro served as President and CEO of Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment (SGE). He was responsible for the day-to-day operations of SGE, an independent production company with its own foreign sales department and an exclusive arrangement with MGM/Universal Home Video for domestic distribution. Mr. Shapiro supervised production, marketing, and distribution of SGE’s fourteen in-house, as well as distribution of over 100 motion pictures from outside producers.
For thirteen years before forming SGE, Mr. Shapiro was Vice President of Acquisitions and Marketing Services for Avco Embassy Pictures. There, he was responsible for the negotiation and acquisition of films for theatrical distribution. Additionally, he assisted and advised with respect to theatrical marketing campaign plans and was responsible for all Print and Advertising (P&A) budgetary planning and controls. These responsibilities called for Mr. Shapiro’s close involvement with the entire company management team, as well as producers, filmmakers, and creative personnel. Mr. Shapiro supervised the acquisition of “Time Bandits”, “Prom Night”, “Phantasm”, “The Exterminator” and other films. He was involved in the marketing and distribution of over 25 films, among them “Escape from New York”, “The Howling” and “The Fog”.
JOHNNIE SMITH
COO . Head of Development
A native of Detroit, Michigan, Johnnie used his talent as a choreographer and dancer, to take his group “Urban Jamm” to the “Star Search ’95″Finals to win the Grand Prize in the Dance and Choreography Division. Today, he is a top choreographer in Los Angeles working with various celebrities and recording artists.
Putting his business instincts to work, in 2001, Johnnie founded Urban Jamm Productions, an entity specializing in corporate video, corporate events and live entertainment. At this point Johnnie moved into the world of producing and directing music videos, documentaries, TV-commercials and TV-shows. Most recently Johnnie and his writing partner signed with the Gersh Agency and they are presently pitching his competitive Reality show called “Super Squad” to various Networks and show runners.
In the category of documentaries, Johnnie is presently in production on two documentaries on the stunt world, the first called, “2ndUnit – Invisible Action Stars” featuring James Cameron, Mark Wahlberg, Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Zoe Saldana, Helen Mirren and Chad Stahelski to name a few. Johnnie is also writer and producer for their second feature length documentary, “Women – Hollywood’s Hard Hitters”, featuring Jennifer Lawrence, Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Leila George, Halle Berry and Zoe Saldana. Johnnie also wrote and produced, “Backstage Beat – A Dancer’ Documentary”. He has also produced and directed a web series In Sweden for a dance countdown show called The House of Hitz, and produced and directed an MTV music video entitled “Currency” for the rap duo Crimeside. Johnnie is currently in pre-production for two feature-length films he wrote and will also produce and direct, “Swish” and “Dance 10” under the RFI banner. Also, on the table is a film called “Dark Night”, presently in its beginning stage of development. With all of this, Johnnie also sold a pilot script entitled “Heist”, to Jerry Bruckheimer Television, and will co-produce under the RFI banner.