Arizona brothers spend their free time making films with Hollywood aspirations

When brothers Michael and Jaric Erike walk into a room, it's hard not to notice their height.

Michael is 6-foot-4. Jaric is even taller, at 6-foot-10.

As fit-looking young Black men — Michael is 30, Jaric is 31 — they are frequently mistaken for professional basketball players.

At grocery stores, airports and other public places, the Erike brothers, who spend a lot of time together, are often asked what NBA team they play for. Complete strangers ask for autographs and selfies. And when the Erikes tell them they are not basketball players, they are lawyers, people often don't believe them. One unconvinced basketball fan even asked Jaric for his autograph anyway. He was sure Jaric was just being humble. Jaric signed, just for fun.

The Erike brothers find these kinds of encounters, which happen all the time, annoying, racist and even infuriating. But then, about two years ago, it dawned on them: Why not weave these experiences into a film? And so they did.

Born less than 12 months apart, the Erike brothers — the name rhymes with Enrique — grew up in Mesa. They are the sons of immigrant parents from Nigeria. After graduating from college in California, they both went to law school in Arizona and became successful lawyers. But they never gave up on their true passion, becoming filmmakers.

For the past two years, while working full-time as lawyers, they have devoted every minute of their spare time to creating a film they hope will help them break into Hollywood.

The two brothers wrote, directed and acted in the 40-minute film called "Cut."

The film, which cost nearly $200,000 to produce, will premiere on May 16 at the Linwood Dunn Theater. The 286-seat state-of-the-art screening facility is part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the same organization that produces the Oscars. Executives from Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros. and several other Hollywood studios have been invited to the screening, along with representatives from several streaming services.

"May 16 is a big introduction to the industry for us," said Jaric Erike. He was slouched on a wide sofa inside the brothers' comfortable home in a Mesa subdivision, his long legs stretched out. "It's a big way of saying, this is who we are as the Erike brothers."

"Cut" — about a tall Black lawyer who wants to be a filmmaker and enlists his lawyer brother to help him write a script about two tall Black lawyers who want to become filmmakers — is based on their own lives, a style of storytelling known as a meta-narrative.

In the film, the two brothers attempt to achieve celebrated filmmaker status but plunge into some dark and twisted psychological corners along the way. The film is layered with many themes that touch upon ambition, fame, mental health, creative integrity, Blackness and racism.

"There's a lot of interest in us in particular because we're lawyers becoming filmmakers, which is a bit of an interesting story," Jaric Erike said of the media and film industry attention they have already received. "There's two of us, it's a brother pair, and I think the diversity angle always helps."

In one key scene in the film, a white female journalist interviews Jaric and Michael after their film receives critical acclaim. But instead of focusing on the film she pivots to questions about their height, especially Jaric's.

In the scene, height clearly is an unspoken substitute for Blackness, causing Jaric to lash out.

"I don't think people like you realize the pure rage I keep like this when people ask the same thing," Jaric Erike, playing Jaric, tells the journalist. "It's getting to the point where it — can just explode."

From Arizona to California and back again

The Erikes attended Brophy College Preparatory High School in Phoenix. They transferred to Loyola High School in Los Angeles after their family moved to California because of their father's work. He's an engineer at Intel. Both brothers also attended the same college, Loyola Marymount University and graduated with identical degrees in finance.

After moving back to Arizona and earning law degrees from ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law, they both pursued careers as lawyers. Jaric worked for a medical malpractice firm right out of law school and now handles personal injury cases for the Shapiro Law Team. Michael is a transactional attorney, preparing legal contracts for large and small businesses.

The Erike brothers said they pursued careers as attorneys out of personal interest in the law. But they also wanted to satisfy their parents, who supported their passion for filmmaking but wanted them to first find careers that could finance their ambitions.

Jaric said their parents — who came to the U.S. to study; their mom has a finance degree from ASU — didn't want to see their children waiting tables in Los Angeles while they struggled to become filmmakers.

"So they were very strict in terms of school," he said. "School was always number one."

Brothers have no formal training in filmmaking

The Erike brothers do not have any formal training in making films. Jaric learned directing skills by watching many movies and studying how they are made. He also watched YouTube videos to learn technical skills, like which camera lens works best for different shots.

They also didn't grow up making movies for fun like Steven Spielberg and other directors who became famous.

Their interest in becoming filmmakers started when they were young, participating in acting camps and then taking theater classes in high school and college.

An acting mentor once suggested Jaric consider a career working behind the camera because, despite his talent, it might be difficult for him to pursue acting because audiences would look at him and say, "Oh, that's the tall guy."

"It's hard for you to hide in your character when you have such a distinguished trait," Jaric Erike said. "So, she was like, if you have any interest to write, or work behind the camera, explore that as well."

Michael is the writer of the two. He grew up writing stories and creating poetry and also took an acting class in college.

Their first film, a nine-minute short called "ALONE," was released in 2020. They wrote the script together. Michael stars in the film, which Jaric directed.

Film comes together during many late nights and long weekends

Jaric came up with the idea for "Cut" in the summer of 2022. The title refers to the word directors use to end filming a scene, but in the Erike brothers' film, it has a double meaning.

Michael hammered out the first draft in 48 hours and then the two went back and forth for weeks developing the story. Michael finished the final script that October and they began casting in November and December. They hired cinematographer Jack Schwitz of Mesa-based Dynamic Video Solutions to shoot the film in the Phoenix area from February through June 2023. That was followed by nearly a year of post-production including editing, sound, music and coloring. The film's audio was done by the Formosa Group, one of the most prestigious post-production firms in Hollywood, and includes an original score performed by professional musicians.

They remember the long days making "Cut," working from 9 to 5 at their regular jobs as lawyers, and then coming home to work on the film during evenings and weekends.

"We had some night shoots that went until like 2 or 3 a.m. where we still had to be at work the next morning," Jaric Erike said.

On weekends, they alternated between filming and prepping for the next shoot. "So we couldn't even shoot two weekends in a row because that was just too much," he said.

What's next

The Erike brothers have hired a manager, Andrea Courtney, to help them navigate careers as filmmakers in Hollywood.

Courtney said she was drawn to working with the Erike brothers because, as a Latina, she wants to help amply diverse voices and ensure they are heard.

"One of the unique things about the Erike brothers is that they are a team of writer and director," Courtney said. But because the Erike brothers also act in the film, "it's a Black voice not only in front of the camera but behind the camera. And oftentimes that doesn't happen."

A lot is riding on the May 16 release of "Cut," Courtney said.

She said the brothers hope the film's premiere will launch more opportunities for them to work in Hollywood as filmmakers.

The brothers are deciding what to do after the premiere of "Cut." One option is screening the film at film festivals to generate interest. Another is selling the film to streaming services. A third route is developing the short film into a full-length feature film, Courtney said.

As for those basketball fans who asked the Erike brothers for autographs in the past? Here's some advice. Hold on to them.

Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Michael and Jaric Erike, lawyers pursuing passion for making movies