In the business world, executives come in all shapes and sizes, from the buttoned-down to the stressed-out to the laid-back. And then there’s Mike Hart, owner of 5 Star Productions, a video production company in Fort Smith, who personifies the adage, “Marching to the beat of a different drummer.”
“The secret sauce is real easy,” he says of his company’s success. “Anybody can hire a production company, everybody has great people, but are they a great fit? We’re more about being who we are and letting that client come in and see that, and if they feel comfortable, they’ll do business with you. If not, they won’t, and that’s cool. Every human’s different; some people dig it, some people dig the 5 Star mojo, and some are looking for something a little different.”
One might think that attitude would limit the kinds of clients 5 Star appeals to, but such has not proven to be the case. Over the past two decades, Mike and his band of creatives have done video work for some of the largest corporations in America, from Rheem Manufacturing and Colt and Walther firearms to Cheez-It and Kellogg’s to Home Depot. In between, there has been work for several local businesses as well as television series, feature films, and other video content throughout the United States and at various international locations.
Attempts to fully explain what makes the firm tick require reflection and the question puts Mike’s trademark mile-a-minute energy on momentary pause.
“I used to sell production by going in and saying, ‘Hey, you guys, listen, we’ve got the best equipment. We’ve got a ten thousand-square-foot building. We’ve got a theater.’ I was selling, right?” he says. “Eventually, I realized, you know what? Stop trying to sell what you have and sell who you are and who your team is, because the one talent I have is finding great people and nurturing them to go on and do great things.”
The other fundamental element to Mike’s success is a natural aptitude for storytelling, whether in a million-dollar sixty-second commercial or trash-talking across the poker table. And while it wasn’t always the happiest of themes, much of what he knows about framing subject matter, he came by honestly, living it from his earliest childhood.
“I was born here in Arkansas, and we grew up pretty poor,” he says. “We moved around a lot trying to find work from the time I can remember, from the time I was five or six. We lived in some bad parts of Kansas City. We lived in some bad parts of Colorado, and we always ended up coming back to Arkansas.”
The oldest of five kids, Mike’s teenage years were spent in less-than-positive ways as he fell into the wrong crowd and regularly found himself in trouble.
“When I was in junior high and high school, you know, I was in and outta juvenile detention,” he said. “I was always with the wrong crowd, always wanting to do something I shouldn’t be doing. I just had a rough life, pretty much brought on by myself. I mean, I blamed everybody and anybody that ever did anything, you know?
“I didn’t really know anything except I had to get away from the bad people I was hanging out with, and there’s a lot of scar tissue there, literally. I got busted up pretty good, trying to get away from some of the people that I shouldn’t have been around.”
By age seventeen, he was working in an ice plant across the border in Oklahoma when he heard about the local NBC affiliate in Fort Smith hiring for a camera operator. Of course, he’d never operated a television camera before, but never one to lack chutzpah, he applied anyway. To his amazement, he was hired on the spot and asked to report for the evening newscast.
“My boss basically looked at me and was like, ‘You’re an idiot, but I’ll give you a job,'” he says. “You talk about an eye opener, a seventeen-year-old kid who came from neighborhoods where you stole everything you wanted to, suddenly being in a news studio trying to learn how to run a camera. It was something.”
Mike soon discovered he had a knack for the technology of television, for editing spots, and a natural eye for what looked good. His years in TV were profitable ones ― for himself as well as for his employer ― but the hours were murder.
“I loved this production thing, but I was working sixteen- to twenty-hour days, then going home, taking a shower, and going back to work, basically,” he says. “By this time, I’ve got two daughters, and we had plans to have another child.
“My wife, Cheryl, was always so supportive. I’ll never forget, I came home once and told her how I loved the business. She told me, ‘Why don’t you do this for yourself and make your own money instead of making it for somebody else?’ So, in 1996, I bit the bullet, you know, and took the jump.”
Cheryl’s faith proved well-founded as one challenge after another was met and overcome to get the business established and bring in clients. Today, 5 Star Productions’ facility includes the 801 Media Center, a sprawling complex that offers spaces for corporate events and training, private concerts, and movie screenings, press conferences, and a host of other uses.
The digs aren’t the only thing that’s first class. Over time, the business has attracted a roster of creatives and technicians that have grown into one of the most respected production crews in the country, producing work that Mike will stack up against any competitor anywhere.
“I get this question all the time,” he said. “We were shooting for Google in New York City, and they’re like, ‘Why do we have a production company coming from Arkansas?’ We were shooting in Washington, D.C., for what they call an automotive mega project, and a guy from Britain was like, ‘So we’ve hired a crew from Alabama?’ And I’m like, no, it’s Arkansas.
“So, we fight the Arkansas stigma, but I’ve learned to embrace it. I always tell people, you know, talent’s talent; it really doesn’t matter where the hell we’re at. And once we do the work, they don’t give a damn where we’re from, either.”
In fact, Mike sometimes wonders if some of the magic of the company would be lost if 5 Star Productions were located in one of the first places people think of when they think of production houses, such as Chicago, New York, or L.A. Being from someplace else, and proudly so, is much more in the company’s roguish character.
“It’s like a good friend of mine said one time, he said, ‘You could uproot and build a company anywhere and keep doing what you do. But man, there’s a grit about Fort Smith. There’s a fight, there’s something about it,'” Mike says. “Yeah, there’s a percentage of people who visit Fort Smith and they think, ‘What a hole,’ but then there’s the other people, like us, that go, ‘Man, I dig it.’
“You know, last year, we were in over thirty different states, and a couple of years ago, we worked in more than eight countries. We run three crews constantly, going everywhere. But there’s something about it ― when that plane’s flying back over Arkansas. It’s bringing you home.”
For more on 5 Star Productions, visit 5starproductions.com.
