Forti/Layne Entertainment is one of South Florida’s most recognized film and television production companies. Founded in 1986 by the producing/directing team of Brian Forti and Kevin Layne, the company specializes in producing award-winning music television specials and weekly series, music videos, documentaries, commercials, and corporate presentations for the English and Hispanic markets.

In 1991 Forti/Layne caught the eye of Latin music heavyweight Emilio Estefan who signed the team to produce Disney Channel’s “Gloria Estefan, Going Home”. The one hour special was recognized with “Best Music Special of the Year” honors at The Cable Ace Awards that year (defeating Sting and Paul McCartney among others) and would propel the duo into the national and international spotlight.

The company produced a number of award-winning productions for the Estefans including the highly publicized, all digital production of Gloria’s “Live for Loving You” music video, inducted into VH-1′s Hall of Fame, Jon Secada’s smash debut “Just Another Day/ Otro dia Mas”, which won a Billboard Award for “Best Director” and “Mi Tierra, My Homeland” a docu/music special that aired on the Univision Network and VH-1. Again the team was honored for excellence with another Cable Ace Award, this time for editing.

The Forti/Layne team has launched a number of television series and specials over the last 25 years that run the gamut from concert specials, technology and health shows to “Barcode”, USA network’s alternative dance show. The team produced the first “Fairway to Heaven”, Vh-1′s annual rock and golf special and co-produced “People En Espanol 25 Bellezas”, a music special for the Telemundo Network and People Magazine.

In 2001 the Forti/Layne team was tapped to take over production on a fledgling music series for Pepsi called Pepsi Chart. The series was a ratings disaster and was close to cancellation. The FLE creative team went to work reformatting the show, raising the production value with a new look and new segments and Cartelera Pepsi/Pepsi Musica became consistently one of the highest rated music programs across the US on the Telefutura Network. Forti/Layne produced and directed over 112 episodes of the popular international music series encompassing 400 plus music performances featuring some of the top names in Latin music.

The connection with Latin based productions continued in 2005 as FLE was called on to produced the US production of “America”, TV Globo’s highly rated novella. The Brazilian network is known throughout the world for its high quality productions and hired Forti/Layne to produce the US scenes for this widely popular High Definition series.

In April of 2005, the Telemundo Network for the third year in a row hired FLE to co-produce the television special People En Espanol “Los 50 Más Bellos”, a one hour show featuring People Magazine’s most beautiful people of the year. Telemundo again called on FLE that year to produce and direct Latin music diva Paulina Rubio’s eye-catching, show opening number for the Latin Billboard Awards.

The multi-camera production captured Paulina’s dynamic performance on the back of a pick-up truck winding through downtown Miami on the way to the live event.

An active year in the world of music entertainment also brought crossover phenomenon singer/songwriter Shakira to Forti/Layne Entertainment. Sony/BMG Music hired our team to direct and produce a high definition video package for Shakira’s new dual disc “Fijación Oral 1”, along with behind the scenes videography and EPK’s of her promotional tour.

Forti/Layne has directed an impressively diverse array of concert DVD’s including legendary rockers Deep Purple, country music icon Ronnie Milsap and a highly acclaimed HD production of “LA Woman, Live” The Doors of the 21st Century. Featuring original members Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger along with ex Cult lead singer Ian Astbury, the 90 minute show deftly captures the power and magic of the Doors music with poignant interviews sprinkled throughout the show. Since its release, “LA Woman, Live” has out sold all other Doors DVD’s.

In 2005 Forti/Layne Entertainment teamed up with MTV to produce the show open for the 2005 Music Video Awards, as well as two high definition multi-camera concerts for MTV Overdrive’s “Hotel MTV” and Vh-1’s “Life Beat”. In 2007 we won a Suncoast Regional Emmy Award for Best Director for our Miami Heat Sunshine Sports Show Open. In 2009 we teamed up with Five Star Entertainment and Big Screen Entertainment to co-produce and co-direct William Shatner’s Gonzo ballet, which had it’s world premiere at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival. Also that year, Kevin Layne was Producer and Director of Photography on genre-jumping artist Kevin Rudolf’s music video for “Welcome to the World” and shot and edited the music video for Cash Money/Universal Republic Record’s Bryan “Baby” Williams’ cameo-studded song “Strapped”.

In 2010 Forti/Layne produced David Guetta feauting Kid Cudi’s music video for “Memories”, as well as “Superbowl’s Greatest Commercials”, a highly-watched TV special Forti/Layne produced for IMG Media and CBS. 2010 and 2011 also saw Forti/Layne begin working with full service advertising agency DBA Worldwide and U-health University of Miami Health Systems and Miller School of Medicine on the award-winning primetime TV series “Breakthrough Medicine” highlighting how U-health’s lifesaving innovations are changing medicine. 2010 and ’11 also heralded the return of VH1’s iconic “Behind the Music” and Forti/Layne shot for episodes on Jennifer Lopez, Missy Elliott, Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin. Promos for the wildly successful film “Bridesmaids” for 2C Media and Lifetime Network, as well as segments for the Dr. Oz show, behind the scenes for A&E network’s “The Glades”, host shoots for Food Network’s “Unwrapped”, countless ENG shoots for Viacom networks made it another great year. On the corporate side our production work on fundraising videos for The United Way of Miami Dade and The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis helped these incredible foundations to achieve highly successful fundraising goals.

Currently we are finishing up our year-long producing work on “The Captains”, William Shatner’s feature-length documentary where he travels the world to connect with each of the actors who’ve played a Starfleet Captain, giving an in-depth look at the Star Trek franchise through the unique experiences of each actor. We’ve also begun filming for Shatner’s Fan Addicts which delves into the human interest stories and passion of the series’ fans.

Contact: Kevin Layne

T. 305.857.5050
C. 786.417.9393

E. kevin@fortilayne.com