Playback is proud to present the 2024 cohort for our annual 10 to Watch. This year’s group of Canadian screen industry talents were selected from more than 250 submissions. We are rolling out profiles on each individual this month.

Mike Johnston had little inclination he’d become an increasingly prolific producer in Vancouver back when his career began.

The communal experience of the movie theatre has always been the driving force behind what Johnston wanted to do with his life, he tells Playback Daily. It all clicked for him at the age of 10, seeing Jaws for the first time. Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece drove him to want to be a director, inspiring the move to enroll in film school.

After graduating from the University of British Columbia with a bachelor of fine arts in film production in 2017, he spent the next two years bouncing between the grip and lighting departments on various film productions. He also found himself part of the weekly production meetings.

“That was a great education for me,” says Johnston noting the productions were largely TV movies. “[I was able] to get close to the upper echelon of some of these production companies. We were doing 10 movies a year.”

By the end of 2018, he started thinking bigger, and convened with his fellow graduates Andy Alvarez, Diana Parry and Martin Calvo to form Studio 104 Entertainment in February 2019.

Initially, the focus was on narrative short films and documentary shorts, largely receiving funding from the BC Arts Council and the Harold Greenberg Fund. Johnston says he found it difficult at first switching from being a “cog in the machine,” or one small part of the production, to overseeing the entire process from conception to distribution. The biggest change was the scale of the responsibilities. But he says the leadership skills he acquired managing a team of key grips provided the building blocks for his transition to producer.

Studio 104’s first narrative feature was the 2023 B.C. and Quebec coproduction Wild Goat Surf, about a 12-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a surfer, written and directed by Caitlyn Sponheimer. It was funded by Telefilm Canada and released theatrically this year by Vortex Media. Johnston says it was a project that came to the company via Sponheimer, who also produced. She needed a B.C. producer to aid with the interprovincial aspects, and chose Johnston after several interviews with established local producers.

Johnston called it a difficult production and an “even more difficult” post-production process thanks in part to the fact that it was his first feature. Other factors were its status as an interprovincial coproduction, a first-time feature director behind the helm and shooting in the Okanagan in August as fire season approached.

“We encountered a very large issue and Mike pretty much ended up saving the film,” says Sponheimer. “He was always [putting] the project and the story first. What I was trying as a director to say and communicate, he always wanted that first.”

It wasn’t until its world premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival that everything clicked for him.

“I remember the film playing at the Rio Theatre… and just looking around and seeing people smiling, seeing some people crying,” he says. “That was a moment when we felt at least on that particular project, this is really working.” It was that moment sitting among peers, audience members and those in the industry react to the film that made him realize “this is why we do what we do.”

Jake Labow, the co-founder of Toronto-based Robot Monkey Entertainment, met Johnston a couple of years ago after being introduced via a mutual associate. What immediately stood out to Labow was Johnston’s strong grasp of the Canadian marketplace and funding system, particularly compared to other young producers.

“He’s young, he’s really energetic and he’s not afraid to pick up the phone,” says Labow. “He’s not afraid to really reach for bigger things.”

Since that first feature he’s worked as a producer or co-producer on several films, including I’m Just Here for the Riot, a 2023 ESPN Films documentary. Part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, the film focused on the 2011 Stanley Cup riots after the Vancouver Canucks lost in game seven to the Boston Bruins. Johnston worked on the film as a solo co-producer, with Studio 104 at “arm’s length.” He came onto the project as a result of his existing relationships with directors Asia Youngman and Kathleen Jayme, as well as producer Michael Grand from previous projects.

Johnston and Studio 104’s other productions include The Interceptors, a Telus originals short documentary from 2022 about a diverse group of individuals supporting food security. Then there’s the documentary short Overtime, about a mother competing to be on B.C.’s women’s ice hockey team at the Canada 55 Plus Games. The film had its world premiere at the Calgary International Film Festival in 2023.

Lastly, there’s Curl Power, a feature documentary focused on teens vying to become Canadian junior curling champions, that had its world premiere at the 2024 Hot Docs. The Telus originals film was picked up for a Jan. 24 Canadian theatrical release by Sherry Media Group under its Impact Series banner.

Johnston’s upcoming projects include Send the Rain from first time feature directors and writers Kaayla Whachell and Hayley Gray, one of two projects he’s working on with executive producer Labow. The film, in the development stage with financing from Telefilm Canada, will shoot next summer. It focuses on a Japanese-Canadian family trying to convince their grandmother to leave the family farm as B.C.’s wildfire season approaches.

Closer to the finish line is Memoria, now in pre-production, from his fellow Studio 104 founder Alvarez in her first outing as writer-director. Also on board are Labow as EP and Parry as the director of photography. The film is inspired by Alvarez and her family’s journey from Colombia to Canada as refugees, told through the eyes of a seven-year-old girl. Funding has already been provided by Telefilm Canada, Crave, CBC Films and Creative BC.

Johnston calls Memoria his biggest challenge so far, thanks to its scale and the intricacies involved with it being an international coproduction, shooting in both Canada and Colombia.

“What I’m doing now is trying to educate myself on diversifying how we finance projects, diversifying the kind of production partners we partner with,” he says, “because the ABCs of how we’ve done it in years past don’t always work.”

Going forward, Johnston wants to continue to expand relationships internationally, particularly into the U.S. Part of that involves reaching audiences abroad with Studio 104’s existing projects.

“Then for this next tranche of projects that we’re starting development on now, [the plan] is really making sure that they have a commercial viability to them, so we can meet audiences around the world more effectively,” he says.

Having largely operated in the drama and documentary space for the last five years, he’s also interested in exploring other genres, naming action and thriller as potential avenues. A Mike Johnston-produced thriller would certainly bring his career to a full-circle moment, having started as a kid entranced by Spielberg’s depiction of a deadly ocean predator.

“If there’s any takeaway from this,” he says, “it all started with a shark.”

Image courtesy of Mike Johnston