He is part of the filmmaking collective known as Sailor Bear where he produced the films Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Pioneer, Listen Up Philip, Person to Person, and A Ghost Story. He was a 2011 Creative Producing Fellow at the Sundance Institute, named to Variety’s 10 Producer’s To Watch in 2012, and won an Indie Spirit Award for producing in 2013. Johnston is a writer/director in his own right and his short films including Knife, Receive Bacon, and Merrily, Merrily have played to great acclaim at festivals around the world. His 2015 short Melville was named one of the best American short films for 2015 by IndieWire, among many other honors. Mother’s Day and Well Spoken, James’s two most recent short films were both named Vimeo Staff Picks, together being seen by half a million viewers.