Mike Johnson hails from Austin, Texas where he spent a large part of his childhood bending and breaking plastic dinosaurs in a futile attempt to re-create scenes from his favorite Ray Harryhausen films.Many years later, Johnson graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in Film/Animation/Video and moved to San Francisco where he got his big break as a rigging assistant on Tim Burton's animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. After Nightmare, Johnson went on to animate for various stop-motion productions such as James and the Giant Peach and the Emmy Award-winning children's series Bump in the Night.In 1996, Johnson set up his own animation company, Fat Cactus Films, and over the next few years produced and directed an eclectic and critically acclaimed mix of stop-motion projects including commercials, music videos and short films. His award winning animated short The Devil Went Down to Georgia has been screened in film festivals around the world.In 1998, Johnson moved to Portland, Oregon to direct three episodes of Eddie Murphy's Emmy Award winning television series, The P.J's.In 2002 things came full circle when Tim Burton asked Johnson to join him in directing the stop-motion feature, Corpse Bride.