Nathan Tyler Johnson (born August 4, 1976) is an American film composer, director, and producer. He is best known for his collaborations with his cousin, directorRian Johnson, scoring all but one of his films.

Johnson was born inWashington, D.C., and grew up inColorado. After living in England in the mid-2000s, Johnson relocated to theEast Coast of the U.S., where he launched a live touring project with his band,The Cinematic Underground. His work with the band opened up doors into film composing, and his first musical score was for the award-winning filmBrick.^[1]

In 2005, Johnson composed the score to the neo-noir filmBrick, which was written and directed by his paternal cousinRian Johnson. The score features traditional instruments such as the piano, trumpet and violin, and also contains unique and invented instruments such as the wine-o-phone (which was out of bounds to everyone else for the time it was being recorded, for fear the tuning would change if anything happened to it), metallophone, treated pianos, filing cabinets, and kitchen utensils. The entire score was recorded inLittlehampton at a residential studio, hosted by Paul Burton (who went on to create Chapel Studios in Chichester), using a single microphone and a PowerBook computer. The score was hailed by The Chicago Tribune as "perhaps the most arresting soundtrack of the year to date" and Johnson was nominated for the Satellite award for Best Original Score from the International Press Academy.

Johnson finished the score for Rian Johnson's second film,The Brothers Bloom (2008), expanding the palette used inBrick to include strings and woodwinds for the sound of a "back porch orchestra".

Members of The Cinematic Underground have been involved with all of Johnson's scores. As well as producing the music forBrick andThe Brothers Bloom, Johnson has produced albums forThe Cinematic Underground, Faux Fix, Magik*Magik, and New Volunteer.

In 2012, Johnson composed the score for Rian Johnson's critically acclaimed third film,Looper. Much of the score was created using found-sounds and field recordings, which Johnson recorded while on location in New Orleans as the film was being shot. He and his team incorporated treadmills, industrial fans, and slamming car doors, along with a more traditional orchestral ensemble,^[2] and he received the IFMCA Breakthrough Composer award for his genre-bending work on the film.^[3]

Through his collaborations with Rian Johnson, he then teamed up withJoseph Gordon-Levitt (who starred inBrick andLooper) to score Gordon-Levitt's directorial debutDon Jon (2013). He since composed the music for Rian Johnson'sKnives Out (2019) andGlass Onion (2022).

In 2014, Johnson composed the score forJake Paltrow's science fiction action filmYoung Ones and also served as an executive producer on the film.

Johnson also contributed to the soundtrack for thePlayStation 4-exclusive video gameInfamous Second Son (received the nominationOriginal Dramatic Score, Franchise at the 2014 NAVGTR Awards, shared with Bryan Mantia andMarc Canham) and a stand-alone DLC to the game titledInfamous First Light.^[4]

Along with composing for film, Johnson has directed a number of music videos. In 2015, he created the much-lauded video for Son Lux's "Change Is Everything", which won the award for Best Alternative Video - Budget at theUK Music Video Awards,^[5] and was an official selection at numerous festivals, includingSXSW.^[6] The stop-motion video was created using 200 push pins and 500 feet of rubberized thread. It took a month to make, and combines stop-motion techniques with projected rotoscopes.^[7]NPR premiered the clip, calling it "mind blowing",The A.V. Club called it "powerfully hypnotic", and it was subsequently featured at the 2016TED conference.^[8][9][10] NPR also released a making-of video that details the arduous process.

Later that year, he directedTatiana Maslany andNoah Segan in the official video for You Don't Know Me. The video explores themes of ritual as seen in domestic relationships and religion. As The A.V. Club noted, it "finds Maslany trapped in the numbing routines of a modern relationship with a partner (Noah Segan) oblivious to her empty feeling. Soon, we’re cutting to a mysterious facility where Maslany holds sway over obedient followers—but, oddly, these rituals soon start to look just as hollow and meaningless as the ones she’s stuck with at home."^[9]

In 2016, Johnson worked with Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of the popular indie pop bandLucius to direct their music video for "Gone Insane". This video was created using an intervalometer and over 3,000 still photographs. Johnson enlisted special effects makeup artistJim Ojala to create a series of prosthetics which would be used to create the effect of Wolfe's face stretching like silly putty. The video received notable mainstream recognition, withRolling Stone describing the effects as "strange [and] striking" and theVillage Voice calling them "exceptional".^[11][12]

For the release ofSon Lux'sBrighter Wounds album, Johnson re-teamed withTatiana Maslany andTom Cullen to direct a 10 minute short film that uses the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac as an unsettling exploration into dogma and doubt. The video features cinematography bySteve Yedlin and was nominated for Best Music Video and Best Cinematography in a Music Video at the prestigiousCamerimage festival.

Johnson is also a member of a small design workshop called The Made Shop. He created the album cover forHow to Save a Life byThe Fray as well astheir follow up album artwork which was a collaboration with brother and founder of The Made Shop, Marke Johnson. Together, they have created the artwork for numerous albums, includingWe Are Rising,Bones, andBrighter Wounds by Son Lux.

Johnson is the founder ofThe Cinematic Underground, an art-pop collective that combines storytelling and graphic novel-style artwork with live performance. After relocating from England in 2005, Johnson brought together many of the original players to create a live touring production. In the Spring of 2006, The Cinematic Underground toured thirty-five cities in the U.S. with its stage production, Anesthesia.

He is also in the band Faux Fix along with singer Katie Chastain, and has produced albums for New Volunteer, Zut Alors, and The Magik*Magik Orchestra, among others.^[13]

Johnson is a founding member of The Echo Society, a Los Angeles-based collective of composers, visual designers and engineers. The group has put on multiple events in various locations throughout Los Angeles featuring large orchestral ensembles mixed with electronic music.^[14] The group features founding composersRob Simonsen,Joseph Trapanese,Jeremy Zuckerman,Benjamin Wynn,Eskmo, and Judson Crane, as well as sound engineer Satoshi Noguchi and visual artist Effixx.

• Official website
• The Cinematic Underground official site
• Nathan Johnson atIMDb
• Brick Soundtrack review at Soundtrack.net
• The Brothers Bloom official site

• 1976 births
• Living people
• 21st-century American composers
• 21st-century American male musicians
• American film score composers
• American male film score composers
• American music video directors
• Musicians from Washington, D.C.
• Record producers from Washington, D.C.
• Rian Johnson

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• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts