Interview: ‘Mom & Dad’s Nipple Factory’ Director Justin Johnson
In Maker’s Dozen, we ask folks in and around the film industry 12 questions and have them ask one of us.
Justin Johnson is a Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker whose new documentary Mom & Dad’s Nipple Factory (available now on VOD) spotlights his parents and the secretive prosthetic nipple business they started after his mom’s breast cancer diagnosis.
In this interview, Justin talks about the moment he decided to make the documentary, what movies his parents would be, his filmmaking influences, and more!
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
1. What is the Justin Johnson origin story?
My origin story is pretty complicated. I think my dad was a huge part of me becoming a filmmaker just because he was so dutifully recording our family in these very beautiful, simple kinds of ways. We grew up without a lot of money, so he would always be borrowing cameras. And so when we had a camera like for a weekend or whatever it was this special event, and I think that helped us really use it quite a bit. Then when I got into high school, I was making videos for youth group. They gave me an audience and allowed me some creative expression—some things that my youth pastor did not totally agree with, but that’s another story. But that’s kind of how I started. Just in small-town Wisconsin making stuff and inspired by my dad.
2. What was the moment when you decided that this story should be a documentary?
From the beginning. I think because I was so bemused by what my parents’ business was as I started to learn the basics of it. And as I say in the film, we kind of knew how mom and dad made nipples, but we didn’t really know a lot more about the business, so the documentary part of it was for me to find out. It started with the idea of being just a short documentary. It’s going to be super low-key, a weekend or two, and dad’s not even going to have to talk. And I just couldn’t really figure out the heart of it. It was a couple years later, after I had started filming the short but never finished it, that I realized it was about my parents’ love story. And that really blossomed into what I thought could be a feature.
3. What was the hardest conversation you had to have for the movie?
I think probably the initial one because I was pretty nervous that my dad, who’s extremely shy, wouldn’t really want to even talk on camera. I had the shot all set up and mom was sitting on the couch, and dad just sat down next to her. And I was like, “OK dad, I guess you can sit there. But you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” And we proceeded to have this incredible hour and a half, super deep conversation about how he and my mom met and about the nipple business and my mom’s cancer and all that. So it was quite a bit of nerves before then and felt very much like putting dad on the spot, which he doesn’t always love. But once we got going, and once I put on that documentary filmmaker hat, things really changed and moved forward.
4. What’s a moment from the movie that almost didn’t happen?
That’s a great question. One of the very last pieces of interviews we got was with Dr. Khouri. He was really elusive. He’s the doctor from Florida who really vetted my parents’ project and is a medical expert who said “Yes, this is good.” I think we got that interview in January 2022 and we locked edit in March 2022. I had emailed him for years, literally years. Mom had emailed him as well and he just wouldn’t get back to us. He’s a busy doctor, right? Finally, I was able to pin him down and get a date. I sent a crew out there and I did the interview over video chat, and I just can’t imagine the movie without it. He’s this medical expert and he’s got these great pink-rimmed glasses on. He’s coming out of whatever operation he was in and I remember him sitting down being like, “What’s this for? What’s going on?” I told him I’m the son of Brian and Randi Johnson and he immediately remembered them and their whole story and just brought this incredible life to the film. I’m really glad I sent that one last email thinking “Maybe he’ll get back to us,” and he actually did.
5. If your mom and dad were each different movies, what would they be?
I think dad would probably be a black-and-white silent film where they just have a shot of a guy just sitting in a room quietly by himself. And mom, I think she would be like a Michael Palin-style travelogue. It’s just amazing her love for people and how open she is and how she really talks to everyone. Having been able to travel with her for the film, she’s constantly sharing her ministry, telling people her Christianity story, and then of course talking about the film, which is great.
6. Who are your filmmaking influences?
There’s a couple of films that were really formative to me when I was younger and came out at the perfect time, right as I was like 17 or 18. One is Rushmore, Wes Anderson’s second film, which I just love. I completely identified with the character of Max because he was really bad at school, but really good at all these other extracurriculars. I found him a really inspiring character, especially as I was not doing great in school but really pursuing the creative arts. The other film from the documentary side is American Movie, which came out in 1999 from Chris Smith. Watching it now with the context of having been in the industry and lived in L.A. and all these places, I understand the humor around it. But at the time I was like, “Oh my God, there’s another filmmaker in Wisconsin. This is amazing.” I didn’t look at it as how hilariously scrappy Mark and Mike are—I was more inspired by the fact that there are other people making films.
7. What are three documentaries more people need to see?
I really love the documentary Finders Keepers, which is about a person who finds this severed foot in a slow cooker and turns it into this big PR machine, where he thinks he’s going to get rich off of it. I remember seeing that at a film festival in 2015 and it felt like a ride because it was so hilarious. I had just finished my first feature doc, and I’m like, “I really want to make a film that feels like going on a ride.” I’m going to say American Movie as the second one. And the third one is The Final Member, a really funny and quirky doc about a penis museum. It’s a hilariously weird topic with great characters, which I always love.
8. How has working in commercials informed your other filmmaking?
I worked at YouTube/Google for a short while, and around 2012 I quit my job at Google and went out to L.A. to start doing commercials. I really gravitated to branded content documentaries and I did a lot of things through a site called Tongal, which is a filmmaker site where you can essentially win bids to get different projects. I got to do things with this massive med tech company called Abbott Labs and travel the world and do stuff that was really magical. All that taught me how to plan, how to do pre-interviews and start to understand what your questions are going to be, and really find the right mix of what’s planned while also leaving room for serendipity and magic.
“It was a couple years later that I realized it was about my parents’ love story. And that really blossomed into what I thought could be a feature.”
9. What real-life story or event deserves its own documentary?
Maybe I am tipping my hat a little bit, but I really think that Tumblr could use a documentary. I proposed to my wife on the site since I know the guy who founded it (David Karp) and was able to take over the Tumblr dashboard of everyone in the world to do it. There’s a lot of intrigue there with the Yahoo acquisition and a lot of great characters. It could be a great documentary. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. Someone give me a million dollars, please!
10. What’s something you’d tell your 15-year-old self?
That’s another great question. If I would just list all the things I’ve been able to do, places I’ve been able to live, I think it would certainly blow him away. Coming from really humble and meager beginnings, I think I’ve already been able to achieve more in 42 years of my life than I ever expected I would in my entire life. I feel like there is sometimes an attitude from people who come from better fortune that their expectations are a lot higher. For me, I’m always happy but never satisfied, and feel like there’s always something else to figure out. So I think my 15 year old self would be really grateful and I think amazed and impressed. But it did feel like I always had a desire for my trajectory to be different than most normal folks in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
11. You explain in the movie how religion is a big part of your parents’ life, but not yours. What do you consider holy now?
I consider the weekends holy. I have a social media agency that I run and it’s pretty intense, so I really try to not work during the weekend as much as possible. If I am working, it’s something that is fun to me like the year-end video I do every year, which is something where it takes up a good amount of time. I’m not in the religious world at all like my parents, but I’m super grateful for my upbringing and think it was a great way to grow up.
12. What’s something underrated about Wisconsin?
I think Wisconsin falls might be underrated. People complain about the winter, and honestly the winter is fine. I live in Minneapolis now, and you are just cozy and make sure you have nice socks and things like that. But there’s an area in Wisconsin called Door County, which is absolutely stunning, especially in the fall, and definitely worth checking out. The seasons really make you appreciate the days that are perfect and nice, whereas every day in L.A. you’re just like, “Yep, it’s great. Who cares?” I never took that for granted because of my Wisconsin weather background.
+1. What’s your question for us?
You call yourself Cinema Sugar, so if your website was a type of specific sweet, what would it be?
Chad: As a fellow Wisconsin kid, I gotta go with a vanilla Culver’s Concrete Mixer with M&Ms. We have a rich and solid body of work with colorful delights mixed in between the different features and monthly themes—Flavors of the Month if you will.