When Mike Jones first embarked on his screenwriting career in the 1990s, he never would have guessed that he’d end up at Pixar. But the “Soul” co-writer and creator of the upcoming “Inside Out” spin-off “Dream Productions” is certainly happy that things worked out the way they did.
At IndieWire’s inaugural Future of Filmmaking summit in Los Angeles on November 2, Jones sat down with IndieWire editor-in-chief Dana Harris-Bridson for a wide-ranging conversation about his one-of-a-kind career. Like many a New York filmmaker in the 1990s, Jones began his journey with his sights set on one goal: writing a movie that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
“I had a bottle of champagne in my refrigerator that was purely going to be opened when I got into Sundance. Early on, when I was writing scripts, I go, ‘I am writing a script for Sundance. It’s going to get made. We’re going to screen at Sundance. It’s going to get bought. It’s going to be great,’ Jones said. “And that never happened.”
Jones was soon hit with the lesson that countless filmmakers encounter early in their careers: festival glory isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, and there are many other ways to break into the industry. While those Sundance dreams never materialized, Jones eventually found himself joining Pixar’s senior creative team, where he worked on films like “Incredibles 2” and “Toy Story 4” before co-writing the screenplay for “Soul” in 2020 and stepping into the showrunner role for “Dream Productions.” Jones credits his unexpected career pivot to Pixar’s willingness to hire writers without traditional animation backgrounds.
“Pixar doesn’t hire animation writers, they hire writers that know how to string a story together,” he said. “They hire writers that know drama. Pixar can make anything funny and beautiful and just stunning looking, but they need people that can help keep the whole arc of character in their heads.”
Jones recalled that his introduction to Pixar came at an impasse when he was hesitant to take new writing jobs, but said that the spirit of collaboration and creativity at the studio reinvigorated him as an artist.
“I had come out of this period where I’d been saying no to a lot of stuff,” he said, explaining that he felt that the kinds of complex characters he wanted to write were not suited to the commercial projects he was being offered. “And then Pixar said, ‘No, we want those characters. We want you in these movies. We don’t want you to fall back on stuff that we’ve done or stuff that we’ve seen before. We’re looking for something unique, and we’re looking for characters that people can fully believe in.’”
Jones ended his panel with a note of encouragement to every artist who is still trying to find their way in the film industry. The lesson, he said, isn’t to replicate his own unique career — it’s to embrace the unexpected paths that your own life will inevitably lead you down.
“I thought I belonged in independent film, and it really didn’t turn out like that,” he said. “And I love where I’m at right now.”
Watch Jones’ complete conversation from IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking summit above.
Special thanks to our Future of Filmmaking Summit partners: Canva, Kino, SAGindie, The American Pavilion, United for Business, and The Walt Disney Studios.
