Firstly, I will be down in Charleston, South Carolina, on March 21st to deliver a paper at Holy Moot, a day conference on the intersection of Christian theology and the work of JRR Tolkien. The wonderfully nerdy title of my paper (I need to sound like an academic to blend in) is: On Making and Being Made: A Filmmaking Hermeneutic for Creation Stories. Presenting a paper from the front of the room will be a markedly different experience from presenting a film while hiding in the back of a theater, but I’m very excited for the new challenge and all the lessons I’m sure to learn from this experience. If this sounds intriguing to any of my readers, you can attend online or in person by purchasing tickets here.

Secondly, I’m going to be spending the weekend of April 10-12 in Waverly, PA at the Northeast Pennsylvania Film Festival. I don’t have a film screening this year, but after winning the festival’s top prize last year, I was asked to serve as a panelist for the opening night, and I will be teaching a film festival-focused1 workshop on Saturday at 2pm. Waverly is a charming example of small-town PA and I had a lovely time there last year, so I hope to see familiar faces! Again, tickets can be purchased here.

Thirdly, I have for some time now predicted that AI would come for my job, as many of my monetizable skills are unfortunately going to be automatable in the near future. And while this may still be the case, it looks like good old-fashioned corporate budget cuts got me first: a decent percentage of the company I work for was laid off this week, and I was sadly one of the casualties. I’m currently assessing my options for whatever comes next, but since more opportunities tend to come from connections than cold calls, I figured I would mention here that I will soon be a free agent on the job market, so if anyone knows anyone hiring for any media production or creative directing positions, I have extensive experience across the video creation spectrum, from hands-on videography to team leadership roles, and would love to take a look at any opportunities floated my way.

Fourthly and lastly (to end on a happier note), as we work through post-production, I decided to float Saint Mick’s screenplay around to a very small handful of festivals with screenplay competitions, two of which have now come and gone. So I wanted to publicly thank my friends at the Austin Revolution Film Festival for honoring Mick with an official acceptance, and a second thank you to the Faith, Hope, and Love Film Festival for selecting Mick as one of their three finalists (if I’m reading the award page correctly, we were one spot off from the grand prize).

My writing on this platform is collected under three headlines: Director’s Digressions, The Bulletin, and the rather self-explanatory Saint Mick Production Journal. The production journal is something I’m very glad I chose to do, as even though we did not wrap on Saint Mick all that long ago, it feels like it’s already been a lifetime, and I’m so grateful to have the more real-time memories preserved as we went. And not to spoil the next update but, at time of writing, I’m only 3-4 scenes away from completing the first rough cut of the film, so we’re ending the year strong.

I was privileged to have plenty of updates for The Bulletin, especially as my short film Lorica completed its festival run. If you missed it, the film’s public release is available here, and I was given the opportunity to write a bit of a reflection on the film’s place in some of the broader conversations about abuse in the Church, particularly in my home denomination of the ACNA, which you can read here.

As for my Director’s Digressions, boy did I digress this year. I think I’m getting better at writing more freely about my theological interests, even when I feel patently unqualified to do so. But since New Years is a reflective moment, I will highlight a few of my favorite posts from this year:

The third entry in my (slow but ongoing) series reflecting on Andrew Rillera’s Lamb of the Free. Anyone who reads a lot of my writing may notice I return to some of the same themes repeatedly, but I think there are moments in this essay that I distilled those thoughts more potently than previous attempts, and I’m quite pleased with some of the prose and pronouncements therein.

I’d been slowly putting this piece together for some time now, not sure when I’d release it, but the onset of a fresh rapture craze was too apropos an opportunity to pass up. The research process for this was a lot of fun, and finally compiling it all together was very satisfying.

Speaking of research, my deep dive on William Branham has to be one of the works I’m most proud of this year. This man looms large behind so many modern Christian mistakes, yet is not remotely a household name, and the absolute gulf between the depiction of his life by his admirers and the real story cannot be overstated.

I’m keenly aware that I’m not very good at responding to my own moral invocations. It’s so much easier to be idealistic in print. But I’ve returned to and read this piece a few times this year, and I enjoy the conviction that accompanies said readings, not due to anything I actually wrote, but from the reminder that men like Mr. Rogers did exist, do exist, and could exist if more of us chose to take Christ at his word more readily.

I’ve got a sequel to this article in the works, probably coming out next month, so here’s a shameless plug to read this one first. Despite my fascination with things like reception history and textual criticism, I still often hesitate to write on these topics given my lack of formal expertise, but enough people have expressed gratitude for these “fun fact” type articles that I can justify continuing to produce them. If nothing else, it’s a helpful reminder that we have so many assumptions to un-learn.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read anything I write. I cannot tell you how edifying your comments and emails are to me. Anytime someone has a response to my writing, even in the amusing form of a condemnation, it excites me. So please, continue to share your thoughts and responses in whatever shape they take; hearing from you really does mean so much to me.

And if you are new here, say hi! Ever since the Wake Up Dead Man review, my feed has been blessedly inundated with like-minded writers and artists promoting independent print publications or fellow Substack projects based around faith, media, and all sorts of intersections besides. I don’t have many formal New Year’s resolutions this year, but finding ways to collaborate with you (especially via submitting my essays to some of these print journals) is absolutely one of my top goals for 2026. Filmmaking is inherently a collaborative medium; you can’t make a movie without a village. But writing is naturally a solo endeavor, and as such, finding collaborators in this medium takes a bit more intentionality. So let this be my public intention: if you explore similar corners to those through which I wander, I want to work with you. I want to publish in your journals. I want to write conversational Substack pieces back and forth on topics we find mutually fascinating. I want you to guest-publish on Grasping at Echoes. I want to fight more people about Rian Johnson movies (kidding)1. I want to hear your ideas. I want to contemplate your art.

So in the words of a friendly ghost: “Come in! And know me better, man!”

He is already surrounded by so much love, and I am unspeakably grateful. Thanks be to God.

There’s bobby pin excess
And finding a pulse
And there’s love and there’s love and there’s love

There’s a new roommate joining
Bringing too many books
And there’s love and there’s love and there’s love

There’s a lifetime to sway
To the rhythms of living
And there’s love and there’s love and there’s love.

To give you an idea of the man behind the writing, here is an interview from a few years ago conducted by my church’s previous rector (edited by yours truly):

James currently produces a quarterly column in our church’s newsletter, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to read more of his work. Go subscribe!

Autistic Mystic

Reflections by a nonspeaking autistic on autism and spiritual life.

By James Scannell

In my previous statements accompanying the film, I’ve minced no words regarding the failure of Church institutions to adequately respond to abuse, but a careful reader will note that my most invective criticisms have been aimed at particular segments of charismatic Christian movements. Indeed, the main examples that inspired Lorica and the primary stories utilized in its screenplay come not from the high church realm of vestments and candles as depicted in our film, but from the independent and non-denominational factions where accountability is almost non-existent if a leader is sufficiently popular. This focus is an unfortunate necessity of the times, as from what I can tell, the most insidiously instilled and pervasively thorough patterns of cover-up culture are more exemplified by these corners of Christendom than any other today.

That being said, let it never be intimated that I am speaking from a position of spotless superiority, nor that my own tradition is perfect. I adore my church, and I love our place in the broader Christian communion, but my home denomination of the ACNA has its fair share of problems and its own shameful examples of institutional failures. Several of those examples are chronicled on the ACNAtoo website, and my genuine hope is that Lorica’s inclusion alongside them can do something, even if just a little, to give artistic voice to the voiceless. We Christians, both within our separate denominations and collectively in the church at large, still have a lot of work to do.

Click Here To Read

Additionally, my friend Lauren Chandler was kind enough to publish a review of the film on her Substack, Courage and the Pilgrim. You can read that (and subscribe to Lauren) here:

Courage and the Pilgrim

Lorica: A Film Review

Confronting the clergy abuse crisis through art is a Herculean task, fraught with pitfalls at every turn, especially for creators who remain faithful to the Christian tradition…

Read more

9 months ago · Lauren

Last and most certainly least, I’ve finally done the thing my more marketing/brand-savvy friends have encouraged me to do for years and added a store page to my website. It currently features basic merchandise for my production company and various bits of Saint Mick paraphernalia, but for long-time fans, there are some Galatea and even Cole The Robot related items in there as well. You may browse our wares by clicking HERE.

Please be assured that the profit margins on the majority of these products are low to non-existent, and as such, their primary function is not to generate revenue for me, but rather to provide you with something that allows you to showcase your niche artistic taste at parties.

It’s all for you, dear reader, I do it all for you.

My very first proper article on this publication was the director’s statement I wrote in conjunction with creating Lorica. As such, I thought a follow-up was appropriate to mark its release. Below you’ll find some more of my discursive babble and, more worthily, an artist’s statement from Lorica’s co-writer (who happens to be my wife). But before reading either, I invite you to watch the film in full, with good headphones or speakers if you have them (the ending works best on big speakers with a lot of bass, which most computer speakers or TVs unfortunately lack):

Susannah Carlucci - Artist Statement

Lorica is an angry film.

Truly a shocking fact, I’m sure. If not evident within the first scene, it’s transparently so by the end. A crowd of raging churchgoers screaming; a close-up of a priest staring down a man guilty of heinous acts; a camera slowly zooming in on a panicked man unable to speak the words of the book he’s dedicated his life to and betrayed–yes, this is an angry film. It starts in anger, it ends in anger, it was birthed in anger.

There was a period of time (one that, unfortunately, still continues two years later) where it seemed that every few months I learned about a new story of clergy abuse. Ravi Zacharias. The Southern Baptist Convention (since then, this population has expanded to others, including IHOP’s Mike Bickle). The final straw I learned via my husband, was that a prominent prophetic authority figure in the denomination I was raised in had used his power to sexually abuse women during the 1990s. Benn read about it in a book and asked if I knew of him. Not once had I ever been told about it by anyone in our church; no one had ever thought it an important enough fact to mention.

Interestingly enough, his confessor was Mike Bickle.

It’s hard to describe the level of betrayal I felt after reading about the event. A man highly revered as a man of God, using his lofty station to manipulate and commit the basest of acts, and I’d never been told. I cycled through a whirlwind of every stage of grief during the next 24 hours. I spent the next few days spontaneously blurting out my frustration in outbursts caveated with, “I know I said I was done, but I have one more thing to say.” Most of them included “I’m so angry.” And by the grace of God, I married a man who looked at me after a few days of this and said, “Let’s write a movie about it.” Let’s write a movie about anger.

At some point, he probably regretted saying that. Creating Lorica was hard, as partners and individually. It drummed up more painful emotions than I anticipated and caused some of our relationship’s tensest moments. Thankfully, I apologized, and he didn’t give up on me, and we ultimately made something sincere and raw and good that I’m proud to show–even to those it may offend.

There’s an unfortunate amount of Lorica drawn from real life. Real words said to others, real words said to me. Real experiences that happened to others. My own real red hot anger, my own real hesitancy to say anything for fear of disrupting peace. How can there be peace when there are shepherds feasting on their own flock, and sheep not only coming to their defense, but opening the gate to usher them back into the fold? Yes, this is an angry film. But it’s also a film of grief, and a film of love, and prayer, and hope. I hope that’s as evident a fact as the first.

I worry that some may see this film as an indictment of all Christendom. That’s not the case. Rather, it’s a call for us as Christians to pick up our brothers and sisters let down by perjurers of the very name. I love Christ, and I love his body. I love the leaders called and ordained to guide us as disciples. But I am not interested in a church or a gospel that teaches that the abuser is more important and entitled to more care than the abused–regardless of their level of authority. I’m interested in a gospel that calls for a higher standard. I’m interested in the gospel of leaving the ninety-nine to save the one. I’m interested in the gospel of the bullwhip in the temple. I’m interested in the gospel crying for–demanding–righteous fruit from its followers. Does Christ love the abuser? Unconditionally. Does Christ extend a hand of forgiveness to the abuser? Undoubtedly. Does Christ call us to give them back the very power that allowed them to manipulate and violate those they swore to protect? Does using his name as way to commit violence make Christ angry?

I hope I don’t have to answer that for you.

To those who’ve been abused and wounded by a member of the clergy or the church: I see you. I’m sorry. This film is for you. To those who do the wounding: you may not be seen now. You will be. And to the rest of us: may we hold anger and love in both hands; may we call evil what is evil; may Christ have mercy on us.

-Susannah Carlucci

I
Most festival screenings include Q&As with the filmmakers. Perhaps the second most frequent question I encountered was one of authenticity. Did we base this story on real life? Did we speak with real victims? Did this happen to me?

The answers there are mostly, yes, and no. This specific story was not based on one specific case but rather an amalgamation of several. When Catherine recounts what happened to her, she makes a few statements drawn directly from real testimonies. The line about “standing naked before the Lord” came from a victim of Bob Jones (not the Bob Jones University Bob Jones, the Kansas City Prophets one, referenced above in Susannah’s statement), who used the excuse of “standing naked before God to receive a prophetic word” to sexually assault women. The line about making “us pray to thank God for bringing us together” was taken directly from the testimony of one of Ravi Zacharias’ victims, as was the line about her being his “reward.” Even little details, like the close-up of our perpetrator’s thumb stroking her hand, was inspired by commonalities in testimony about Bill Gothard.

In fact, maybe the least accurate thing regarding the stories we drew from is the aesthetic of our film. I wanted to invoke “church” visuals in a generic sense, because I think when people think of church, they still generally think of spires and candles and Catholic-esque vibes. Despite most of our direct inspiration coming from Charismatic, Baptist, and Evangelical circles, I wanted visuals that conveyed the sense of “church” more than a non-denominational church building would to the average eye. Plus, the sexual abuse cover-up in the Catholic church still looms large in the public consciousness, despite more recent cover-ups of relatively comparable scale occurring in the SBC and various neo-charismatic movements. The needs of the film forced some inaccuracies in the depiction of an average liturgical service, such as the reading of the Psalm occurring after communion, or Anna’s invocation of going to the “Archbishop,” with details of the abuse. The position of “Archbishop” looks different in the various denominations that utilize the term, but we found it inherently conveyed the needed sense of authority in a way that hopefully translated even for those who know nothing of ecclesial hierarchy.

II
In my director’s statement, I named Mike Bickle among a list of figures that should be barred from public ministry, given their rampant abuse of power. A few weeks ago, Rick Joyner came under fire for public comments about how Mike Bickle should be restored to public ministry and leadership. Joyner, unfortunately, exemplifies the malignant spirit of defensiveness that continually enables these heartbreaking cases of abuse to recur over and over and over. There is this pervasive attitude readily visible in certain Christian circles, most prominently in the Evangelical and Charismatic movements, that seeks to dismiss “accusation” as an inherent evil. They take Satan’s title (“The Accuser”) and extrapolate out that any group or individual publicly accusing a minister of wrongdoing is participating in a “spirit of accusation,” or even more commonly a “spirit of offense,” and that this is, as one author put it “Satan’s scorched-earth strategy.”1 They hyper-fixate on the division resulting from the fallout rather than the abuse itself, and weaponize the natural consequences of exposed abuse to argue against exposing abuse.

It’s no wonder that this attitude results in cover-up. It’s no wonder that survivors sit on their stories out of fear for years, only bringing them to light when they see others telling a similar story. In Lorica, this attitude was personified by Gloria Gertsch’s character Ruth. She is defensive of her husband, defensive of the church, insistent that this kind of thing be handled quietly and internally so as not to rock the boat, this despite learning that her husband is a repeat offender.

A woman defending her husband is perhaps more sympathetic than strangers on Twitter defending celebrities or institutions. But on the off chance that someone like Rick Joyner, who continues to posthumously champion rampant sexual abuser Paul Cain, continues to posthumously laud sexual abuser Bob Jones, who is apparently on his third go around of “restoring” rampant sexual abuser and abject maniac Todd Bentley to public standing, who ushered in Chris Reed as his successor after learning that he’d abused his authority to entice a student into a sexual affair with him, who is currently facing five lawsuits for negligence regarding sexual abuse of minors in his church, and who now is calling for the restoration of prolific sexual abuser Mike Bickle, sees this film, my genuine prayer is they would be able to recognize their own words in this character’s mouth and, perhaps for the first time, see how they sound to those beyond their influence.2

This is also why the film ends on Ruth, instead of any other character. The reality of abuse is not up for debate, nor is the pervasiveness of cover-up culture; these are simply facts of the matter; all Lorica does is bring a single incarnation of those patterns to bear. The question is how do we respond, we, in this case, being those who claim membership in the body of Christ. These are our leaders perpetrating these monstrous actions, our leaders covering them up, and our brothers and sisters bearing the consequences. How do we respond when this horror visits us in our home?

III
The question I encountered most frequently at Q&As was some variant of “did you have trouble finding locations/were the Churches you filmed in on board with the subject matter?” There was a general disbelief that a church as church-y looking as the one we filmed in would support what could be viewed as a critical film. I’m happy to report though, that both the church we filmed in and others were beyond supportive of the work. I was extremely transparent in the pitch process, which also involved speaking at length about the messaging and goal of the film, and that message was wholly reinforced by those who loaned us space and other aid. Considering how much Lorica serves as an inveigh against institutions that seek to minimize these stories and demonize those who bring them to light, having institutional support for creating the film, even on a level as small as a handful of individual parishes, was encouraging. Though, after the cast and crew premiere, the pastor whose office we filmed in did remark he needed to “bleach his office” now.3

V
Another question I received with some frequency, though usually in conversations after the film rather than Q and As, was about the use of a Psalm as our climax. Usually, it was a question of interpretation: What was our intent with the chorus of voices that join Anna as the Psalm crescendos?

I won’t provide a definitive answer. I love the multivalent possibilities of interpretation present in that scene and I don’t think any single one is the “correct” interpretation. However, I will share two aspects of it that were intentional. The first is the inversion of scripture as a weapon of fear. In so many of these abuse cases, scripture is weaponized to silence victims and demonize those speaking for them. This isn’t unique to cover-ups; history is hardly bereft of examples where the Bible is used to beat down insolent innocents. We attempt to invoke that same sense of holy terror, merely channeling it in a more righteous direction.

The second is the voice of the voiceless. Voices beyond the sanctuary's walls join in as the Psalm goes on, increasing in volume and frenzy. I pictured this chorus including the silenced voices that never found justice, never found an ear to hear, never found an opportunity to share what happened to them. While perpetrators of injustice, like our film’s abusive priest, may use the judgment language of the Bible to frighten the faithful, I do not believe God’s judgment is an idle threat. Too many of these men escape justice (for now), so it was cathartic, even in fiction, to see one made disquietingly aware that judgment day is coming. To whom much has been given, much will be required, and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.

VI
In closing, a random fun fact about the film that I rarely get an opportunity to share: There are way more VFX shots than you might initially think. We couldn’t light the candles on set, so every candle you see burning in the church, including out of focus in the background, was lit digitally. Wide shots also needed lights removed, which may be one of the most common hidden VFX shots out there. I was also pleased that our blood effects were so convincing to some that I was asked several times if it was a practical effect (it wasn’t). My longtime VFX collaborator Jesse Kaufer is a master of his craft and it’s always a privilege to have his work in my films.

Thank you for watching, and for reading. Please share the film far and wide so it can reach the people who need to see it. And if you have any questions that I did not already address, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

Prayerful meditation on the Stations of the Cross is an historic Christian tradition through which the Church has reflected on the narrative of Christ’s condemnation, crucifixion, and death. The final hours of Christ’s earthly life are broken into several “stations” at which worshipers are asked to stop, meditate, and pray on the moment being represented to them.

This will be my third year contributing artwork to this practice and I feel privileged every time I get to do so. As someone who almost exclusively works with motion, creating still art is an enjoyable change of pace, and given that my work is usually oriented towards attention or entertainment, designing for contemplative use is a welcome challenge.

I will share this year’s piece near the end of this post, but if you are in Pittsburgh, I would encourage you to go experience it in its proper context amongst the other stations. All eight stations will be exhibited throughout Holy Week at Church of the Ascension in Oakland, accessible to the public from 12 pm to 7 pm each weekday and until 3 pm after the noon service on Good Friday.

Each of my pieces will be shared here with the artist statement that originally accompanied them and no further commentary. That being said, I am happy to answer questions or explain aspects of any of the works to the curious, so feel free to ask anything in the comments.

However, given our current technological climate, I will pre-empt one question and clarify that these are all actual, practical photographs of physical objects/people with some digital retouching. While I am a digital artist and quite obviously used Photoshop to achieve some of the end results (I did not cut off my arm for the floating arm of the second piece, nor did I resurrect the dead to portray Mary in the third), none of these images are AI-generated. This is especially important to clarify for this year’s piece, so I will include a quick “before and after” at the end to show what was practical and what was digitally altered.

Station 8 - Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

The Perfect Law (2023)

Sculpture, Digital Photography

Artist Statement:
“Because you think to take hold of the life of the Age, you search through the scriptures; and those are what testify concerning me; yet you do not wish to come to me in order to take hold of life.”

-The Gospel According to John, Chapter 5, Verses 39-40

Station 6 - Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

Behold the Human Being (2024)

Digital Photography

Artist Statement:
“Cum enim praeexisteret salvans, opportebat et quod salvaretur fieri, uti non vacuum sit salvans.”

“Since he who saves already existed, it was necessary that he who would be saved should come into existence, that the One who saves should not exist in vain.”
-Irenaeus of Lyon

Nailed to the cross and lifted up in glory, Jesus beckons all men to himself, out of nothingness and into being. The Cosmos were created from the Cross, that “still point of the turning world,” and until we take up our own cross to follow in the steps of he who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, “let us make man” and “it is finished,” we are not yet made.

Behold the Lamb of God slain before the foundations of the world.

Behold the Glory of the Lord, the firstborn of the dead, he who is before all things and in whom all things hold together.

“Ecce homo”

Behold, the Human Being.

SFX Makeup by Jacquelyn Federowski and Alexa Fremount
Additional Hand Model - Chad Bruns

Station 7 - Jesus Dies on the Cross

Son, Behold Your Mother (2025)

Digital Photography

Artist Statement:
“Our great God, the supreme wisdom of all, made himself ready in this humble place and dressed himself in our poor flesh, himself to perform the service and the office of motherhood in everything. The mother's service is closest, most willing, and most sure: closest because it is most natural, most willing because it is most loving, and most sure because it is most true. No one ever might nor could perform this office fully, nor ever did, but he alone. We know that our mothers bear us and bring us into this world to suffering and to death, and yet our true mother Jesus, he, all love, gives birth to us into joy and to endless life—blessed may he be! So he sustains us within himself in love and was in labour for the full time, he who wanted to suffer the sharpest pangs and the most grievous sufferings that ever were or ever shall be, and at the last he died. And when he had finished and so given birth to us into bliss, not even all this could satisfy his marvelous love; and he revealed that in these exaltedly surpassing words of love: 'If I could suffer more, I would suffer more.’”
-Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
-Colossians 3:3-4

The sacrifice inherent in motherhood is a quiet echo of divine kenosis. To bear life is to love innocence into a travailing world and our delivery is incomplete until it has followed Christ through the grave. As a mother in the pangs of birth, God binds Himself to suffering to bring about our making.

Model: Carter Shearer
FX Makeup: Sam Whipkey
Special thanks to Adam Paluh

Before and after:

I’m very pleased to announce that Lorica won Best Director, Best Short Film, and the top prize of the entire festival, Best of Fest. And if YOU are in Eastern PA and would like to see what all the fuss is about, we’ll be screening at the Scout Theater in the Waverly PA Community House tomorrow (4/6/25) at 4pm. Tickets are available here.

While contemplating options for the end-credits music and browsing talent for hire, I came across the work of Javier Morales, a talented musician trained in, amongst other skills, Mongolian and Tuvan throat singing. The notion of a classic Western hymn rendered in such an anomalous style represented the exact type of artistic juxtaposition I live for, so I impulsively hired him on the spot.

Javier’s performance was, like so much good work, unfortunately consigned to the cutting room floor. So, to celebrate Ireland’s most famous saint, please enjoy this exclusive rendition of a familiar hymn as you’ve never heard it before.

Another overdue matter is that of the short film “i am a ghost today.” This poetic little number was a collaboration with my wife, who wrote the poem comprising the film’s narration and then was kind enough to don the sheet and indulge me in mostly improvised scenes and wandering cinematography. The film had a brief and humble festival run throughout 2023 (during which I’m pleased to say said cinematography earned a few nominations and one win) and afterward I just…forgot to publish it. There’s no excuse, I just never got around to hitting “upload,” and for the entirety of 2024, every time I would think to do so, I would grab the wrong hard drive or have trouble with the login for my production company’s Youtube page or any other number of trivial impediments just efficient enough to delay it another day. Well, no more procrastinating. The film is now available for all and if you would like to spend three minutes watching my wife wander the countryside in costume, I think it would be three minutes well spent:

Lastly, my most recent short film Lorica will be winding down its festival run in the coming months, starting next Friday at 4:30 pm during the Austin Revolution Film Festival. One of the last places to see it will be at the Northeast Pennsylvania Film Festival out in Waverly, PA. The festival runs April 4th-6th and I will share our screening details once I have them. The film will be made available online, most likely sometime in late April, and I will of course provide a link here when that happens.

Original poem:

The Aeolian Harp

A New Day

Christmas bells Sound out Hope for new Day’s sun Thawing out The snow Hailing new Born son Jesus, my Dear Lord Do not leave Me here In this grief So strong In my doubts And fears Bring me to Your lap Hold me in Your arms Tell me all Is well Tell me all Is well Tell me all Is well Tell me all Is well…

Read more

a year ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · Ben Ames-McCrimmon

October 19th at the Youngstown Film Festival. The fest begins at 1 pm and it looks like we're in the final block. Tickets are available here.

Also on the 19th but on the eastern side of Pennsylvania, we’ll be at Black Bear Film Festival screening at 11:30 am. Tickets are available here.

And somewhere in between, or more specifically, in Lancaster PA, we'll be screening at the Red Rose Film Festival on Saturday November 9th at 2 pm. Tickets are available here.

Also, last week I was privileged to join host Emily Brunner on WQED’s “Voice of the Arts” podcast to discuss the Strong Mind Showcase. You can listen to that conversation here or wherever you get your podcasts. I’ll also mention one last time that the Showcase will take place this Sunday, October 20th, at 5:30 p.m., and free tickets are available here.

Mental health awareness is an incredibly worthy cause, and our focus with this showcase was to find films that align with the theme of “making the invisible visible.” The myriad ways these artists were able to visualize internal struggles and depict visceral, immersive portrayals of a diverse array of subject matters is nothing short of inspiring.

Free tickets and more information about the event are available here.

For those who have asked to see the film, I wanted to let you know about some upcoming screenings, mostly limited to Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas for the time being. Upcoming screenings of Lorica include:

Saturday, September 21st at the Phoenixville Film Festival in Phoenixville, PA. Screening is at 7:30 PM.

Saturday, October 19th at the Black Bear Film Festival in Milford, PA. Screening is at 11:30 AM.

Saturday, October 19th at the Youngstown Film Festival in Youngstown, OH. Screening details are TBA but keep an eye on the website.

Be sure to follow the Bit Sized Productions Facebook page if you would like more frequent updates about screenings, but I will also make occasional announcements here to keep everyone in the loop. And if you cannot make it to any festivals, fear not, the film will be released for free to the public sometime in mid-2025.

On the other, said conclusions would take me hours to (poorly) explicate, while Lewis could sum them up via a mere paragraph in passing. This pattern continues for me today; the upside of having no formal education in philosophy or theology is that I’m free to claim deductions as my own, while the downside is many of the things I find to be revelatory and self-discovered, a philosophy major might recognize as rudimentary, and that which takes me an essay to lay out has probably been summarized quite concisely by many, many thinkers before.

“Grasping at echoes” refers both to this process and perhaps more to a particular feeling evoked by reading such thinkers. I frequently find myself able to comprehend their conclusions but unable to repeat them with any conciseness or precision, not unlike a man with an unrefined palate trying to convey how good a wine tastes without a sommelier’s vocabulary. In part, it's just because I find their work so stimulating; every time I try to put thoughts into words, I end up rabbit-trailing down fifty tangents and digressions before (hopefully) meandering back to the topic at hand. As Pete Enns so succinctly puts it: “It’s hard to talk about anything without talking about everything.”

But in another part, it's because the greatest theologians, poets, philosophers, etc, tap into something just beyond the effable. Lewis does this brilliantly (and accessibly) in his writing, whether it’s his descriptions of heaven in The Last Battle or The Great Divorce, his passing references to the true nature of the stars, or how he conveys the feeling of visceral hope that can only be glimpsed through the primal agony of immediate and incomprehensible grief. He evokes a distant picture of something so tangible yet just beyond the mind’s reach, and I think an echo is a good illustration of such a thing.

The other “echoes” my title refers to are historical ones. I am fascinated by the traditions behind traditions, lost documents, lost stories, any hints at myths lost to time. This curiosity frequently draws me down exploratory avenues related to authorship and source criticism, be it the redacted sources behind the Torah, the oral and written sources behind the Gospel accounts, or the scant and fleeting records behind so many church traditions that have endured down the centuries even though no one can exactly point to their origin.

An echo can resonate so suddenly and so clearly and just as quickly fade into nothing. An echo can be disorienting, sometimes ringing out from the opposite direction of its source, leaving you spinning about and grasping desperately for its ever-lessening ripples. Some of my favorite times to write are in the midst of these exercises, and I’d like to use this platform to share some of these writings.

I wanted to make this post first, however, to clarify that many of these pieces will be quite speculative in nature. Most begin with a thought of “ooo, that’s cool,” and proceed down an unfocused path of “this reminds me of that,” followed by a maddening cluster of half-connected dots and often concluding with a definitive “eh, maybe.” But every now and then, I will return to these (usually unfinished) pieces and think for a moment that I have glimpsed something insightful. I’m very curious to see how others respond to them.

The other clarification I wanted to make is that I am not an expert on these historical and theological subjects. I am confidently well-read and opinionated on a few particulars of Biblical studies, but as most of you are probably aware, my formal education is in art and media. As such, I never want to give the impression that I teach with authority when I speculate about the echoes of theology or the lost history behind the Biblical tradition. I will write about such things because I have an insatiable appetite for learning about them, but I write from a posture of “this is so COOL” more than I do from a posture of expertise. At my best, I will synthesize the thoughts of more educated persons than myself through the lens of my frantic understanding in a way that evokes the occasional “huh…neat” from the reader, and at my worst, I will frustrate any English majors in my audience with excessive run-on sentences and stylistic use of punctuation. If you learn something new from me, I’m delighted, but I take James 3:1 very seriously and thus want to state my credentials (and lack thereof) at the outset.

My next two posts will indulge each of these two types of echoes, the first one of something like speculative theology and the second of lost history. I would greatly value hearing your thoughts (positive, negative, critical, laudative, or otherwise) in response to either, so please feel free to leave lengthy comments.

As any of you non-strangers know, I’m deeply passionate about the Christian faith and its role in art and culture. While I find the intersection of faith and media a fascinating subject, I’m unfortunately quite cynical about much of the mainstream Christian representation in both the arts and culture at large. I hope to discuss the above to offer you my (hopefully informed) perspective while avoiding no-true-scotsman-ing as often as possible.

In addition to writing about it, I intend to tackle matters of faith more often with my art (more posts on that to come). Part of this draws from the aforementioned cynicism as, to put it bluntly, most modern "Christian" movies are terrible. I believe the Christian media sphere is in desperate need of artists who are willing to actually say something instead of shallowly preaching to the choir, and I intend to be the change I want to see in that space, at least to the best of my small-town, limited abilities. I have no delusions of grandeur about being the Martin Luther of movies and reforming the Christian film market (but I can dream, right?).

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become an increasingly big believer in shutting up, which is an ironic admission from a guy starting a publication. St. James’ advice about being quick to listen and slow to speak is advice I’ve always been quick to laud and slow to follow.

I don’t want to add to the noise, but I do have things to say, and I hope those things are worthwhile more often than not. Either way, let me know, and thank you for being here.

(If you’d like to see some of my work, many of my old films are available at bennty.com. My showreel is, unfortunately, about 5 films out of date. This is a good reminder to update it).