LU Student’s Brickfilms Bring the Good News to Thousands

Sophomore Josh Carroll has found his own way of sharing the Gospel through creating brickfilms, movies made completely with LEGO pieces and characters.

Carroll crafted his first brickfilm based on “The Passion of The Christ” in 2015, and it certainly made an impact. 

“I want to serve the Lord with whatever I do with my life, but I did not see how film would work with that,” Carroll said. “I made ‘The Passion of the Christ’ brickfilm and it blew up. I got comments from kids who told me they finally understood the Gospel after watching my film.”

Carroll saw this as an opportunity, and began making more films around his home in Uganda. He even developed his own special method for creating the films, moving past the traditional stop-motion method brickfilms are known for. 

“When using stop-motion to create brickfilms, you would have to utilize somewhere indoors where light can be controlled,” Carroll said. “My method allows me to film outside with natural environments and allows me to use standard cinematography equipment.”

Carroll has taken down many of his films from before 2018 to showcase his current material. He has made and remade many of his own films through a company called Bridgestone Multimedia, who distributes for him.

Carroll took on a huge project in 2018 involving his brickfilms and the entire Bible. 

“The project is going to be three movies covering the whole Bible, the first one’s subject matter: Genesis to Deuteronomy,” Carroll said. “The first movie is actually already done and set to be released around Christmas time on most streaming platforms.”

Carroll already has two movies up on streaming platforms through Bridgestone Multimedia, but they may not be up for long.

“The quality from the first two movies on platforms now just does not match up to the quality these new films have,” Carroll said. “Also, these next three movies are going to feature better quality versions of the stories from those first two movies.” 

Carroll typically takes on full directorial lead when making all of these films with some help from others. 

“I wrote, shot and hired voice actors for all of the movies so far, including the first part of the Bible series,” Carroll said. “Bridgestone nearly tripled the budget for the next two films in the series. So, I will be heading out to the Mojave Desert with a crew of about 15 people for a month to film the final two movies in the series.” 

Carroll commented on what his future may look like after the release of his trilogy of Bible films. 

“My goal is to finish the three films which will take around three years,” Carroll said. “I feel the Lord is leading me to be done with the brickfilms after this project is over, but I will definitely still be involved in the film industry after.” 

Carroll’s passion for film and taking the Gospel to children is evident through his work.

“Kids watch these movies with LEGO. Videos made with Legos get millions of views,” Carroll said. “I hear stories all the time about how my videos led kids to the Lord, and that is the heart behind why I do it.”

Be on the lookout for Carroll’s brickfilm “The Bible: A Brickfilm” on most streaming platforms in December 2020.

Daniel Ellis is a Feature Reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dnaieltyler.