His next film, Clocked, will be Pasbrig’s fifth full-length feature movie, and filming will take place over this summer, mostly at St. Peter and German Lake.

A native of Crystal, Pasbrig’s interest in creating movies started as a young boy.

“When I was little, me and my brother would act out scenes from movies together,” Pasbrig said. “I got my first IPad when I was 11, and we started shooting and editing short films on the same day, maybe like once a week we would make one. Eventually I thought, ‘why don’t we make a real movie?’ “

Pasbrig released his first full-length movie, Ariana, on May 25, 2019, his junior year of high school. Since then, he has made Dreamwalkers (2020), Ariana 2 (2021), and Starstrike (2022) — his favorite project yet.

A sinister image from Bethany Lutheran College student Joey Pasbrig’s horror

Starstrike is an action-drama film about a young man struggling to discover his place in the world while a series of dangerous altercations puts his life on hold. It took over a year to film and edit and has been by far Pasbrig’s most viewed video on his channel, Crushed Crystal Studios.

Pasbrig now turns his attention to his next movie, Clocked. A prequel to his other movies, which are all set in the same universe, Clocked is set in 1986 and will present new challenges and experiences for Pasbrig.

“I’ve put more into the writing of Clocked than I have for any other of my movies,” said Pasbrig. “A lot of work has gone into it before we’re even shooting it.”

Clocked will be a time travel movie about a young man’s struggle to find the balance between taking risks and pushing forward with his passion in life. Shooting began early in May and will continue through the summer.

After three years of taking media arts classes at Bethany, Pasbrig has more experience than ever in how to craft and put together a good film. Pasbrig’s short films have seen recognition from both local and national film festivals and have won multiple nominations and awards.

A creepy image from Joey Pasbrig’s 2021 horror film “Ariana 2.”

Right now, Pasbrig is focused on Clocked, but long term, Pasbrig sees himself teaching film to others and Bethany or another university.

“I don’t want to have my movies be my source of income,” said Pasbrig. “I’d want to have a job that will fund my movies, not the other way around. I feel like I wouldn’t be able to make my movies be what I’d want them to be in Hollywood, especially right now with the writers’ strike. I feel like my creativity would be limited to where, if I made a movie for Hollywood, it would be, like, 10% my movie, and if I was just helping out, it would be 0% my movie.”