about

The Story Behind the Stories.

Justice Pictures was founded on a simple conviction — that stories matter, and that the people telling them matter too. Everything else has changed. That hasn’t. Cinematic storytelling is still key…and always will be.

The filmmaker

Shawn Justice

I’ve been building things since 1989, when at 19 years old I started my first production company. Fourth generational entrepreneur. Storytelling and taking risk is in the DNA. I had graduated from a performing arts school with my twin brother, Kyle, in the late 80’s, so it just seemed the natural thing do to. Justice Productions. Cut my teeth telling stories for clients. Of course, I always wanted to do my own narratives as well. Guided by my faith and conviction, I diversified,  starting Justice Pictures in 1999  — writing, producing, and directing my first feature the ‘traditional’ way. Crews. Cameras. Long days. Tight budgets. Big ambitions. 

“Storytelling hasn’t changed. Only the tools.”

Since then I’ve continued to be in the trenches of independent filmmaking, where every frame is earned, every dollar matters, and every story carries the weight of the people behind it. I’ve worked through the evolution from film and tape to full digital acquisition, from linear editing to nonlinear workflows. Each shift required adaptation. Each new tool promised to make things faster, cheaper, or more accessible. But none of them fundamentally changed who gets to tell stories.

Until now. AI is removing barriers that have existed since the beginning of the film industry. What once required hundreds of people and millions of dollars can now begin with a small team — or even a single creator — with a clear vision.

But here’s the truth I keep coming back to: the tools don’t matter if the storyteller doesn’t. AI can generate images, scenes, even performances. It cannot replace intention. It cannot replace meaning. And it cannot replace the human desire to connect.

I don’t have anything to prove. The work speaks for itself. What I want now is to make stories that touch people — and to share what I’ve learned along the way.

Core of Shawn is cinematic storytelling.

Shawn Justice

Writer, Director & Founder

Justice Productions — Founded 1989

Justice Pictures — Founded 1999

6 Feature Films Produced

Screenplay — Universal Pictures Distribution

The Founders — Salem Media Partnership

Gold Miner Jr. — with Todd Hoffman & David Almgren

Inside the Moment — YouTube Series Creator

Based in Bend, Oregon

the journey

From Film to Frontier.

1999

justice pictures founded

Established in West Linn, Oregon with a conviction that independent storytelling matters. Debut feature Going the Distance released in 2000.

2015

The reconciler

Feature film starring Roddy Piper in one of his final roles. Dove approved and distributed across multiple platforms.

2025

the pivot

Utilized AI or screenwriting early in the year. By end of year AI based Inside the Moment series launched — the work that opened the door to everything that followed.

Now

ai cinema pioneer

Purity of Heart in pre-production. The Founders with Salem Media. A full slate of projects building on 27 years of narrative filmmaking.

“When the barriers to creation fall, the responsibility to create something meaningful increases. The creators who rise above won’t be the ones who simply use AI. They’ll be the ones who use it with purpose.”

— Shawn Justice, from “The Story Hasn’t Changed — The Tools Have”

the company

Justice Pictures

Founded in 1999 in West Linn, Oregon, Justice Pictures has spent nearly three decades producing independent narrative films across genres — drama, suspense, thriller, western, and faith-driven cinematic storytelling.

Now operating as a pioneering AI film studio, Justice Pictures brings the same storytelling conviction to a new frontier — using the most powerful visual production tools ever created to tell stories that matter.

partners and collaborators

The Network.

compel studios – kyle justice

Co-production partner on The Founders and Liberty Falls. Twin brother and long-time creative collaborator.

family research council

Distribution partner on Going The Distance. One of America’s most recognized faith and family advocacy organizations.

Salem Media Group

Strategic partner on The Founders project. One of America’s largest Christian media organizations.

Todd Hoffman & David Almgren

Co-production partners on Gold Miner Jr. animated family series.

Follow the work as it happens.

Join the Justice Pictures Insiders and get the inside view on every project — from a filmmaker who’s actually in the trenches building it.

THE FULL STORY

Purity of Heart

Not all legacies are buried

A catastrophic EMP attack has fractured America into warring clans. Law has collapsed. Survival has replaced civilization. In this broken world, loyalty is currency and betrayal is a death sentence.

Leo Russell, a high-ranking Lieutenant for the ruthless Lawton Clan, has served faithfully — until the night he runs. Fleeing into the darkness with his 13-year-old daughter Jessie, hunted by the warlord he served, Leo carries a secret that could change everything. When the hunt ends in tragedy, Jessie is left alone in the wilderness with nothing but a map, a distant homestead, and the new-found faith of her father’s that she’s still learning to trust.

Exhausted and near death, Jessie crosses paths with Quincy — a rugged survivalist who wants nothing more than to be left alone. He has his own wounds, his own reasons to stay uninvolved. But something about this girl’s quiet courage moves him in ways he can’t explain.

Their uneasy alliance becomes something neither expected and over weeks of her recovery they become close. Ben’s trackers nearly find them which sets the pair into the wilderness. They find brief refuge at the Ryder Homestead — the place Leo told Jessie where she would be safe. By a warm fire, fed and sheltered for the first time in days, it is old Mr. Ryder who discovers a map concealed in Jessie’s backpack — a map to a hidden bunker on Split Tree Ridge.

The Ryders knew. Over months, Leo had quietly smuggled Ben’s arsenal — gun by gun — out from under his nose. Weapons Ben had been stockpiling to crush rival clans and seize territory across the fractured land.

It wasn’t just weapons Leo was taking from Ben Lawton. It was power. Where the guns went, no one knew.

Until now.

Jessie begins to understand. And now she understands why Ben Lawton will stop at nothing to capture her — or destroy her.

The next morning Jessie and Quincy set off on the next leg of a journey she never asked for. Jessie carries her father’s cross necklace — the one piece of him she has left. Not yet knowing it may be the most important thing she carries.

What lies beneath Split Tree Ridge is not what anyone expected. Ben’s hijacked weapons cache — yes. But also something far more dangerous to men like Ben Lawton.

Hope.

In addition to an arsenal, Leo was preparing for what came after. Seeds. Supplies. A journal outlining a path forward — written by a man who chose to believe in something beyond survival. Jessie’s discovery makes her the most important — and most hunted — person in a fractured America.

Knowing Ben’s men are closing in they set out to find allies. Separated in the wilderness, Quincy draws the trackers away and barely survives a brutal firefight. Jessie is nearly captured the next morning — saved only by armed members of the Ivanov clan, who bring her to their compound and a suspicious, fierce young leader named Natalia.

Natalia grills her. She doesn’t trust easily. She can’t afford to.

In the Ivanov infirmary, Quincy lies unconscious — pulled half dead from the river. It isn’t until Natalia sees the amulet around his neck that something shifts. It’s the one she gave him years ago, back when the clans still at peace with each other. When things were different. When he was different.

Once awake, Quincy tells her everything and confirms what Jessie told her. In the cafeteria, Jessie implores Natalia to go back for the bunker before Ben’s men reach it. Natalia is cautious — unwilling to sacrifice her people for someone else’s cause. And yet she knows what happens to her clan if Ben Lawton gets his hands on that firepower.

Ben’s army is closing in on the ridge.

And the truth about who Quincy really is — a truth that connects him to Ben in ways Jessie never imagined — threatens to unravel everything she has come to trust.

The road to Split Tree Ridge will cost them everything. But Jessie Russell — a child of faith and fire — carries something no warlord can take by force.

Her father’s last gift wasn’t a map to a cache.

It was a map to a future.

What happens next is for Insiders.

Join the Justice Pictures Insiders for exclusive script excerpts, character breakdowns, and behind the scenes production content.

JOIN THE INSIDERS →

Free Follower tier also available — stay in the loop at no cost.

/* How It Works hover effects */ .how-it-works-step { position: relative; overflow: hidden; transition: background 0.25s; }.how-it-works-step::before { content: ''; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 3px; height: 0; background: #c8901e; transition: height 0.3s; }.how-it-works-step:hover::before { height: 100%; }.how-it-works-step:hover { background: #161109 !important; } /* Smooth anchor scrolling */ html { scroll-behavior: smooth; }