I’ll admit it; I’m conservative (but I have a start-up mentality). And yes, I’ve always been intrigued by someone who leaves a sure thing for an uncertain one.
KJ Hirschi has that type of drive (and I might even say I envy his audacity).
The founder of 1830 Studios spent years on the special projects team at The Chosen—the most-watched faith series in history—working alongside co-founder Derral Eves on marketing, fan events, and ancillary content. It was the kind of gig most people in faith media would never willingly walk away from.
Hirschi walked away from it anyway.
His origin story reads like a screenplay draft someone would reject for being too on-the-nose. A STEM student studying physics and engineering, Hirschi’s trajectory shifted during a mission experience that pointed him, unmistakably, toward film. When a job offer from The Chosen materialized in a way he can only describe as providential, he took it as confirmation. But the bigger confirmation came later—the quiet realization that what he really wanted to build didn’t exist yet.
So he built 1830 Studios.
The ambition is staggering in its scope. At the center of the operation is a planned seven-season prestige biopic series on Joseph Smith, designed specifically for mainstream, secular audiences.
This won’t be a Come, Follow Me lesson. And it’s not an internal production for the already-converted. Rather, he plans to create a legitimate, cinematic telling of one of American history’s most fascinating and polarizing figures, crafted to meet the storytelling standards audiences expect from peak cinema.
But Hirschi isn’t waiting around for the series to materialize before making things. The studio’s first finished proof of concept is a fully dramatized, immersive audio experience of the Book of Mormon—a full cast, cinematic sound design, and not a single word of the original text changed. These proof-of-concept chapters from 1 Nephi are already available free on YouTube, and the plan is to keep the entire library free across YouTube, a forthcoming app, and eventually every major podcast and audiobook platform. In a media landscape that monetizes almost everything, making accessibility the default is a definite statement!
Then there are the brick sets—tactile, buildable kits depicting scenes from the Book of Mormon. Think of them as conversation starters that happen to sit on your shelf. They are available now at 1830studios.com, alongside the audio chapters and a growing catalog of content designed to invite curiosity.
The funding model mirrors the one that made The Chosen possible: audience-driven, community-supported, and deliberately independent of traditional studio gatekeepers. Hirschi is betting that the same Latter-day Saint and like-minded people who crowdfunded the biggest faith show in television history will show up again for stories that are, if anything, even closer to home. For those who can’t donate, he says sharing a video or tagging the studio on social media matters more than people realize. The algorithms, it turns out, reward even small acts of enthusiasm.
Whether 1830 Studios becomes the next Angel Studios or remains a passionate independent venture, Hirschi has already done something worth noticing: he’s taken the playbook from inside the most successful faith-media project of a generation and started writing the next chapter (specifically, the Latter-day Saint chapter) with it. I applaud his vision and commitment.
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