Capital Conversations: "Thoughts & Prayers” Director Discusses the Normalization of Gun Violence

By Maurice Burbridge | November 24, 2025 

Photo Credit: Zackary Canepari | HBO

Zackary Canepari recalled himself and Jessica Dimmock searching something common as their child reached school-age in 2019: “How are these schools preparing for gun violence?” This search led the two, already filmmakers and journalists, to a years-long investigation into the mass shooter preparedness industry, and the toll this industry’s fabricated violent scenarios are taking on students and teachers across the country.

The resulting documentary, Thoughts & Prayers, is available to stream on HBO Max. Canepari and Dimmock spoke with the Albany Student Press over Zoom about the film, the process of making it and the importance of addressing gun violence in America.

“Originally, Zack’s idea was to make this a photo series,” Dimmock said. “We thought that if you could bring people’s eyeballs onto an image where you see this classroom, you know immediately what it is. Then you see these kids crouching in the dark in one corner, and a teacher guarding against the dark in the other corner, that would surely make people angry.”

As they explored that idea, Canepari and Dimmock found that the point might not be these mass shooter preparedness strategies in isolation, but how normalized they are.

“You go through these drills and then you just kind of wipe your face off, and go eat pizza with your friends, and it’s just another Tuesday. The only thing more shocking than doing this is that we’re not all screaming in the streets after we did it,” Dimmock said.

Canepari’s photographs highlighting various events and products in the mass shooter preparedness industry were featured in a Bronx Documentary Center exhibition on school shootings in America earlier this year and in a New York Times article in 2023.

“The 2023 article was specifically looking at the business side of things, but the film takes sort of a wider look at the cultural impact of how so much gun violence affects society, and what we’re doing about it,” Canepari said.

Dimmock considers that the modern sense of normalcy around gun violence follows restricting guns in America proving to be “the most politically difficult thing ever.” She added, “Zach often talks about in this American capitalist version of it, you don’t take any product off the shelves, you just add more products, but the fact that this product is a gun, and there is such a strong second-amendment lobby is in our opinion how we got here.”

Canepari specifies that the film is not about gun violence, but rather the three-billion-dollar mass shooter preparedness industry, and beyond that, viewers can make their own conclusions.

“Everyone that comes to see the film will bring their own understanding of what the gun violence debate really is to them. There’s a deadlock there and I think everybody understands that deadlock exists. And this is the solutions that are being presented and implemented across the country. Then they can digest that and decide if this is the country they want to be a part of,” he said.

Dimmock and Canepari recognized that gun violence has become abrasive, so they not only avoided putting any real violence in the film but also capitalized on certain humorous elements. 

“We’re not making light of any of this, but we hope that there’s some nervous laughter at the absurdity, and in part because we’re trying to make the film watchable. It is absurd, but also the style that we’re bringing to it, that poppiness of it, we’re trying to use that as the trojan horse to get people into seats,” Dimmock said.

She exemplified a friend, who, at a recent dinner party, told her she would not be watching their film. Canepari added, “The thing that our friend was saying about not wanting to watch it wasn’t because of politics, which I’m sure some people will also not watch it for, but she’s so burnt out on gun violence, and the fear of school shootings and mass shootings, and the constant refrain of ‘Thoughts & Prayers’.” 

The understanding that many Americans have almost reached, as Canepari phrases, a “head in the sand” attitude towards this issue informed their efforts to have a unique tone or framing in the film. “We made the film with a handful of creative rules in place, because we didn’t want to have a discussion about certain things, we wanted the audience to have the discussion about those things,” he said.

The directing duo attended the National School Safety Conference, which appears in the film, and they refer to it as “the Shark Tank scene.” Despite what the name might imply, it was a marketplace for sales and deals above all else.

“It’s just like any other convention, in Orlando, out at the pool people are in their Mickey Mouse ears and stuff that’s totally detached from why this is happening and any conversation about what can be done.” said Dimmock. Canepari added, “there’s a casino night, there’s a pool party, there’s things to make these conventions fun for the participants and give them opportunities to network with each other. It just so happens that this convention is dealing with one of the greatest issues in American history.”

Dimmock said the products that stuck out enough to be included in the film were those that experienced an uptick in sales after certain events, those that were truly unique, such as a robot dog, and those that were particularly heartbreaking.

“This guy has this unfoldable shield, and he describes ‘This is big enough for a 10-year-old, and under this he can run his classroom to safety.’ And then all I can picture is a 10-year-old being shot at, and being put in a position where he has to protect his other little 10-year-old friends. That to me is just so heartbreaking that I need people to understand, so that goes in the film,” she said.

Canepari explains that the industry itself is not the problem, but a questionable solution, and that many people they spoke to from the mass shooter preparedness industry did seem to truly want to help.

“I think the film is trying to open a conversation: Is this the solution to the problem we have? Teachers with guns, products like these, training programs, lockdown drills, all these surveillance society AI gun detection products. Is this going to actually stop this or are we just going to be rehearsing for when it happens next?”

“Ideally, we want people to feel a sense of outrage after watching what we’re all going through. We focus on schools for the most part but this [preparedness drills] is everywhere.” Dimmock said. “Stampedes happen all the time because fireworks are going off and the American public assumes that it’s gunfire and they should assume that. That’s not Americans being crazy, that’s Americans absolutely knowing gun violence happens all the time here.”

They hope the film pushes people to want a future where true safety is the norm. Canepari said, “most other countries that have had mass shootings in the last five years have immediately implemented gun reform. There’s not a whole lot of need for training and products when you immediately react and make it more complicated and difficult to get a gun and shoot people.”

“Thoughts & Prayers” had its world premiere at DOC NYC 2025 on Nov. 12. It’s now available to stream on HBO Max.