Category: Blog

We received a very sweet note from one of our grads. Here’s what he wrote:

“Hollywood Impact Studios has assembled a great team that have given us hope and the desire to succeed in life. Something many of us lost along the lines. I’m very proud to be a part of it. Once again, thanks to you, Cyndi, Stan, Chris, Carol, Chris A, Josh, Chandler and the rest of team I forgot to name.”
Alumni Mas

I share this with all of you so you can see how God is changing lives through this program. Thank you to all of our supporters. God gets all the Glory from this program.

BONES is another one of the shows I oversee as part of my job at Fox. It was interesting ecause this season, David Boreanaz directed an episode. He did a very good job! Watch this video to see how the rest of the cast reacted…

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We’re proud to announce that our second semester class has graduated. We started with 36 student/inmates and after twelve weeks only (8) remained. But we’re very proud of those (8). As in our first semester we gave out scholarships from Mole-Richardson Lighting, The Mostin Family and 20th Century Fox Animation. We also gave (2) writing prizes for best short screenplay.

Congratulations Class 10-09!

We just shot our second episode of ABOVE THE LINE (an education series for use in the classroom). Again, as in the first semester, our student/inmates operated the Hi-Def cameras, set up the lights, put together the set… everything! They did a great job. Our special guest speaker for this episode was Chad Everett. He had a lot of wisdom for our class. Thank you so much Chad!

“Wish List” is a new column for the blog. We feel we should put out a wish list of things HOLLYWOOD IMPACT STUDIOS needs and see what God does.

We are looking for “a space” outside the jail to hold classes, meetings, Bible study, etc. This space could be vacant building, house or store front that we could lease for $1.00/year. It could even be a piece of land where we can put a trailer. Basically we’re looking for a home for HOLLYWOOD IMPACT STUDIOS anywhere in the great Los Angeles County area.

Second, one of graduates is in need of a car. Nothing fancy, just a good transportation vehicle to help him with work.

Wow, it’s hard to believe but we’re almost finished with our second semester. Graduation is just around the corner. We started out with (36) inmate/students but only have(8) remaining. Some were “early releases” and many were “rolled up” (kicked out of the MERIT Program). But we trust God in all this. We’re so proud of these guys that have made it through these 12 weeks. They’re the cream of the crop. They’ve shared with us how much God has moved in their lives.

It is exciting to share this photo of one of our alumni from our very first semester. He’s doing great! “Mas” helped us out on a camera test at Fox a couple of weeks ago. He did a great job and worked very hard. He was beaming all day.

Keep up the good work, Mas!

All of us at HOLLYWOOD IMPACT STUDIOS want to wish you a very Happy New Year. We’re looking forward to see what God does with this Ministry in 2010!

Pencils down! Our first writing program is done. Derek and John covered screenwriting, magazine writing and how to write a short story. Now that the class is done, our inmate/students have an opportunity to enter a screenwriting contest. Today is the deadline to turn in their scripts. Prizes will be awarded the first week in January.

Hollywood Impact Studios is off for a two week Christmas break. Merry Christmas to all from Gary, Cyndi and all of the Hollywood Impact Studios Team.

After we’d already started our second semester, many of our student/inmates asked if we could offer a writing class. We didn’t know how we were going to pull that one off. But God provided! We’re excited to report that in conjunction with the ministry, 168 Film Project (www.168project.com), John Ware and Derrick Warfel came onboard and are teaching (4) two-hour writing classes. Their class will cover script writing as well as short story writing and magazine writing. Our guys are very pumped about the classes… Much thanks to John Ware and Derrick Warfel.

Derrick Warfel teaches his screenwriting class.

We’re off this week for Thanksgiving. We wish all of our friends, family and supporters a Very Happy Thankgsgiving.