Month: April 2010

Our first 10 week program at Nickerson Gardens has come to an end. We gave out certificates of completion and HOLLYWOOD IMPACT STUDIOS T-shirts to our grads. We look forward to starting our next course over the summer. It looks like it will be centered more on drama & music, but we’re still in the planning stages. We’d like to thank the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks for helping kick this all off. Congratulations to our graduates. Thanks for all the hard work and dedication.

Our acting teach Josh Holt with some of our young aspiring actresses…

It is so incredable to see how God is working through the ministry. While doing some research on jail/prison recidivism rates. I came across this interesting statistic; according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department the total recidivism rate for inmates who have been released from jail for only 3 months are re-arrested at a 42.2% rate and within 6 months of their release, the total rate jumps to 57.4%.

This has to be “a God thing” because since we started in June of 2009, HOLLYWOOD IMPACT STUDIOS has had approx. 20-25 graduates released from custody. At the time of this writing we have NOT HAD A SINGLE GRADUATE RE-ARRESTED! Some of are graduates are already gainfully employed, others are taking advantage of additional schooling and scholarships supplied by HOLLYWOOD IMPACT STUDIOS.

I know this program is still young and we’re going to have some disappointments, but you’ve got to admit a 0% recidivism rate at this time is pretty darn neat! Praise God.

Last weekend, we packed up the cars with equipment and headed down to Nickerson Gardens. Chris Fallin taught a camera and lighting workshop. It was so interesting to see that when we took the camera outside into the common area, kids flocked from throughout the housing project. Everyone got a chance to do some “hands-on” work with the camera.

It was neat to see people who’d never seen a camera clap board or hi-definition camera, step up and give it a try.

Thanks again to everyone who made the trek. Thanks especially to Chris Fallin, he’s such a terrific teacher. God just continues to bless this ministry with terrific, caring volunteers.

Two weeks ago, we had another field trip for our students at Nickerson Gardens. We brought them to Carolyn Fallin’s recording studio in Burbank to try their hand at voice over recording.

They all did a terrific job and had a lot of fun. A couple of the guys may look toward sound recording as a profession. This was a day they’ll all remember for a very long time. Thank you Carolyn for sharing your truly God given gifts.