LA Update: Week 1

I promised many of you that I would be posting a weekly (or maybe a bi-monthly) blog, to update you all about my life in Los Angeles. This will probably end up being every two weeks though, just cause.... well just because I feel like it. I'm certainly far from being a professional blogger, but oh well, here goes The Amateur Adventures of Luke Salewski in Los Angeles: Week 1!

Well the last two weeks of my life have been insane. My life has been completely and utterly turned upside down. It has been the most difficult time of my life, the most painful, the most scared, the most lost, the most overwhelmed time of my life. But it has led me to rely on God. It has given me the realism of how desperately I need God. I need him no more than I ever have, but the difference is that I realize my need for him. I was completely poor and financially in need for school and just money in general, and literally within days God provided all of the money that I needed. In a miraculous way. He has provided for me in so many ways, as you will begin to see in this blog.

Friday, January 7 -
I had a good (but incredibly short) winter break at home. I will miss my family and friends and cats and the beauty of Idaho and certainly snowboarding. I spent the whole day driving. Boise to Twin Falls to Jackpot and a straight shot through Nevada to Las Vegas. I would literally go through hours at a time in Nevada without seeing a single building. But it was such a beautiful drive. The ground was entirely covered in snow and the mountains on each side of the road were splendid. It was awesome - just being alone with God, seeing his beauty and creation. I had a great time of spiritual reflection and prayer, listening to some good worship music, compilations of Mattie Montgomery, a good sermon by Brandon Shank, and of course a good dose of metalcore to keep me awake. I got to Vegas and drove through into California. Let me just say that the stretch of highway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles was the most traffic I have ever seen on a highway outside of a city. It was CRAZY, and a good little introduction to the California drivers. I arrived at my parent's friends house in the desert in California.

Saturday, January 8 -
I woke up and spent some time talking with the people I stayed with. I told them about what I would be doing in LA, and I showed them my short film. They were really moved and excited to see God working through me. They were so incredibly encouraging to me and prayed over me before I left. I have no doubt that God designed for me to be there and be encouraged. I drove the remaining three hours into Los Angeles. As I was leaving the mountains I could see the smog - the world famous Los Angeles smog. Oh boy! I got to my apartments and got checked in with the school. My apartment is LEGIT. After reading dozens of crappy reviews online about the apartment complex, I was actually really impressed. (Ill post pics of my apartment eventually). One thing that really does suck though is the parking here... this apartment complex houses 11,000 people, so yeah, that kind of explains things, huh? Anyways, I met my roommates as they moved in. All three of them are so awesome, I know that God brought us all together for a reason. We had an orientation session that evening followed by a "Get to know each other" complimentary dinner, which was nice, because I really was not feeling like cooking.

Sunday, January 9 -
After a good breakfast, we had a worship service at our school followed by a bunch of LONG orientation sessions. Just a little bit about my school - It is called Los Angeles Film Studies Center (LAFSC) We have just under 50 students here, most of which are film or communication majors in their senior year, and most of which happen to be from the midwest and the east coast. It's on one floor of a big building about half a mile from our apartments (which with the help of my awesome long board takes me about 5 minutes!) The facilities are awesome though. There are two computer labs, one for whatever, and the other for editing (with fully upgraded Mac Pros). Then there is a student lounge area to hang out and watch movies which is next to the movie library with probably over a thousand movies, almost any movie (including tons of blu-rays) you can think of. So we can just check out however many we want and keep them as long as we want. Of course there are other facilities - classrooms, casting suite, foley studio, ADR room, and other great stuff which you can see on the website.

Monday, January 10 -
Classes began today. Our schedule is slightly different from regular classes. We usually have 1-2 different classes each day, each of which are about 3 hours long. But my professors are amazing! Even though I have completed the film program at Evangel, I am still learning SO much. A lot of what we focus on is the importance of "story." And realizing how essential it is to understand good story telling in order to effectively do any position in film, whether it be DP, editor, producer, director or whatever. All of my teachers are very well experienced and know what they are talking about from experience. They all have so much great insight and I am so excited to see all that I learn from them this semester. That evening we had two guest speakers come in - Jim(composer for Left Behind, McGee and Me and other shows) and Karen Covell, who founded the Hollywood Prayer Network (HPN). They were so encouraging in this seminar, to help us realize that we need to be missionaries to Hollywood, and to focus on Christ here. They talked a lot about how Hollywood is a mission field just as remote tribes of Africa are, and that we need to learn the culture and be a light for Christ and show love to the people in the entertainment industry. It was pretty cool and they gave us a copy of their book and DVD as well as the Left Behind soundtrack. I got to meet them and talk a little bit afterwords.

Friday, January 14 -
Did I skip a couple days? Oh.... my bad. On Friday we got to meet in our small groups where we discussed our expectations for learning and spiritual growth this semester. We got to go out for lunch and have some delicious pizza and it was a beautiful day. I might mention that the weather here has been sooo nice - its typically perfectly sunny with almost no clouds, a low of 65ish and a high of about 80. Im usually a winter guy and i love the snow and all, but I really can't complain too much about the weather here. After lunch we came back to the school and watched the hilarious short film musical that our group leader, Melanie produced with her husband (director) who is in graduate studies at USC. That afternoon we had a guest come visit, one of our teacher's good friends invited his friend John Michael Hinton who is a mentalist, which is basically like a magician that does mind tricks (but not jedi mind tricks) by reading facial micro-expressions, it's pretty extraordinary .
Our professor asked for some help to film the show, so I offered my assistance and I was invited to join my professor, John, and the others that helped, to a private members-only magicians club in Hollywood. It was awesome! We got to see a bunch of really good magicians do sweet magic tricks.



Saturday, January 15 -
We had a bunch of guys come over to my apartment and we made a huge breakfast. It was awesome! I made pancakes, we had bacon, a fruit salad, toast, and OJ. And they say men can't take care of themselves! We can... but usually only for one meal.

After brek, our school went on a field trip to tour the Kodak theater (where the Academy Awards are held annually). It was really beautiful inside and huge. After that we wandered around downtown Hollywood. Not to be a negative nancy, but I was slightly less than amused considering that it was my third time there in the past year. Anyways it was a fun nonetheless, hanging out with my friend Gordon and chatting with him. That night our school director had everyone over to her house for dinner. That was pretty awesome, a free and delicious home-cooked meal!

Sunday, January 16 -
Sunday morning I attended a church with my roommates called Ecclesia. The church is literally in downtown Hollywood, one block away from the Kodak theater and Grauman's Chinese theater. It's a beautiful thing to be able to have an altar to God in the midst of many altars to man. The church was awesome! I was really expecting some showy watered-down gospel church, and it was nothing of the like. The message was AWESOME. It was one of the best sermon's that I have ever heard about sexual purity. I highly recommend you click this link and listen to it (click on the one for 1/16/11). After church we went to eat at Sharky's, a delicious organic meat mexican food place. It was delish! I really don't remember what I did the rest of the day, but I'm sure it was cool.

Well that's week one! It's been a great time so far. Other things I've been doing include swimming in our awesome pool, longboarding around, having great conversations, eating at In-N-Out, and playing my ukulele and synth a ton. The people here are great, I'm really learning to love people with the love of the Lord. Even though I may not always be good at expressing it, I deeply care for everyone at this school and I feel so incredibly blessed to have them be a part of my life, and being able to see God through them. I hope that I can be a servant to them and an encouragement to them throughout the semester. It's so cool being able to hang out with nerds with a lot in common with me, we literally drive around LA with the Tron: Legacy Soundtrack pounding out of the car speakers. (By the way, regardless of how you felt about the film, the Tron Soundtrack is unbelievably awesome, I've been listening to it a ton). It's also been awesome knowing that people have been put in my life to inspire me, encourage me, and pray with me through the things I have been going through.

I feel as though I have been transformed. Through my circumstances I have had no one to turn to that can truly help me through everything other than the Lord. He is my strength. He has drawn me close to Him once again and allowed me to put my complacency in the past. His love is changing me each day. The things that used to matter so much to me no longer matter. I used to be obsessed with being the best, with getting the approval of others, with getting the best job out of college, with getting everything figured out. But now my one desire is to bring glory to God and to fall in love with him. I no longer worry about the things I did before because they are secondary to the primary goal of my life. Before I came out here, I wanted so badly to be the director of one of the films here. I applied for the director position here at school, and I never thought I'd say it, but I honestly don't care if I get it or not. I ONLY want to be where God wants me, and if he wants me to direct, then I will be the best director I can be for His glory, and if I don't get director I know that wasn't God's will and that's TOTALLY fine, because even if I'm the guy moving stuff around, setting up lights, unwinding cables, then I will do the best I can there for God's glory. I wish you all could see the change that God has done in my life. I rely on Him, and I am nothing apart from Him. Only HE will truly satisfy our hearts, as Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” I love you all so much. To all my friends at Evangel- I miss you guys more than you can imagine, and I pray that you will fall in love with Jesus and put aside all worry and trust in him. He will guide you with his perfect peace. I can't wait to see you all again, I really do love you so much and I am so blessed to have you be a part of my life. I see Christ in each one of you, and I wish the very best for you. I'm sorry for those of you that I have not talked to because of hurting too much to talk about things, just know that I love you. Thank you so much for all of you that have called me, cried with me, encouraged me, prayed with me and loved me. You are the sons and daughters of God!

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3