10/10/2026
Dear Los Angeles,
One of the most important things I learned from living here is that creativity has value.
In other places I’ve lived, I’ve often felt the pressure to choose something more predictable. My aspirations—and the life I wanted to build around them—were sometimes considered fringe, impractical, or too far outside the box. Here, I found people who understood the desire to take an idea that exists only in your head and do the work to bring it to life.
That meant something to me. It still does.
You’ve embraced and encouraged us, giving us the freedom—and the unspoken permission—to keep reinventing ourselves. To grow beyond who we are today and move toward who we believe we can become.
You gave me the freedom to wear many different creative hats. I’ve been a stand-up comedian, stuntman, video game producer, journalist, published author, optioned screenwriter, stunt coordinator, director, second-unit director, cinematographer, producer, editor and filmmaker. None of those paths would have come to life without the creative and entrepreneurial freedom Los Angeles has understood and encouraged for so long.
Here, I never felt that I had to be only one thing. I could follow an idea, learn a new craft, collaborate with people in different fields, and build a career out of seemingly unrelated passions. Each experience informed the next. Each role opened a new door. Along the way, I learned more about myself and discovered possibilities I didn’t know existed.
Those experiences have now come together in Reel Kinetic Films, the company I founded to create cinematic sports and action storytelling. It brings my background in performance, writing, action, and filmmaking into the way I capture movement and tell human stories. To me, it’s a culmination of the creative life I’ve built here in Los Angeles—and the beginning of what comes next.
You understand that when we create, we’re often reaching toward our higher selves. We’re trying to give form to something we feel deeply, and in the process, discover what else we’re capable of.
You’ve given me room to become someone I couldn’t fully imagine when I arrived. And you still give me room to keep becoming.
Loving you doesn’t mean I think you’re a utopia. There’s conflict here, turmoil, and real disagreement about where this city is heading and whose needs are being heard.
But I also love being able to experience so many cultures here—through food, language, music, art, friendships, and everyday encounters. We bring different histories and ways of seeing the world. Living alongside one another gives us opportunities to question what we know, discover something unfamiliar, and let those experiences shape what we create.
To me, that’s the promise of this city’s cultural melting pot: learning to see beyond our differences while appreciating and celebrating what makes each of us distinct. And through those encounters, we discover how much we share—the desire to belong, to care for the people we love, and to build a meaningful life. Those connections give us reasons to come together.
That doesn’t erase our differences or solve our problems. It gives us something worth caring for as we work through them.
I love this city for the people who make things. The artists, craftspeople, writers, performers, filmmakers, musicians, designers, and the people whose ingenuity doesn’t come with a professional title. People who look at what’s available, figure out what’s missing, and find a way.
I’ve spent years working alongside them. I’ve seen what happens when the money is short, the clock is running, and something that worked yesterday suddenly doesn’t work today. Someone asks a question. Someone tries an unexpected approach. We work through it together. Eventually, there’s something in front of us that didn’t exist when we started.
That’s the Los Angeles I know.
Right now, this city is going through a change that feels deeply unsettling. For those of us whose livelihoods are tied to creating, the uncertainty is personal. There are bills to pay, people to care for, and years of hard-earned experience we still want to put to use. Loving the work doesn’t make any of that easier.
I won’t pretend to know exactly what comes next. I’m trying to figure out my place in it, too.
I understand the sense of doom. But I also see possibility in having filmmaking tools within reach that once felt out of reach. Having the means to shoot and edit our own work gives us more control over what we make and more freedom to get started without waiting for a gatekeeper’s approval. Financing a project and finding an audience still take work, but being able to put an idea into motion matters.
I believe we’ll see more independent projects grow from that freedom. Creative entrepreneurship has a persistent source: our desire to express ourselves, explore the human spirit and its potential, and entertain people. I don’t believe that desire can be extinguished. I believe we’ll keep finding ways to give it form.
Our creativity and ingenuity helped build this city, and we still carry those abilities with us. We can put them toward new ways of working, new collaborations, and opportunities we may have to create ourselves.
I believe in this city and the people who have supported and encouraged its creative entrepreneurs. That support reaches beyond those of us making the work. It reaches the audience who needs a laugh, a moment of wonder, or a story that helps them feel understood. Entertainment can give people a needed break from the pressures of their lives—a chance to return to their jobs, their families, and their responsibilities refreshed, perhaps with a new perspective or a renewed sense of purpose. I want us to keep making room for work that can do that.
That will take more than telling each other to stay positive. It means hiring one another when we can. Making introductions. Sharing opportunities. Recognizing the value of someone’s experience and paying for their work. Giving a new idea enough room to become something.
And you’ve given me more than a creative life. Here, I found my beautiful life partner, Melissa for the past 15 years and our beloved fur baby, Princess. Together, we’ve built a life that makes this city home. They’re part of what I love about you, too.
Los Angeles gave me collaborators, friendships, and chances to attempt things I might otherwise have kept to myself. It gave me the freedom to explore more than one identity, to take creative risks, and to turn ideas into a life and a livelihood. I want that possibility to remain here—for those of us still working and for the people just arriving with an idea they can’t let go of.
I believe we will evolve and survive this change. The path may be difficult, and we’ll need each other along the way.
I still love you, Los Angeles. And I still have a lot of work I want to make here.
With love,
John Kreng
Reel Kinetic Films
