Director Rob Loos Talks ‘Humble, Unsung Heroes’ in New Doc SALT AND LIGHT: THE MIRACLE IN HOLLYWOOD
By Movieguide® Staff
Director Rob Loos has over 30 years of experience in the entertainment industry, but his most recent documentary, SALT & LIGHT, was perhaps his most personal project to date.
SALT AND LIGHT: THE MIRACLE IN HOLLYWOOD is documentary about THE SALT COMPANY Coffee House in Hollywood, California, which became the birthplace of Christian Contemporary Music.
A portion of Movieguide®’s review reads:
SALT AND LIGHT: THE MIRACLE IN HOLLYWOOD is a fascinating documentary about a coffee house called The Salt Company, which opened August 3, 1968 in Hollywood. When Don Williams, a young assistant pastor at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, started talking to the hippies moving into Hollywood, he decided to provide them with the space where they could hear music peppered by the Gospel, called the Salt Company Coffeehouse. The Salt Company Band, the musical group playing there, was not only inspired by God’s Holy Spirit but also by terrific musicians. Very soon, lines of people trying to get into the coffee house reached around the block.
SALT AND LIGHT is a fascinating story of one of several sources of the Jesus Movement. The new music playing at Christian coffee houses from Seattle to Akron, Ohio inspired music still being played today in churches around the world. The revival became so big Time Magazine featured the Jesus Movement on its cover, showing that God was not dead. SALT AND LIGHT: THE MIRACLE IN HOLLYWOOD consists of archival footage, great music and insightful interviews. It’s worth watching.
Loos said that while he grew up hundreds of miles away from Hollywood in Akron Ohio, his connection to what is now known as the “Jesus Movement,” and the rise of CCP holds a special place in his heart.
“I’ve been in the Hollywood press for a number of years and I had no idea what The Salt Company was,” Loos told Movieguide® in a recent interview. “That sort of shocked me a little bit, and as I started to research and dig a little deeper; ‘The start of Contemporary Christian Music is at a Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, California. Really?’ The story is pretty compelling to me.”
“As the JESUS REVOLUTION movie came out, a lot of things are made popular through that,” he added, with both movies focussing on the cultural shift in the late 60s early 70s. “Greg Laurie and those guys started about a year later than The Salt Company. The fact that there’s a coffee house at a Presbyterian church in Hollywood, is fairly compelling.”
“I really started into the project, pretty green, not really knowing what the whole story was,” Loos explained. “But as it becomes more and more apparent, it’s just so amazing what God can do.”
Despite the distance between his childhood and The Salt Company’s burgeoning ministry, Loos said that he was excited to connect some of the dots through making the SALT AND LIGHT documentary.
“I came to Christ around that point in time. As a 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old kid, I wore a little Jesus button every day to junior high, because I thought that was the way to convert people,” he recalled, noting that the button had the symbol of a clenched fist pointing up to God. “Little did I know that that was designed by the folks here in Hollywood. I’ve learned like, you gotta have an interesting sense of humor. I come to Christ at that point in time, and then come back many years later and end up doing a documentary on how that was a symbol and how that got made? It’s really pretty amazing.”
“I think the really cool thing is that these people were real,” he continued. “The fact that they wanted to make a difference in what society is all about, was an amazing thing. They did that through music, and through ministry, through reaching out to folks, and that’s compelling. It’s just really compelling to me. The fact that they sort of founded a genre of music and then sort of walked away. They didn’t take the record deal. They weren’t in it for the money. They were in it for the ministry. For me to come back and rediscover them 50 years later is pretty amazing. It’s an amazing story of people that were just sold out to God, and all they wanted to do was help people.”
Loos said that the 60s was a scary time for children to grow up, and sees that people face similar challenges today. However, he hopes that SALT AND LIGHT will give people hope.
“I am hoping people are empowered to make a difference,” he said. “We just trusted God, we didn’t totally have a plan. We just wanted to serve Him and make a difference. God’s working in amazing ways. If you feel something in your heart that you think needs to be changed, then do it. If you want to help struggling people on the street, then do it and see where God leads.”
For The Salt Company, Loos called them unsung heroes who believed that everything was possible with God.
“Nothing’s impossible for these folks. Nothing was ever possible and God’s word, we’ve been hearing it for 1000s of years now and it doesn’t get old,” he said.
“I think there’s such hope in it,” he said of the documentary. “The 60s were always sort of like a scary time for me as a little kid. There were all sorts of protests and people were being shot and the Vietnam War was so ugly. We were being lied to about that and it was a really scary time. It was a scary time to be a little kid and… I think it’s a scary time to be a little kid today. There’s a lot going on out there that you just don’t understand and you don’t really know, it’s a crazy world.
“These are unsung heroes. We’ve forgotten so much about what’s happened to 20th century Christianity, but these people have made a difference. We have to say it is time to look these people up and just sort of say, ‘you can do this too.’ You can make a difference in the world. You can change the way things are happening,” he concluded.
SALT AND LIGHT: THE MIRACLE IN HOLLYWOOD is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
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