Elaine Alaniz

Elaine Alaniz was born in Weslaco, TX and raised in Houston, TX. Growing up she wasn't sure what career path she wanted to take. It wasn't until she took an acting class at Houston Community College that she realized that entertainment was the field she would pursue. In late 2004 a job opportunity arose in Los Angeles, not knowing what the future would hold she took the leap of faith and moved from Texas to California. A year later after many obstacles and hardships, something beautiful happened, "God got a hold of her heart." She decided to take a break from auditions in 2008 and spent that time studying "acting for the camera." The following year God led her to discipleship at her home church. After many years of working in the entertainment industry, training and most importantly being discipled, her desires and vision in entertainment changed. She was now pursuing her true passion "Jesus Christ." In August 2009 she opened up a faith based production company and became the founder of Nahum 17 Productions, LLC. Her company is committed to faith based projects for "all people" that deliver messages of hope, forgiveness, entertain and encourage individuals by relating to the culture in a nontraditional way. With the help of her friend's co-writer Nikki Cheimelu and director Joe F. Medina she was able to bring her vision for her first project "I Once Was Lost-The Series" to reality. The first three webisodes launched on January 29th 2010 and in August 2010 "I Once Was Lost - The Series aka IOWL" was nominated for the Best Internet Program at the 25th Annual Imagen Foundation Awards. One of Elaine's major influences growing up was Hip Hop. The biggest obstacle in her walk in faith was cleaning up her music. Today her major influence has been Christian Hip Hop, particularly music from the 116 Clique. Plenty of that type of music genre can be found on the show "IOWL". Her vision is to reach the young adults of today's pop culture by giving them hope for their future and sharing the Gospel with them in a way that they can see it (entertainment), hear it (music) and relate to it (circumstance).