Wellwater Productions

I first met Gary Molander during his breakout session at the 2009 Echo Conference. He was speaking on his inspiration behind the sermon starters he produces and how we can learn to find inspiration in the things around us. At the time, my involvement with Wellwater was only lightly touched upon, with Ken and I discussing a possible project partnership. As a launching point for that partnership, I met with Gary after his Breakout to see if he would critique a short script I had been kicking around. He most graciously agreed, and thus began a friendship of constant inspiration. That script would end up on the shelf for another 2 years, only finally this year gaining traction with a slightly different focus.

Gary’s blog posts have always been something that challenged me, and this book serves as a natural extension of those challenges. Throughout “Pursuing Christ, Creating Art,” he addresses the persona of the artist, and deals with the challenges we face. While that topic has been covered to exhaustion in other books, Gary takes a unique and much needed fresh approach by addressing what it looks like as we reconcile our lives as Artists and Christians.

He first challenges the idea that one must be an artist in order to be creative. His wife, a teacher, is the person who he says is the most creative person he knows. She, on the other hand, does not believe herself to be creative. Yet she creatively communicates with her students, manages her families schedule, cares for those around her, and still finds time for herself. It takes true creativity to be able to do this, and he points out that she’s not the only one like that. We were created in the image of God, and God is creative. He created the Heavens and the Earth – naturally some of that creativity is going to pass on down.

After setting this foundation, Gary goes on to address the specific challenges of an artistic and creative lifestyle. His aim is to address who we are and why we are the way we are, and thus learn how to reconcile our downfalls with the truth of Christ’s saving grace. In addition, he aims to let us know that we are not alone in these struggles. This is beautifully done throughout the book. I found that at the ends of chapters, I’d have more highlighted than not.

Each chapter is complimented perfectly by an introduction by one of the people Gary is inspired by. Each individual is perfectly suited to address the topic at hand, bringing a unique perspective that sets the stage for what Gary is working to communicate.

The question at this point that you may be asking is, what does this have to do with Wellwater Productions? Wellwater aims to tell the story of what God is doing in the World by both telling those stories ourselves as well as by equipping others to tell it. This book is a natural extension to that goal. I found myself walking away challenged to evaluate how I tell God’s story and challenge the church. As we equip others to tell stories, it is not enough to just give technical knowledge. We must also address challenges they will face, and come alongside and encourage throughout the process. This book beautifully does this in words much better than I could ever express.

I would highly suggest this book to anyone who is even remotely doing anything creative. Since we already established that everyone is creative, you have no excuse to not go out and grab this book. I am already planning to buy a few copies to distribute to a few creative people I know.

Disclaimer: A promotional copy of the book was provided for this review, as well as a Starbucks gift card.

Wellwater Productions recently needed to research the best stabilizer for an iPod Touch. We had originally been looking at Zacuto’s offerings, but found they didn’t allow for any equipment beyond the Touch. This served as a problem for our project. Then along comes Owle with the Bubo. Originally released excluseively for the iPhone 3Gs and 4, they have recently introduced an iPod Touch model. We got in contact with them to pick up a review copy, and they delivered! So how did it stack up?

The Bubo is a solid piece of equipment. Made from solid aluminum, you wouldn’t want to drop this on your foot. That being said, if you do drop it, more likely than not you won’t sustain any damage. At least not to the main unit. It’s overall very comfortable to hold. The weight is solid and helps you to get a steady shot.

A wide angle lens is included, giving the iPod Touch that extra bit of width that you may need for some of those shots.

This also helps with stabilization, giving even the shakiest of hands a usable image. Overall, the lens gives a nice amount of sharpness to the image, and the distortion level is very minimal for most shots. As with all wide angle lenses, the closer you have it to an object, the more the distortion is noticeable. The only lens problem we ran into is that the thread is extremely tiny, making it quite easy to thread the lens incorrectly.

In addition to the wide angle lens, a Macro lens is also included. The primary purpose of this lens is to make the wide angle lens work correctly, but I found that you can still get some nice macro shots with just that lens. Be warned that stabilization is even more important when using that lens, as all movement is magnified. That brings me to the next feature.

There are a total of 4 threaded mounts on the unit, 1 on each of the ”arms” coming out of the unit. This allows you to throw it on a tripod for a steady shot or an interview, or even to throw a light on top of the unit. There is also a center “cold shoe” for those times you need to mount a mic or light. We tested the unit out with both a Rode Mic and an LED light, finding it handled both quite nicely.

The iPod Touch fits nicely into the Bubo thanks to an included rubber case. This protects the Touch from scrapping along the aluminum, as well as helps it to keep a snug fit in the unit. There is a small hole in the center of the unit that makes for easy ejection of an iPod Touch. The unit gives the user access to most of the iPod Touch’s buttons and dock, only blocking access to the wake/sleep button. This only serves a problem when you’re ready to power the unit down, having to eject it in order to hit the button.

Since the already subpar microphone on the iPod Touch is shielded by the Bubo, they have opted to include a small directional microphone with the unit. This fits nicely into the headphone jack on the iPod Touch and can be pointed pretty much anywhere in a 180 degree arch. The overall quality of the mic is pretty impressive considering it’s size and price. For most run and gun sort of projects, this mic will work beautifully.

Overall the Bubo exceeded our expectations, easily filling the need we had. There were very few hiccups that we ran into. The first hiccup we hit was that when light hits the wide angle lens at just the right angle, a reflection of the inside of the unit is seen. This renders the footage almost unusable. Thankfully, out of the entire time of working with the unit, we only had this creep up in two shots. It’s very much the exception to the norm.

The other problem we ran into involved recording audio during an interview. We found that there would be a very quick burst of interference every now and then. This very well may be an issue with our iPod Touch as opposed to the microphone, but it’s at least worth noting. We will be testing the unit further and will update if we come across any updates on the issue.

We had a few requests for future versions that would only serve to improve an already amazing unit. Due to the Bubo’s weight, it’s not easily mountable on a smaller tripod. If they were able to make the center of the bottom portion just a bit thicker, they should be able to put another thread in there to allow for a user to center mount to a tripod. This may allow for some smaller, more consumer friendly tripods to be able to handle the unit. This would also serve to fix the way the unit is held. As of now, the left hand tends to butt right up against the wide angle lens. Making things slightly longer would allow for a more symmetrical hold.

We would also like to see some sort of zoom lens available for the unit. While that certainly would not work handheld, it may allow for some tighter shots when mounted to a tripod or monopod, giving a little more distance for those instances where you can’t get right up to the subject.

Overall we love the Bubo unit and plan to pursue using it with our future iPod Touch based project. It fit all of the needs we had and allowed for ideas we hadn’t initially planned on. It is also priced very affordably, coming in at $169.96 for the entire kit(minus iPod Touch.) You can order your own Owle Bubo from ALM at www.almlive.com/store/.

Take a look at a bit of the footage we captured using the iPod touch. Somewhat rough, but overall gives an idea of the stability of the unit. You can also see a few of the issues we had near the end of the video. For added entertainment, there’s also a quick clip of a fireworks presentation that went wrong. You’ll never know what you’ll capture when you always have a camera around!

Disclaimer: Wellwater Productions was sent a review unit for this review.

We are proud to present our most recent project with BMDMI.

A week of your life could change theirs forever. Baptist Medical & Dental Mission International exists under the Lordship of Jesus Christ to evangelize the lost, disciple the saved, and minister to the needs of the poor.

Wellwater Productions is proud to partner with BMDMI to tell the story of what God is doing in Central America.

To learn more about BMDMI and to get involved, head over to BMDMI.org.

Editing of the BMDMI Nicaragua project is progressing, but let these tide you over as we work on the edit. Ken’s wife, Mickey Summerall, came along with us on this trip and took some snapshots of some of what happened while we were there. This is only a taste of what she was able to capture.

Well, today marks one week of being back in the states. Editing has already begun, as we have worked to convert all 8+ hours of footage over to the format we need for editing. The more I look at some of the processed shots, the more excited I get to release this project and see how God uses it. It’s going to take a little while for us to get an approved copy of the video out in the wild, but that doesn’t mean you need to wait to get a taste of what we saw during our time in Nicaragua!

We had the immense privilege of working alongside of photographer Billy Weeks during the trip. He freelances with BMBDI, typically capturing photos from them each year. He is an amazingly talented photographer and a great person to learn from. He really has a heart for teaching and seeing people being equipped to capture beautiful photography that tells a story. Some of the photos he shot are posted on his blog, and needless to say, they’ll make you speechless! Take a look.

It most certainly has been an eventful past few days. We left early on Sunday morning to head into one of the many villages in Nicaragua. This was where the medical clinics were to be held. After about 6 1/2 hours of driving on the “roads,” we arrived in the village and began to set up. The government actually closes school for one week and allows BMDMI to use the facilities to hold the clinics in. So they set up one room as a medical clinic, one as a dentist, another as a pharmacy, another as a shop, and yet another as an optometrist.

Monday marked the first official day of the clinic. 8am came and hundreds of people began to line up for registration. The clinic allows about 250 per group to go through, with anywhere from 4-5 groups per day making the rounds. I believe Monday brought over 1,200 people to the clinic. The team expects similar numbers throughout the week.

We spent the morning capturing the events in the village. We continually had our hearts broken as we saw the poverty in the eyes of these people. One of the stations was taking photos of each family and printing it out for them to keep. It was amazing to see the joy on their faces as they got what may be the only photo of themselves that they’ll ever own. The joy they had even as they came out of the dentist was amazing, considering they had just had a toothy removed or worked on. But they knew that it was for their best and would cure their toothaches!

Things got interesting for the video crew after lunch. The BMDMI team has a group of veterinarians that go around and give shots to the cattle, horses, pigs and dogs of those who live in the village. We wanted to tag along to capture some of the events. They would go from animal to animal, tie it up, and proceed to quickly give it the shots using a rather large needle gun. Needless to say, the animals were not too happy about this. I had the opportunity to vaccinate one of the cows. It’s much harder than it looks! You have to watch for them jumping around and breaking trees down.

Vaccinating animals in the middle of a random road leads to organized chaos. We had people giving animals shots while cows, horses, pigs and dogs all went nuts. Meanwhile, random farmers would walk up the streets leading their herd in to be vaccinated. We even had one woman run home, pick up her pig, then proceed to run down the hill while holding her squealing animal. It had to be one of the funniest sights I’ve ever seen. At another point a bunch of people were holding down one of the pigs to be vaccinated. The pig was going nuts as people yelled and tried to give it the shot. I was down on one knee right in front of it, trying to get a good shot, when suddenly an angry dog comes out of no where and bites me in the leg! He didn’t break the skin, but it certainly startled me.

Today ended our time in the village. It was sad to leave the team, even after being with them for such a short time. They were a pure pleasure to work with. Our Departure time couldn’t have been better though. Right after we took our last shot and packed up, the skies opened up and a massive downpour began! I believe it wrapped up in time for the next round of patients, but it certainly was good that it didn’t come any sooner.

There are so many other stories that we cannot wait to share. This is only a tiny piece of what we’ve experienced so far this week. Tomorrow we are headed out to capture a few more of the ministries BMDMI has in the area. Hopefully I’ll have more of an update soon!

- Adam Erickson

We have officially arrived in Managua, Nicaragua. After a thankfully uneventful flight, we arrived at the Managua airport. Thank God for no issues with our camera equipment and customs!

It promises to be a VERY full week, but a very good week! It turns out that the team we are here with is a team of 70 Americans, consisting of doctors, nurses, musicians, and other volunteers who promise to help out however they can. In addition to that, they also have 30 translators working with them. It looks like this week they are going to be holding a medical camp, vet camp, renovating and building a new house, on top of the usual ministry of a sewing center, school and church plants. Needless to say, we couldn’t have picked a better week to come to capture the essence of Baptist Medical and Dental Missions International. We’re cramming all of our shooting into four days of shooting, so we very well may be dead by the end. Keep praying for both the BMDMI team as well as the Wellwater crew!

On a side note, It’s a huge wakeup call and reminder to see the condition of the nation. I sit here tonight reminded of all I have while people struggle to make it in the world. Definitely puts life into perspective! I pray that I will continue to be convicted of what I have as we head back to the US later is week.

Alright – hopefully we will have an update for you for tomorrow night!

- Adam Erickson

In a recent blog post, Collide Magazine summed up wonderfully what Wellwater exists to do. God is at work all around us, changing lives and communities and we at Wellwater aim to tell those stories. You never know who may be impacted by a particular story, so we aim to get these tales out there to the masses. These stories may lead to someone being encouraged in their life, they may hear the Gospel for the first time, or they may just find an organization to get plugged in with. Whatever the end result, we aim to tell these God stories so that people may connect with what God is doing in the world. It’s an exciting time to be serving our God!