Good is best described as a mystery unfolding

Story by MARY ELLEN THOMPSON  •   Photography by JOHN WOLLWERTH

Zipping above the Charlotte Motorway in the face of oncoming race cars, gently floating above the Beaufort waterways over the marshes and oyster beds, or hovering above a fog-laden, musician filled graveyard long after dark, are images that Stephen Wollwerth captures with his camera attached to a remote controlled helicopter. After watching his videos, everything else looks well, somehow flat.
Stephen had always like model aircraft, but they were an expensive hobby, so he sold them when his children were born and other obligations took precedence. But passions die hard; Stephen explains, “When my son was three, I thought, ‘I want to get back into that, but I want to make money doing it.” He continues, “There is a lot of faith in my background; everything begins with prayer.” Buoyed with that faith, Stephen bought a remote controlled (RC) helicopter kit, which took him 3 to 4 months to build and then he attached a Canon 7D camera to it.  Chris Petry, now Chief of Operations of Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority, hired him to create a public service video; the aerial cinematography was a hit, the film won an award and is being used at the University of Arizona in the Department of Environmental Sustainability.
Stephen spent his early years in Syosset, on Long Island, New York. When he was ten, his father died of brain cancer. His mother, Ginnie, married Walter Stooksberry and the family moved to Nebraska for the subsequent years. Immediately after graduating from North Central University in Minnesota, Stephen was invited by the Superintendent of the Singaporean Assemblies of God to teach guitar and music performance in Singapore for six months.  He came back to the United States for a year and a half before moving to China where he did missionary work for two years. Those were auspicious years for him; he met his wife Jenny there, and became fluent in speaking Chinese. His mother’s illness brought him back state-side; eight months later Jenny joined him and they were married in October 2004. Two weeks later they moved to Beaufort.
Of the five boys in the family, John, Brian, Brad and Bruce, Brad was already in Beaufort by way of the military, and older brother John followed Stephen here. At the time, Brad had a tile setting business, and hired his brothers to work with him. John, of course, is a well known photographer in Beaufort and much loved by this magazine. It seems that John and Stephen both inherited love and aptitude for photography from their father, Henry.
One project close to Stephen’s heart was creating a documentary, “Tropical Storm Sendong,” in the aftermath of the typhoon that hit the Philippines in 2011. In March 2012, he took Jenny, and sons Judah and Jacob, to Iligan which is in Northern Mindanao, where Jenny is from and her uncle is a pastor, and on the board of the Nehemiah Foundation. Stephen’s mission was to raise $20,000 for the people who had been made homeless by the floods, who were living in tent cities under the very poorest of conditions. His emotionally wrenching documentary gained momentum on social media and the money was raised.  As a result, the Iligan government  gave an additional $150,000 for houses to be built for 52 families on land that Jenny’s uncle, and the Foundation, had donated.
Innovative in his approach, Stephen says he was the first person in the world to put a Blackmagic Cinema Camera on a high-tech RC rig. When West Coast based Mi6 Films needed an East Coast crew to film aerial shots of NASCAR’s going around the track at the Charlotte Motor Speedway for a segment of a Fox Sports 1st premier commercial “Happy Days Are Here Again” in August 2013, Stephen was just the man for the job. The footage of cars racing at 200 mph, when seen from above, is dizzying. As stated in Visual Imaging News “‘The director, Joseph Kahn, was looking for a really dramatic wipe reveal of the stadium and motor speedway with fans cheering and waving,’ said Stephen Wollwerth. ‘We were also able to capture a long straight high speed shot where we cleared the fence and dropped down to just over the track level as cars were passing underneath.’”
Some of his most creative and as he says, most fun, works are music videos of the local band, Reckless Mercy. “What sets you apart is how creatively you think; everyone can possess equipment, but not everyone possesses creativity. It’s imperative to create imagery the viewer doesn’t expect.” It seems that everyone who sees those videos, falls in love with the band. In one, while they are singing the 1930’s song, Ain’t No Grave,  Stephen is busy filming the different components to make them look seamless.
Opening: full moon nestled in a dark milky way sky shedding just enough light to discreetly outline a church steeple; a lone musician, leaning up against a tree, playing the banjo.
The Mood: creepy yet redemptive; the ominous suggestive shadow of a gravedigger, back-lit fog drenched Spanish moss dripping heavily over gravestones.
Best Shot: a guitar player high up on the branch with the moon spilling through just at the junction where branch meets tree.
Biggest Challenges: creating the right light effects in the darkness, swirling the fog through the graveyard, the effortless look of raising and lowering the coffin by some supernatural force.
As Media Director of Praise Assembly, Stephen’s musical talents come to the forefront.  “I play guitar, I’ve led the music at church every week for the past ten years, leading on guitar while singing. I have a performance degree in classical guitar, but I don’t play much classical any more, so I play electric and acoustic guitar proficiently.
“When I’m not working, I’m usually trying to find a good way to spend time with my kids. I love running; normally I’ll get up and run 8 to 9 miles a few times a week before work. That time I also spend in prayer, I pray at least an hour each morning before I work.”
Currently in the works is the production of a feature film called ‘Revelation, end of days.’ “I had a vision where the Angel of the Lord appears to John in the Book of Revelation. I see this airing on the Bible or the History Channel. We shot for 3 months and produced 3 minutes of film; it’s just too big at the moment.” Currently part of a GoFundMe project, Stephen further explains,  “We’ve used our own funds to begin the project but we realize that in order to keep the entire project at an extremely high quality level we need the help of all who believe that the world needs to see Biblically based movies. As you can imagine, the imagery in the book of Revelation would need world class CG artists to create. Imagery such as a 7 headed 10 horned dragon chasing a woman is not easily filmed, but can be accomplished.  We want to release this movie on a national level only when it’s worthy of theaters.” (Visit www.gofundme/revelation for a film clip.)
Self-admittedly competitive, Stephen holds fast to the cutting edge, which is what puts him at the top. He is also charismatic, visionary, and just this side of brilliant. Those attributes, coupled with his faith, will undoubtedly transport him successfully forward. “My greatest goal, vision, dream, is that wollwerthfilms comes to the level of Paramount Pictures and beyond, ultimately creating many movies and television series.  It seems that in film and TV today, everyone is familiar with evil, destruction and darkness; how bad ‘bad’ can be, and everybody is trying to make another horror/zombie movie. But I’ve not seen much in the media that does justice to exemplifying how good ‘good’ can be. I believe it takes far more creativity to convey the latter because it’s so much deeper and multifaceted. Evil can be described in obvious terms, but good is best described as a mystery unfolding.”

For more information: https://www.facebook.com/WollwerthFilms and/or www.wollwerthfilms.com