Explore with the Miracle Hunter: From Lourdes to Assisi

We got the opportunity to produce the dramatizations for the new EWTN series titled Explore with the Miracle Hunter. The »Miracle Hunter« Michael O’Neill travels to miracle sites to tell the stories of major events in Church history and the saints who lived them.

The very first episode of the first season was Lourdes – we felt a strong responsibility to do such an iconic miracle story justice. Luckily, we were able to find a perfect location, a beautiful small cave shaped very similarly to the grotto in which Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous. The Lourdes episode was also the one in which we introduced »our« Mary.

Mary was not the only important name showed for the first time. The episode exploring Paray-le-Monial and the story of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was our first involving the character of Jesus. Finding the actor with the right energy and physique was not the hardest thing, it was actually how to make his heart appear burning in flames outside his chest. Our team tried a number of different recipes that involved gelatine and even epoxy resin, before we achieved the desired look of the Heart. We filmed the heart and the flames separately to the actor and combined the two in post-production. It was the first time we used LED lights as well, positioning them on Jesus' hands and chest.

Lanciano was another episode that required a lot of DIY. The story of sacramental bread turning into flesh of Jesus required from us to come up with a believable flesh-looking leavened bread. We ended up glueing very thin slices of veal and the gelatine concoction from the previous episode onto the circle shaped tortilla base.

The next two episodes required a lot of fake blood: the beheading of Saint Januarius of Naples and of course, the story of Francis of Assisi receiving his stigmata. Our make-up team was met with a special challenge to produce make-up prosthetics for the wounds of the crucified Christ, we built a wooden cross and applied six seraph wings on it. The sight was majestic and we felt, again, what a special privilege we have to be able to immerse ourselves in the great stories only the chosen ones lived.