New challenges for the EWTN's TV show
The start of the new season of Doctors of the Church series transported us into the 4th Century. The first episode was about Saint Jerome, one of the most important Doctors of the Church. He worked extensively on the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible. He is special to Slovenians because he was born in Stridon, which was allegedly near our capital city of Ljubljana, then named Emona.
That led us to Euphrasian basilica in Poreč, Croatia, which was originally built in 4th Century. Jerome led a life of ascetic penance, he lived in a desert for years. We were lucky enough to find a beautiful cave on a hill near Koper, we built quite a cozy home for our actor. A special scene for this episode was Jerome’s penance. To avoid temptation-filled thoughts, Jerome was beating his chest with a rock regularly. To keep our actor save during the shooting, our set design team made a fake rock out of foam and the rest was up to our makeup artist.
The next episode was about Alphonsus Liguori, an Italian Catholic bishop and theologian. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists, in 1732. Before he dedicated his life to God, Alphonsus was a very successful lawyer. We filmed a trial scene in a beautiful atmosphere of the 300-year-old Seminary library in Ljubljana. With actors wearing the 18th Century inspired clothes and wigs, we felt we were in another era.
The tonsures came back! The third episode was about Anthony of Padua. There are many stories that illustrate his greatness and are at the same time quite challenging to film – the most difficult were the scene where the donkey bows down before the Eucharist and Anthony’s famous preaching to the fish. We knew our VFX team will have to help us bring those iconic stories to life. You can imagine that it is not easy to make dead fish from the market appear as though they are floating in the sea with their heads raised above the surface, listening to the wise words of Saint Anthony. Very difficult, but definitely easier than to make a donkey do anything he does not feel like doing. For example, refusing to eat hay and rather bowing before the Eucharist. We managed to achieve both, but we won’t tell you all of our secrets!