Dramatizations for The Doctors of the Church

In summer of 2019, we first got the opportunity to collaborate on a documentary series produced by EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. The series The Doctors of the Church honors the remarkable lives of the saints declared Doctors over the centuries.
Our part was to produce the dramatizations of the most important events of the Doctors’ lives. The first episode we worked on was Pope Leo I.

So far, we had never filmed such specific historical events and the task was quite a challenge for our team – the story set in 5th Century Roman Empire, involving a lot of people, even the Huns. We needed to find suitable locations, believable costumes, Asian actors. The preparations for the shooting were quite extensive, but finally, the shooting day came.

We shot the majority of the scenes in a beautiful Croatian settlement, Grožnjan. The day started with our project manager oversleeping! With the delay in our shooting plan, the team had to be extra focused and efficient. The locals were very welcoming, even though the haze from our haze machines would creep from the streets into their apartments. One of the biggest challenges was building Attila’s tent. You wouldn’t believe the number of rugs we used to cover the hayrack that served as the base!

EWTN was pleased with our work and they offered to continue the collaboration! Next, we filmed the dramatizations for the episodes about Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine of Hippo. Those two were challenging because of the number of actors we needed. At that point, we didn’t have our own database of actors yet. We managed to film both episodes in only two days and a half and even successfully attempted to build a baptistery from scratch!

The months of preparations for the three episodes and the challenges that we faced and conquered were only preparing us for what was yet to come – a lot more...