2018 has been a hectic year for us. Over the years with Mary's Dowry Productions we have tried to produce as many films as possible on the lives of the saints by incorporating as much history and film footage as possible on a filming day. This has left us with a lot of ongoing catch-up work so we seem to always have several productions outstanding. 2018 has been quite bad for this because we filmed for Saint John Bosco, Dominic Savio,
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| Screenshot from Dominic Savio FILM |
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| Screenshot from Dominic Savio FILM |
Mary Mazzarello, Jacinta Marto in January 2017, this gave us four productions to put together.
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| Screenshot from Jacinta of Fatima DVD FILM |
We also filmed for Bartolo Longo, Claude de la Colombiere, Margaret Mary and Thomas Garnet in March 2017, this gave us 8.
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| Screenshot from Bartolo Longo Film |
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| Screenshot from Bartolo Longo Film |
We discovered an old ruined barn in Ferring that would be great for a backdrop so we slipped in Saint Mechtilde of Magdeburg and the Souls in Purgatory shortly after this. This gave us 9 productions.
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| Discovery of an old barn in Ferring as backdrop for St. Mechtilde |
We get so excited about every single production. From a music perspective I know that once I start writing a score, the theme and atmosphere develops and is the theme for that production. Therefore each saint, each DVD has it's own atmosphere. We can see the potential of this so we're keen to get them released fast.
It's ever such a lot of work however and having 9 films all filmed for with amazing visuals is quite a pressure. 2018 therefore has been about catching up with these, one by one. The only way to handle the workload was literally to take one at a time and not allow ourselves to get too excited about all of them.
In 2017 we completed and released from these filming days Jacinta of Fatima DVD, Don Bosco and his Dreams, Bartolo Longo.
However instead of putting together ALL the films we filmed for in 2017 above, we had several intense extra filming days at the end of 2017 for Saint Faustina and Saint Padre Pio.
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| Screenshot from Faustina and the Divine Mercy DVD |
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| Screenshot from Padre Pio: Pray, Hope and Don't Worry DVD |
We released these films but this got us really behind so the beginning of 2018 saw us working on Saint Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, filmed for in March 2017, we also had outstanding, Dominic Savio and Mary Mazzarello from Janary 2018 - a year earlier.
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| Padre Pio DVD, New in 2017 |
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| Saint Faustina DVD NEW for 2017 |
Working on Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus was a new experience and a great start to 2018 for music. The whole theme of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is extremely important and moving. We used the words of Jesus narrated by Mike Pailthorpe who narrates for us so beautifully. He did the same in Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa DVD back in 2010.
Listen here to the words of Jesus taken from Margaret Mary Film:
We released Saint Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the beginning of 2018 and felt we were catching up, but we still had Dominic Savio and Mary Mazzarello from January 2017.
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| Saint Margaret Mary DVD |
With the release of Saint Margaret Mary DVD we went straight on to working on the beautiful film Saint Dominic Savio which seemed to take several months to do. I was very moved by this because although we have been working on popular saints and saints outside of England, we love the English Martyrs and Saint Dominic Savio is linked to England because of his vision of England. It's incredible how each saint that we work on is linked to each other and to Mary's Dowry.
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| Saint Dominic Savio DVD |
Saint Dominic Savio film took months and was a lot of work. It left us however with just Saint Mary Mazzarello to complete the January 2017 filming day. We went on to Saint Claude de la Colombiere however as there was much interest in him with St. Margaret Mary DVD being met with such a good reception. Again, Saint Claude is linked to England, he actually came to England and met with Saint John Wall in prison, one of the forty martyrs.
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| Screenshot from Saint Claude DVD |
When I work on a score, I find myself very moved as I get into the production and it's when I really meet and connect with a saint. This was again the case with Saint Claude de la Colombiere. The profundity of his visit to England, bringing the Sacred Heart devotion to this country was incredible. How this production fits in with all our work on the English Martyrs is brilliant.
We released Saint Claude de la Colombiere and the Sacred Heart in England DVD and it's available along with all others from https://www.marysdowryproductions.org/
Also this year, we worked on A Simple Soul: Saint Mary Mazzarello. She is the founder of the Salesian Sisters and having worked on Saint Don Bosco and Saint Dominic Savio films it was great to see a different side of this. The production is called "A Simple Soul". She is a great saint and although lesser known, her life is very insightful and inspiring and I'm very pleased we worked on this film.
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| A Simple Soul: St. Mary Mazzarello DVD |
It was celebration time with the release of Saint Mary Mazzarello because this marked the completion of films shot for in January 2017.
There was a bit of a break after this production as we were not at our goal yet nor have I mentioned that during this process, we had another filming day in March 2018 adding four more to our list which set us back again. I shall continue this roundup for 2018 in my next post. 2017 and 2018 really has been quite dominated by Salesians and the Sacred Heart saints and they are great!
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