Renegade Pictures arrived in Israel in August to shoot their Jesus Project for the Discovery Channel after already having completed a two-week location scout in July.
The filming stretched out over two weeks, with three different hosts at work and two units filming in different locations over several days.
Allen Callahan, a biblical scholar, Rachel Havrelock, a professor for Jewish studies, and Byron McCane, an archaeologist, will be taking the audience on a never before seen journey through the Holy Land; the usage of high-quality CGI will help the viewer to visualize what life was like almost two thousand years ago.
The crew under award-winning director Alex Marengo worked all across Jerusalem and in Bethlehem, as well as in Galilee, Haifa and Tel Aviv. Jemila Twinch and Anna Waddell worked as Associate Producers, conducting interviews and filming GVs; head DP Chris King shared some of the workloads with Israeli DPs Yoram Millo and Eyal Zahavi on the renowned Panasonic 900 cameras.
Production Manager and international producer Sharon Schaveet worked with the main unit for over 12 days, whereas Anika Pilnei took care of the second unit for several days. It was an overall challenging, but very rewarding production, where the crew fought temperatures over 40 degrees at the Sea of Galilee on some days.
Our compliments to a crew that was very well prepared and had conducted terrific research to make a unique program about the life of Jesus and life in the first century. The program will be aired on Easter 2009 on the Discovery Channel and we wish Renegade Pictures much success. We are sure it will be a fantastic program and truly a wonderful experience for the audience.