A statue of St Elizabeth Ann Seton at the National Shrine of St Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, MD
Well, we’re back from a very hard-working weekend at the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, MD. This was such a wonderful shooting experience, I don’t know where to begin!
Before I start, though, be sure to check out the photo page for this Shrine soon—I’ll be adding the amazing photos i took during our visit.
We left home Friday morning, and sang along to some of my dad’s oldies favorites as we drove the 3 hours to Emmitsburg. We got there about an hour before we were supposed to meet with the archivist, Sister Betty Ann McNeil, D.C. So we stopped in the Carriage House Inn for a lovely lunch. As it was a Friday during Lent, we stayed away from the meat. I had a curried soup, which was divine, and David had some crab cakes which looked really good.
When we arrived at the Shrine, we were given the keys to all the buildings we needed to shoot, and were told that we’d be staying at the White House—the very building where Mother Seton lived and taught her students, children, and spiritual daughters!! The Shrine has a lovely retreat center on the grounds, and we were allowed to stay in the rooms adjoining the historic house. I certainly don’t ever expect this kind of royal treatment, so we were so very grateful to the Daughters and our contacts at the Shrine for allowing us to have such a wonderful experience.
Once we unpacked the car, I headed over to meet with Sister Betty Ann, and David wandered the grounds, testing out one of our newer pieces of equipment, the GlideCam. This thing is so cool! (It’ll be even better when we can get it to work properly! LOL)
The concept of the GilideCam (the pricier models are called Steadicam) is simple. You know how, when you’re videotaping something, and you walk or breathe, the camera bounces, and you can never get a steady shot—like the ones in the movies? Well, they’re using Steadicams! It’s basically a stick with a weight on the bottom, and you put the camera on the top. Then you hold it by a little handle. If you can get it to balance properly (and that’s the hardest thing to do), it will allow you to RUN with the camera shooting, and you can still get steady shots. I believe the first movie that used the Steadicam was The Shining. If you look online, you can find footage of the cameraman running in front of the little boy on the tricycle, riding down the spooky hallways of the hotel.
So, while David was roaming the grounds, strapped to the camera, I met with Sister Betty Ann. I am amazed at the knowledge of the archivists I meet as a result of this show. I mean, I know they’re just doing their jobs, but their memories always blow me away. Sister Betty Ann knows everything there is to know about Mother Seton and her life, and we could never create a show worth watching if it weren’t for her invaluable assistance. During our meeting, we discussed the various photographic and artistic images I can use in the show, to illustrate the various things we discuss. Then, Sister showed me the immaculate archives, and I got to see the actual Papal Bull, declaring Mother Seton a saint. It was very pretty. I also got to see an image—a painting—of Our Lady of Guadalupe that Mother Seton owned way back in 1810! I can’t imagine many Americans (in the US) knew about Our Lady of Guadalupe back then. This image was gorgeous! I can’t wait to say something about it in the show.
After my meeting, David and I had dinner in the cafeteria for those attending retreats on the grounds, then we spent the rest of the evening going over the script and discussing the weekend’s schedules. Unfortunately, they were saying it would rain all weekend, so we had to figure out what we would do, if it did rain.