Out of the dust and clouds of a local concrete recycling business,
Leslie McRay's vision of the horror of Sept. 11 became almost real.
There, she could film the re-creation of the collapse of the World
Trade Center towers, the clouds of dust and debris and the response
by emergency crews in the seemingly hopeless effort to save the
people trapped inside.
"It was the closest thing visually I could come up with," said
McRay, a Burbank resident.
But the remains of the towers are just the backdrop to the real
story McCray wanted to tell: of the survivors who, for unknown
reasons, walked away from the deadliest terrorist attack on American
soil.
"I cared about miracles that could not be explained," McRay said.
"The stories where God was present, those were the ones I was after."
McRay's film, "Day of Miracles," will be broadcast next week on
satellite channels Trinity Broadcasting Network, Sky Angel, Day Star,
Cornerstone, I-Life, Victory TV and the Armed Forces Network by
Glendale-based Miraclefilms.com, producers of Christian films and
programming.
Kimberly Estrada, an actress portraying a woman who turned to
evangelism after surviving the attack, described the experience of
making the film as down and dirty.
"I did a lot of climbing around in rubble and wire and used my
experience as a stunt person," said Estrada, who played a boxer in
the Academy Award-winning "Million Dollar Baby." "We shot the ground
zero stuff at a concrete factory with a lot of dust and concrete
residue. You get a feeling of what it was like to be there."
The film is the pilot for a series called "Real Miracle" that
tells real-life tales of brushes with death and their religious
connection.
That no other filmmaker had taken on the topic of the miracle
survivors of Sept. 11 made McRay believe that it was her mission to
do so.
For nearly a year, McRay and executive producer Richard Smith put
the film together with the help of volunteers and donations, such as
from Panavision, which provided the high-definition camera used in
the filming.
While serving on a film festival board, McRay met a woman who was
also a police officer and used that connection to lend authenticity
to the film.
"In our film we have real police, real FBI and real fire people in
their vehicles," McRay said. "They all donated their time because
they felt it was important to do so."
Among the survivors depicted in the film are Genelle
Guzman-McMillan, who was the last survivor pulled out of rubble of
the towers; Sujo Jon, a survivor from the north tower who, along with
his wife who had been in the south tower, dedicated himself to a life
of Christian ministry after the attacks; and Deena Burnett, whose
husband Tom had premonitions of his death a year before he died on
United Flight 93 when it crashed in a Pennsylvania field.
. Myers, a co-producer and the actress portraying Deena Burnett,
hopes that viewers come away inspired after seeing the film.
"It shows that Jesus and God are still alive and working in this
world," Myers said.
"Day of Miracles" received a special recognition award in April at
the San Fernando Valley International Film Festival and the "Most
Inspirational" award in May at the West Valley Indie Fest.
