Diving Into Darkness: The Art and Challenges of Underwater Filmmaking with Nays Baghai

In episode #59 host Brett Stanley chats with Australian director Nays Baghai about his career in underwater filmmaking.

They talk about his new documentary Diving in to the Darkness, and what it was like to bring the life of renowned Cave Diver Jill Heinerth to the big screen - and the many challenges that came along with it.

Nays talks in detail about the creation of the film, what influences him as a film maker, and how he got his start in underwater way back in film school.

Watch the film during a special screening presented by Scuba Diver Magazine.

Follow this guest: Instagram, Website

Description

What drives an underwater filmmaker to risk it all for the perfect shot? This week, we sit down with Australian director Nase Baghai, whose passion for marine biology and storytelling has led him to the depths of perilous underwater caves. Nase shares his remarkable transition from a Sydney film student to a groundbreaking documentary filmmaker, shedding light on his latest project, "Diving Into the Darkness," which chronicles the adventurous life of esteemed cave diver Jill Heinerth. Nase reveals how he combines traditional filmmaking with the unique challenges of underwater cinematography to create compelling, authentic documentaries.

Journey with us as we uncover the intricate creative process behind adapting Jill Heinerth's thrilling story from book to screen, featuring a non-linear narrative inspired by masterpieces like "Godfather 2." Nase recounts the serendipitous meeting with Jill at a dive conference that sparked their collaboration, and elaborates on the mutual respect that has fueled their partnership. We also touch on Nase's personal challenges, including his journey to become cave-certified, which allowed him to direct in the high-risk environments where the documentary was filmed. This conversation highlights the dedication and resilience required to bring such powerful real-life stories to the screen.

In our final segments, Nase delves into the complexities of capturing cave diving expeditions on film, emphasizing the critical role of teamwork and meticulous preparation. From assembling a talented crew to mastering underwater communication, Nase shares the logistical hurdles and innovative solutions that make these shoots possible. We also explore his preference for working with a small, agile team, influenced by his documentary background. Hear about his pioneering use of animation to recreate past decades in his films and get a glimpse of his excitement for future projects. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone passionate about the intersection of filmmaking and underwater exploration.

Transcript

Underwater Documentary Filmmaking Careers

Brett Stanley 0:08

Welcome to the Underwater Podcast , where we take a deep dive into the world of underwater portrait photography , cinematography and everything in between with your host , brett Stanley Stanley . Welcome back to the Underwater Podcast , and this week I'm chatting with Australian director Nase Baghai about his career in underwater filmmaking . We talk about his new documentary , diving Into the Darkness and what it's like to bring the life of renowned cave diver Jill Hinearth to the big screen and the many challenges that came along with it . Nays talks in detail about the creation of the film , what influences him as a filmmaker and how he got his start underwater way back in film school . Okay , let's dive in , nays . Welcome to the Underwater Podcast . Thanks for having me , brett . Oh , it's a pleasure . Man , we've known of each other since I started the podcast . You reached out pretty early on and it was such an awesome way to connect was through the podcast , so seeing you go from there and then from strength to strength with your new documentary has just been amazing to see that come about .

Nays Baghai 1:22

Thanks so much , brett . I mean I've been a fan of your podcast since its inception . I mean to be on . It is a real privilege and honor and also it's cool meeting another Aussie in the underwater film industry around the world . So always a pleasure to meet another country man .

Brett Stanley 1:37

No , no , totally . Because I live in the States and it's so very , you know , us-centric that when I speak to an Australian I get very nostalgic . So there will be parts where I'm kind of getting a little misty eyed maybe I think Cool , man . So you have been working . Most recently you're probably your two most biggest kind of productions have been two documentaries on underwater . How did you get into the underwater world ? What was your entry into it ?

Nays Baghai 2:01

Oh , that's a long story that goes back gosh , nearly 20 years from now . So it really started when I was a kid and , like most guys who do what I do , I was a huge marine biology nerd as a kid . So I would come home from school with a backpack filled with shark and whale encyclopedias , and my grandparents , who were visiting from Canada at the time , noticed what I was up to . So the next time they paid a visit they gave me the four-disc special edition of the original Blue Planet and I watched it and was immediately spellbound by that show , not only because of the marine biology stories that were being told in the episodes , but also , and perhaps more , by the making of documentary that chronicled what the cameramen and producers were getting up to .

Nays Baghai 3:00

And there was one image I think it was Mike Degree in Cocos Island with his rebreather and big film like film camera housing filming hammerhead sharks , and I was like that is what I want to do when I'm an adult . So the only problem was I was too young to do a patty open water course at the time , so I had to wait until I could do that , and then I took a really long detour through the filmmaking path as a result of that and that ended up eclipsing my passion for marine biology in the end , until during my first year at film school , where a classmate told me that she was shooting an underwater scene for her first year film and I immediately put my hand up saying I want to shoot that . And bear in mind this is in the middle of Sydney winter , with pretty tall waves and cold water . So it wasn't . And also , I had a GoPro Hero 3 as my camera . So it wasn't the most auspicious gig that you could dream up , but it was .

Nays Baghai 4:04

I felt like a pig in the mud when I was filming that and as soon as my camera , like you know , as soon as my finger began clicking the shutter of the camera , it was a light bulb moment at that point and after that it was just a matter okay , how do I learn how to do this professionally and sensibly ? And yeah , I then decided to . You know , merge what I was learning at film school about the craft of filmmaking with diving and , you know , filming underwater . And yeah , here we are .

Brett Stanley 4:37

Yeah it's . I mean , it's such a common kind of path , I think , for people getting down to water . I think I know so many people , especially guys , who when they were kids they wanted to be a marine biologist .

Nays Baghai 4:47

I wanted to be a marine biologist yeah , I mean , there's always that itch to learn more and recently , even though I'm not a a big social media fan , I try to make my post educational , include facts about the sharks and other like animals that I'll find to kind of give it like an educational spin on it and really tap into that , cause it's such a , from a cerebral perspective , a really fascinating world to tap into , for me at least .

Brett Stanley 5:19

Oh , no , totally . And then so is that why you ended up sort of going more into the documentary world as opposed to , like the narrative feature film sort of work ?

Nays Baghai 5:28

Well , to be honest with you , I actually started off in narrative rather than documentary and to this day I don't really see myself as a documentary filmmaker .

Nays Baghai 5:39

I see myself as a you know a director who happens to do documentaries .

Nays Baghai 5:45

And that just it just kind of organically became the genre that I wanted to tell , simply because the best stories were the real ones .

Nays Baghai 5:56

And part of the advantage of going to film school meant that I was exposed to all these amazing , different you know narrative stories from you know Federico Fellini's Eight and a Half to Lawrence of Arabia or whatever , and that just kind of really inspired me to draw more inspiration from you know fictional stories and films and kind of not really treat my work as a documentary . But more like , for me there was no reason that I couldn't draw from the vocabulary of , like a Scorsese film or a Spielberg film for a documentary . So it was really it was seen as heresy at the time by some professors but for me , me I kind of got off a bit of the mischief that came from blending all those genres into the documentary space and but yeah , it just for me , like there it was that the best stories that I was attracted to happened to be real people , and if it meant know going down the documentary path to tell their stories , then so be it .

Brett Stanley 7:09

Oh no , totally , I mean . That's the thing is . I mean , the difference really between a narrative feature and a documentary is really that one just had a script written and one has a script that's evolving as it's happening , I guess .

Nays Baghai 7:21

Yeah , absolutely , and it's really fun to you know , write something that can be really detailed and , if not , prescriptive , but then when you rock up to the day , you have to , you know , throw that out , because that's what happens when you're not only shooting a documentary but also shooting underwater and just think , okay , what are the core elements that we can't change and what are the things that are more flexible and malleable that we can play around with but still stay true to the story ?

Brett Stanley 7:53

Yeah , so that's kind of so . It's interesting with the two main projects that you've done recently , which is Descent , which is , you know , the story of Kiki Bosch , the cold water free diver , yeah . And then you've got the cave diver , jill Hynurth , who had already written a book about her life . What was it like going from say something like Descent , where you possibly had to find the story in there , to Jill , where the story was possibly already there ?

Nays Baghai 8:21

That's a great question Really . I actually personally I loved both of them for different reasons , like , but if I had to , how do I say this ? If with Jill's story , it was actually a really fun and pleasantly challenging hurdle to tackle , because , first of all , jill's an amazing legend in our community and I kept having that voice in the back of my head like , do not screw this up , do justice to the story . So there was that pressure . But secondly , when I read the book , it was just such a compelling story that I felt like

Interview With Documentary Director and Diver

Nays Baghai 9:03

that .

Nays Baghai 9:03

A lot of it was already there on paper , but the real challenge was thinking how I could use the medium of film in a way that wasn't as a slavish an adaptation could be .

Nays Baghai 9:19

In other words , how could I take the best parts of the book but use the format of a 90 minute film to tell the story in a way that worked in a differently to the way of the book ?

Nays Baghai 9:32

And the way that we did that was we decided to do it in a non-linear way , and this really came about during the editing process in particular , as well as the preliminary writing process , because while telling it chronologically worked for the book , it didn't work for the edit because we were showing our hand too early and revealing stuff .

Nays Baghai 9:57

That worked better in the non-linear format and I really drew a lot of inspiration from Godfather 2 in , you know , trying to rearrange these sequences in a way where it felt natural but kept the audience on their toes and also just really made use of flashbacks in a way where it felt like you were getting to know Jill on film as you would get to know her in person . So , and because Jill's such a really collaborative and , you know , flexible person , having her as a guide , saying when I would ask her about , you know , factual or historical questions , she was really helpful and imaginative and really respectful for lack of a better term and to this day I haven't had a better working relationship with another writer , let alone a documentary subject , as her .

Brett Stanley 11:02

Oh no , totally . I mean , it kind of comes across in the film . You know , jill is such a good storyteller in her own right yeah , she's such a good speaker that it felt very cohesive , like it felt very intimate as well .

Nays Baghai 11:18

Yeah , I mean that was one of the things that made filming really easy was because she had been on the other side of the camera before . That meant that she really knew how to , you know , get the kinds of responses that I was looking for . But even like when you're planning shoots , I mean she's the OG , or at least one of the OGs , when it comes to , you know , filming in caves . So having her as like a what's the term ? A conciliary for how to set up a cave diving shoot , and to do it creatively too , was a massive help for that .

Brett Stanley 11:58

Oh no , totally . I mean , you've got yeah , you've got her whole , you know , life's worth of work , which is doing pretty much what you were doing with her in front of the camera . So you've got this resource , which must've been amazing to have , and she would have known the locations you were going to and you know . So you've kind of I don't know , like you , you got lucky with having so much knowledge with your subject .

Nays Baghai 12:19

Oh yeah , that's definitely an understatement , like I myself , for how fortunate it was to work with her throughout the entire two years it took to bring that film to life .

Brett Stanley 12:35

So how did it come to life ? Was this something that you pitched to her , or how did that relationship start , start ?

Nays Baghai 12:40

Well , jill and I met at AUSTEC , which is the largest dive conference in Australia , about , I think , seven years ago , and I went up to her I was about 19 at the time and was just trying to make friends in the dive industry and we pretty much hit it off off the bat and I kept in contact with her over the years , not knowing whether or not a project to work with her would ever come to fruition . But by the time the pandemic ended I really wanted a project that would challenge me and enable me to travel and grow as a storyteller . And I had read her autobiography , of course , when it came out , but slowly as time passed , no one really like no one really went with the story , or at least announced they were going with that book . So eventually I thought , if no one else is going to do it , then I will .

Brett Stanley 13:37

So I called her up on New Year's Day , 2022 .

Nays Baghai 13:41

And I said how would you like to bring Into the Planet , onto the big screen ? And her answer was pretty much an immediate yes , and I think the reason for that was because we knew each other well enough that she kind of knew the direction I wanted to go and was not the sensationalist like typical Hollywood approach that they do it and that I was going to prioritize fidelity to the source material above all else . So really , about six months after I called her , we were in Ottawa filming her master interview that would kick off the scenes that we would film later throughout the year and , yeah , it really happened very organically . It was a lot of work to organize the shoots , but I wouldn't trade it for anything .

Brett Stanley 14:39

Oh no , I mean , the experience of that must have been incredible , not just , you know , working with Jill , but also I mean I guess you had to get cave certified , unless you already were . You had to go to these locations and you know , you seem like someone who likes a bit of problem solving and that's pretty much what that all is right .

Nays Baghai 14:57

Exactly , I loved playing Lego and chess as a kid , so I think that problem solving side of me definitely stems from that .

Nays Baghai 15:05

But yeah , yeah , I had to learn how to cave dive as a result of that , because I knew that being an armchair director that would just sit on the surface was anathema to me , given that I had a rebreather certification at the time . So I remember telling my instructor , ryan , not to take it easy on me , and I told him what I would be doing with Jill and the rest of the gang in Mexico . So I was not prepared for how brutal the cave course is , but I forced myself to get through it because I just knew that , a it would better acquaint me with the source material and B it meant that I actually could be down there with the other divers and watch what was going on and make sure that you know they had their general on the front lines with them . Because I said to them look , I'm not letting you guys risk your lives because of a stupid film that I want to do . I'm coming down there with you . Yeah , totally .

Brett Stanley 16:08

But I mean , how does that ? If you didn't go down with them , how would you get the shots that you wanted ? Is it just a matter of giving the camera operators shot lists and then just hoping that they get ?

Nays Baghai 16:19

what you want . That's a great question , because there were some days that we had to shave down the crew to only three people in the water , simply because the caves were too small to fit all six of us . So the way that we did that was I would storyboard and shot , list the shit out of it the night before and we would meet in the dive shed every morning and I would tell Yane , yane Suhun , and shout out to Yane . I would tell Yane what I had in mind for the scene , tonally and technically in terms of like , okay , we need X amount of shots to cover and this is what they need , and Yane would kind of interpret it in his own storyboards and so that he under he , he too was like fluently absorbing it .

Nays Baghai 17:08

And we had jill , of course , there to , you know , corroborate whether the scene was actually true to what happened , as well as also the local safety divers and guides who knew the caves to say , okay , this part of the cave will work for this scene , but let's not go to this part of the cave . So there was actually one point where it had to be a smaller crew because we had someone whose rebreather head malfunctioned midway through the shoot . So I said , well , my this cave's too small to fit all of us anyway , so you take my rebreather and use that for the shoot .

Nays Baghai 17:49

And I'm not going to lie to you , it was really torturous and painful for me to not be in the water and see what they were doing , but it did allow me to , you know , edit the sequences on the fly and spend more time reviewing the footage . And , you know , edit the sequences on the flight and spend more time reviewing the footage . And , you know , coming up with scratch edits , as we called them , and coaching it . But for the most part , I tried to be in the water when I could to see how it was going and be there to , you know , guide the crew if they needed it .

Brett Stanley 18:24

Oh yeah , totally . So how many days was that that you weren't in the water with them .

Nays Baghai 18:29

I I'm afraid I can't remember the amount of dry days for me , but I can't one yeah , it had , it was , it was more than one , but eventually I I forced myself to just get comfortable with it and just think you know what this is , a a team , you know effort and you just got to do what you got to do to get everyone else to the finish line . And you know , oh yeah , totally Focus on the film .

Brett Stanley 18:59

Yeah , I mean , were you like ? I kind of just picture you on the surface , like you know , walking back and forth and kind of wringing your hands like an expected father .

Nays Baghai 19:07

Yeah , well , or more , like I felt more like a heroin addict , climbing the walls when I wasn't in the water , yeah , but yeah , I really I really enjoyed , like you know , being in the caves actually , and because for the simple reason that it's the closest I've ever gotten to feeling like an astronaut on Earth . I know that's a line in the film , but it's the truth . I mean , when you're diving on a rebreather down there , it's impossible not to feel like you're doing a spacewalk .

Brett Stanley 19:37

Oh , no , totally . I mean , the whole soundscape has changed from diving , you know , the constant stream of bubbles , yeah , and the way you float down there must be very . The constant stream of bubbles , yeah , and the way you float down there must be very different as well because of the closed circuit .

Nays Baghai 19:49

Yeah , the buoyancy is so different to scuba , but in many ways it's actually better for filming , because I don't know if you've used a rebreather yet , but , unlike scuba , your buoyancy is not affected by your breathing . So when you're hovering in the mid-water column trying to get a shot , it means that you can just be much more stable and not have to worry about whether your inhale or exhale will lift you or sink you . And I've been on scuba since that shoot and while I love it , I'm just cursing myself for not having the rebreather at the moment no , I know that .

Brett Stanley 20:28

I know that kind of feeling like no , I haven't done the rebreather stuff , but I do every time I'm filming and I'm on scuba . I am so constantly aware of you know what my breath is doing and I'm kind of doing things that are not typical for me in terms of how I normally breathe , because I've got to try and time it with the shot or the camera movement and , yeah , are we looking up and am I going to breathe into my own shot ? You know it's such a .

Nays Baghai 20:54

It's even so limiting it's even worse when you're working with sharks . I remember in the Galapagos , a rogue school of hammerhead shark showed up above me and I was desperately trying to not hold my breath too long because I knew that the bubbles would not only scare them away but ruin the shop . And I'm just like holding it as long as I can and then 12 seconds in , I let it go and the sharks have gone in a flash . So that was one of those moments where I was just at the time I didn't have my rereader set , but that was a moment that definitely pushed me to , you know , think , man , I probably should investigate it now . Yeah .

Brett Stanley 21:37

But I guess with that , especially when you're cave diving because you're in such a limited space and you really don't want to be you know , sort of I guess you're fairly linear in terms of your depth when you're in such a limited space and you really don't want to be you know , sort of I guess you're fairly linear in terms of your depth when you're going through a cave , for the most part .

Brett Stanley 21:50

So having the problem with breathing is , you know you're basically having to , you know , adjust your buoyancy or your trim every time you breathe in and breathe out , because it's going to push you up or down . Yeah , as with the closed circuit not so much .

Nays Baghai 22:02

Yeah , Another advantage of the rebreathers that I learned while we were down there is that because it's a closed circuit system , you're not dislodging any silt from the overhead part , so that means that it's just much cleaner and clearer as a result of that . I mean there were some days where there were divers on open circuit sidemount but amazingly , Jill had the cleanest footprint for an open circuit sidemount diver .

Nays Baghai 22:36

And also , her sac rate is amazing . She could easily belt out a good two to three hours on side mount and still not be worried about . Like I , I have no idea how she does it , Whereas I'm a . I'm a guzzler .

Brett Stanley 22:52

Right , yeah , and just so , just for people listening who don't know the side mount , just explain what side mount is .

Nays Baghai 22:57

Oh sorry , so side mount is , rather than when you have one or two tanks on your back , it's when you have one tank on your left side , like a harness , and another on the right side . So it's really designed for for cave diving because of how it's a more horizontal profile and it's it's flatter too , so it means that you can , you know , squeeze into smaller places that you otherwise wouldn't be able to get into with a large tank on your back .

Brett Stanley 23:30

Yeah , so it kind of makes that kind of the caving experience a lot more easier . Yeah , and so when you're doing these reenactments which is kind of where it was right , like you know Jill is narrating these events in her life and you're going back and then filming these reenactments , what was that like for you as a director in terms of your vision of that reenactment and kind of what Jill's was ?

Nays Baghai 23:53

Were you guys on sort of the same page or was she kind of like oh , you just interpret it how you want to it was actually really fun and pleasant doing the reenactments with Jill and it was really harmonious , more than anything , and we were really lucky , in the places in Mexico that we were filming that a lot of the caves were actually quite similar to locations that were not as readily accessible whether it was , like you know , huatla in Eastern Mexico or some caves in Florida that we couldn't visit . And because I had asked Jill what kind of details were in XYZ cave , when she actually rocked up and I double checked it with her , she was really positive and relaxed about it and I think but as far as , like the scene construction went , she tapped into it quite easily . For someone who isn't really an actress and I think , but for me as a director , I kind of wrestled away that taboo voice of like , oh , you shouldn't do reenactments , it disrupts the authenticity . I think the reason for me for doing it was because the alternative of just using photos or a talking head was not really gonna do it justice from a cinematic perspective , whereas bringing it to life with a film scene was much more fun as a challenge to bring it to life and there were , it was really . It was a real challenge trying to think about how to , you know , place the camera in certain parts of the cave . That also tapped into her psychology of what she was feeling at the time , cause we ultimately wanted to tell a character driven story but the reenactments were

Cave Diving Cinematography and Teamwork

Nays Baghai 25:52

.

Nays Baghai 25:52

I think . I think it's a thing with cave divers is that we tend to be drawn to challenges and making the impossible possible . So , yeah , I mean storyboarding it and , you know , planning it was really hard , but shooting it was a whole different thing . But I really owe a lot to the crew that brought it to life . I mean Yane and Rich Stevenson , the two guys who shot it , jill on camera and Ari and Vincent who are doing logistics and watching the whole thing . I mean it really is a team effort . So , as much as my ego would love to take the credit for it , I think the real , I really feel like that it's a team effort more than anything .

Brett Stanley 26:41

Well , I think that's true for Underwater in general . I mean , it's very hard to do a lot of the stuff that we do without a solid team . Yeah , how did you find these people ? How did you , how did you pull this team together ? Was it people you'd worked with before ?

Nays Baghai 26:54

well , I actually hadn't worked with any of them before , other than Jill , of course . But when you're looking for , you know cave diving cinematographers who are master rebreather divers and have an eye for shooting and are creative down there , that the list gets shortened pretty quickly . And yeah , the reason I pick I handpicked yanni in rich was because for many , the probably the biggest reason was what they had done with the short film dive odys , which they shot in Oyama Mine in Finland , which not only is beautifully shot on an A7S II from a technical perspective , but most importantly it pays homage to a lot of science fiction classics Blade Runner , alien 2001 , silent Running , like you name it . And that kind of tip of the hat to science fiction was what I was looking for for a stylistic perspective , and it meant that those guys really knew how to light and shoot the scene in a way that gave the film the right look that we were trying to achieve , because the film does allude to the parallels between space exploration and cave exploration . And yeah , I was .

Nays Baghai 28:21

I just knew that because yane and Rich were , first and foremost , technical divers and cave explorers first . That meant that they were completely safe in the water and could just flawlessly execute the , the shots . Plus , they had worked together , which is a really imperative thing . Like you don't , the , it would have been hell if they didn't know each other and didn't like each other and didn't know how to communicate . But because they did have that shared history , it meant that it was very easy for them to not get in each other's way . And , yeah , I , I can't , I , we . It was a challenging shoot mind , but when I look at the footage , I have nothing but positive things to say about what they came up with .

Brett Stanley 29:12

Oh , no , totally , and so how does communication work down there ? So if you're on a Bree breather , is it just with slates and hand signals , or can you be on some sort of comms system ? You ?

Nays Baghai 29:24

can do comms but there's a few risks involved to it . We ended up doing a high , a mishmash of different communication methods , like you can kind of talk on a rebreather , but it sounds like bane from the dark knight rises like right because you're talking into your mouthpiece , right yeah , like I'd be like , yeah , can you move a little more to the left and we can .

Nays Baghai 29:43

Just , I mean we could kind of understand each other . But I did keep a waterproof notebook made by housey and in my back pocket at all times . So , yeah , I mostly use that for ticking off shots , but I did use it a lot for communication and we did use like tactile communication with the lights and hand signals . But honestly , a lot of it was preparation that we did before , like identifying what we wanted to do , where we were going to be . That kind of meant that we weren't faffing around in the water as much . So it's really . I mean , you do have to improvise a lot when you're down there , but if you aren't prepared when you show up to a cave diving shoot , then it's going to be a very nasty day in the water .

Brett Stanley 30:31

Oh no , totally , yeah , I think , yeah , yeah . I can't even imagine what it's like . You know , because I'm not a cave diver . I've seen cave divers . Caves freak me out . The amount of equipment you have to have just to go in there safely freaks me out , let alone all the mental and logistical you know kind of gymnastics you have to do to even make it kind of safe . Yeah , it's impressive and kind of mind blowing , but also nothing I would ever want to do myself .

Nays Baghai 31:01

Well , let me put it this way , I feel I actually feel more relaxed in a cave than I do in the middle of the open ocean , where the currents and swells a bit dodgy , because it's so protected and also it's easier to get into the water for some caves and yeah , and also there's no jellyfish or wayward animals as well Like , and there's no seasickness . I mean , don't get me wrong , I love being in the ocean , but when you're on the ocd side and you're a little , you know , just wanting it , wanting stability , sometimes it you can get a little spoiled , shooting in a cape or sinkhole well , I guess , and I only just really kind of thought of this then , is that it , that the cave really is such a controlled environment , apart from , I guess , your own mental and emotional state ?

Nays Baghai 31:52

yeah , there are some caves where there is like a tidal , like a flow going in and there is current in there , but that's mostly in Florida , whereas in Mexico I didn't experience any of that whatsoever right , yeah , and I guess even in , even in florida , you know what you're getting yourself into , you know what those flows are like .

Brett Stanley 32:11

It's not like it's suddenly reverse or something , or well , at least you hope it doesn't . Yeah right , true there are . So I've spent a lot of time in in the florida spring . Then I know a lot of people there who who have done a lot of those cave dives and , yeah , some of the stories from there in terms of you know the way those sinkholes kind of suck and blow and all that sort of stuff , it's really quite interesting , yeah .

Nays Baghai 32:37

I mean . The strange thing for me , though , was that , because I was a newly minted cave diver at the time , I reluctantly decided not to shoot with a camera , simply because I wanted to just be ultra safe and also focus on directing Yanni and Rich , but because I wasn't operating the camera . Since that shoot , I've constantly had a real itch to scratch in terms of taking my own camera down there , and shooting something again Like I'd still want to .

Nays Baghai 33:12

even after what we went through in Mexico . I still want to go back and do it again , I think and so there is .

Brett Stanley 33:19

I guess there is a , I mean for me personally . I love camera operating . I love moving the camera . I'm happy to be told where to move it to . I'm happy to be told where to move it to . I'm happy to be told how to frame the shot , but seeing that image move across my screen is so joyous , yeah , whereas I'm sure there's some people who are like no , I don't want to deal with that , I just want to tell you what to do .

Nays Baghai 33:41

I mean it's yin and yang . I mean , personally , I love having a camera in my hands . It's the same feeling that I have when I've got a guitar or a bass guitar in my hands . It's just like you're doing something that makes you feel like a craftsman . But all projects have different circumstances . You know circumstances and some require you to do sacrifices , so it it is a bit of a pain to give it up , but if there's anyone that you want to let you want to drive that that part , then who better to to ask than the , the guys who ended up doing it ? I I mean I mentioned yanni and rich , but also john shore , who shot the new zealand sequences underwater . I mean that was also really special for me because john was my on and off mentor for underwater cinematography for many years .

Nays Baghai 34:45

So working working with him was a really really nice full circle moment .

Brett Stanley 34:51

So that's really quite nice , being able to bring people into projects like that , you know , kind of being able to sort of pay it forward or to bring them in so they can actually , you know , be part of your evolving .

Nays Baghai 35:03

Yeah , I mean it can get interesting at times because I spoke to you know , john and Yane and Rich and a few other underwater DPs that I've worked with , and they all told me that it was a major adjustment working for me , and because of the fact that I'm also an underwater DP and I said , well , isn't that what you want as a DP ? Like , surely having a director who knows the intricacies of how to you know cam up underwater helps you . But they said well , sometimes you can be too fluent and I'm looking over at you thinking why did you hire me ? You should be doing this yourself . But honestly , like I really , not only am I really proud of what they came up with , but I also really liked how I kept learning on the job and there was never . Even though I'm nearly at the 8,000 hour mark with filmmaking , I still feel like a Padawan learner every day I get up .

Brett Stanley 36:13

Well , I think you know , and from talking to people like , a lot of the time that doesn't go away , and I think for a lot of us that's what we're craving . Is that learning experience every time ? Yeah , it's a dopamine hit to a certain degree yeah , I think , and it harkens back to that problem solving of . Oh okay , this is a new puzzle , let's work out how to do this one .

Nays Baghai 36:35

I've not done this one before yeah , I think the thing is is that when you look back and think , god , I , I did that , like I solved that problem , it's you're , it's . I would much rather go through the worst shoot imaginable and get some shots out of it , then back out and not have anything to show for it . I think that , and also particularly in New Zealand , there was a real sense of camaraderie and it was , or as we called , like a real kiwi spirit , where we were all , just like you know , working as a unit and just tackling whatever came at us , no matter whether the problem was big or small . And it's you .

Brett Stanley 37:22

You feel invincible when you're , you know , just blitzing through , shot to shot and it's finally working oh no , I mean , there's , there , is , there , is that I don't know like I , I've always craved being part of a team . You know , I used to watch the a team when I was a kid and I was just like , oh my god , you know , these guys have all got their separate skill sets and they all work together so perfectly . Yeah , that's what I love of being on a film set or , you know , on a photography set , of having skilled people who can do their job and help to create this massive , you know , successful end result .

Nays Baghai 37:56

A hundred percent . You perfectly hit the nail on the head there your earlier work , which is Descent .

Brett Stanley 38:11

How was that in terms of crew ?

Nays Baghai 38:12

and and and uh , the size of the production was it ? Was it a smaller ? Oh yeah , it was spoke . It was nowhere as colossal as Diving Into the Darkness and I mean , it was my first ever film straight out of university , so it , um , it definitely pushed me in ways that I didn't expect , but I mean , for starters , like I was , you know , directing , writing , producing , shooting , editing and sound design , you name it but it was , um , in many ways , like it was , it just felt really fun to , you know , do it in , you know , my home office and , you know , really learn as I was going and not really there was pressure , of course , but it wasn't the same kind of pressure as I felt on diving into the darkness , having having already done a feature , whereas in Descent I kind of felt like it was more of a sandbox in a way .

Brett Stanley 39:13

What do you mean by sandbox ? Like something that was for you . You had to sort of work out how to make it .

Nays Baghai 39:18

No , just like something that I could really play around with and take risks and approach with a clean slate .

Brett Stanley 39:24

Yeah , so you didn't have any preconceptions , you didn't have any pre-made kind of methodology or anything . You could just kind of wing it a little bit .

Nays Baghai 39:32

Yeah , I mean , don't get me wrong , of course I had expectations and dreams of where I wanted the film to end up , but really it was just . I treated it as a vehicle for learning the craft of feature filmmaking , as opposed to shorts , cause I directed shorts before and I had , you know , interned on feature films before , but I had never directed a feature documentary before . So it was really . It was pardon this , this pun , it was diving into the darkness for me . Yeah , exactly .

Brett Stanley 40:09

Yeah , that's beautifully brought back around again . Nice callback .

Nays Baghai 40:14

Yeah , just got to improvise that one .

Brett Stanley 40:18

So with your career in terms of so you started off you wanted to be a marine biologist and then you started to see , you know , camera work and everything . Was your idea to be a director , or did you sort of go through wanting to be a DP first and then ?

Nays Baghai 40:34

evolved . Well , when I watched Blue Planet for the first time , I also watched Star Wars at the same time . So there was definitely that yin and yang of diving in film . But , to answer your question , I think I always wanted to be a director , but I wanted to be a director who was involved in the process . As I said , like sitting in an armchair and not doing anything , not using a camera or editing , was heresy to me , like I couldn't , you know , do that . So I felt like that by the time I got to film school , the goal of being a director persisted . But I do love being an underwater DP and also a dry DP as well , but I

Filmmaking and Storytelling Process

Nays Baghai 41:23

really like .

Nays Baghai 41:23

I guess part of the influence that documentary filmmaking has had on me is that I like to work with a low footprint and unencumbered by the constraints of a big set where you've got like a gaffer or a grip and all these ACs and stuff that you need to . That can kind of lock you into what you're doing . But when you're doing like a wildlife shoot , the cinematographer is kind of the director in a strange way . So yeah , for me like it really . It all depends on the project , but I think I'm a storyteller at the end of the day . So if directing is the means to do that , then then bring it no , no , totally so .

Brett Stanley 42:11

So , but coming out of film school you know you said , descent was your first one out of film school . How did you , how did you create that opportunity for yourselves ?

Nays Baghai 42:20

in the final year of my time at film school I kind of began to find my footing as someone who wanted to tell underwater stories .

Nays Baghai 42:30

So I kind of calibrated the last assignments that I had in that last year to really do the prep work for Descent and start thinking about who I am wanted to work with , where I wanted to shoot it and how I wanted to tell the story .

Nays Baghai 42:48

And really by the time I finished I had all the most of the answers I was looking for and it became clear that doing it through the you know , traditional studio method wasn't feasible , partly because I was a nobody and an unknown at the time . So of course I wouldn't have been able to do that . But also I knew that there were some EPs who just wanted to mold it a particular way that didn't jive with what I had in mind . So I just said screw it , let's do an independent , find the money from wherever we can and do it . And if I have to , you know , edit and direct pro bono in order to make the film happen , then yeah , so be it . But really , like there was the only time I really like I only had like barely had a break in between finishing film school and going straight to Descent . So it was like a shot out of the cannon pretty much , yeah .

Brett Stanley 43:52

But so I mean , Descent is basically the story of Kiki Bosch and her use of cold water freediving as therapy . How did you get onto that story , Like , how did you ? Did you already know Kiki ?

Nays Baghai 44:06

I had seen a video of Kiki freediving in Iceland and , having been to Silfra myself , of course , I knew how amazing it was that she could do that . But when I met her in person in London not long after that video came out , by the way , and she told me the full story of what had happened to her and why she was doing it , that's when I kind of had that push to want to tell her story and , similarly to Jill , I wanted her to be very involved in the accuracy and authenticity of the story . And I think because it was such a a really small production I mean , we were all staying in the same Airbnb and Arrow the producer was also shooting in addition to me so it just felt like a family home video to a certain degree , but with extreme underwater environments as the backdrop .

Brett Stanley 45:08

So yeah , was that ? Was that film ? Did you film the entirety of that or did you ? Did you have footage from from other sources ?

Nays Baghai 45:16

No , no , no , there were some DPs that did some things that I couldn't tackle for logistical reasons and a lot of the film is contained stock stock archival footage from Stefan Andrews , who was Kiki's partner at the time and is a brilliant underwater cameraman . But yeah , I tried to shoot where I could , but I didn't want to compromise the film too much by wearing too many hats , so there were some scenes where I let another DP spin the wheel for a change .

Brett Stanley 45:54

Right , and so you had a small amount of , if you say , archival footage .

Nays Baghai 46:00

Yeah , it couldn't have been more than like 18 , maybe 20 minutes of archival footage . It wasn't the whole film , yeah did you ?

Brett Stanley 46:09

did you have that archival footage when you were kind of storyboarding and you knew you kind of , okay , we can fill the gaps with this stuff , but we're gonna need yeah , kind of , yeah , because I yeah , because I think , with with jill's , like she had such a , like a you know a treasure trove of archival footage for you to play with , was . Is that a ? Is that something you get excited about , or how does it feel ?

Nays Baghai 46:33

I do , actually , because it's a fun challenge as an editor to see how you can make the footage more like , more cinematic and you know what's the word more make it feel alive . For to a certain degree , yeah , but to be honest with you , like going back to your question about the reenactments , because so many of those scenes did not exist on film . A lot of it came down to that task of thinking about how you could reshoot it from scratch . But bring it really like you know , use the language of cinema , from the shot choices to the sound , to make it feel like you were living the moment with her at the time .

Brett Stanley 47:19

Yeah , and I've got to say you did that so well . I watched the film on a plane . I was coming back from New Jersey to LA , so I had it on my phone and I was just watching it .

Nays Baghai 47:33

I'm gonna kill you for watching it on your phone like it deserves to be watched on the big screen , not just kidding no , I mean , I have like a .

Brett Stanley 47:40

I have a 65 inch um screen in my house . But because I wasn't there and I wanted to , I needed to watch this film and I needed to kind of , you know , corner you into this podcast . That I'd be and I needed to watch this film , and I needed to kind of corner you into this podcast , that I just needed to watch it . So I was just like , all right , this flight is the best place to do this . And for me , I really quite like watching things on small screens in a plane , because my tunnel vision just makes it my whole world , because the whole plane is dark , so it doesn't really matter so much .

Brett Stanley 48:08

But what I kind of found was that I'd be watching it and I'm like I'm picturing you in my mind . I'm like , okay , where's he going with this ? And I kind of know Jill's story and there was parts of me that were like , oh , here we go , this is going to be tricky . How's he going to handle it ? Oh , no , well , how's he going to handle it ? Oh , no , well , no , that worked really well . So it was all these kind of moments where I was expecting there to be a bit of a stumble just because of you know how do you tackle this , but you did it so smoothly and so seamlessly .

Nays Baghai 48:36

Thank , you , it was just beautiful .

Nays Baghai 48:38

I really appreciate that a lot .

Nays Baghai 48:40

I mean , I remember showing the film to Harry Connick Jr , who I met last year and became kind of like a friend , and he told me that when he watched the film it reminded him a lot of what he does as a jazz musician on stage , in the sense of toying with the audience and taking it in a direction that you think it's going to go , and then doing a hairpin turn that ultimately achieves the goal , but does it in a direction that you think it's going to go , and then doing a hairpin turn that ultimately achieves the goal , but does it in an unexpected , playful way .

Nays Baghai 49:14

And I hadn't really thought of it that way . But when I think about it now I'm thinking how maybe I must have absorbed that from either some movie that I watched as a film student or even as a musician , just like playing around on the guitar and playing some notes . That took it in a completely different direction . But yeah , it's , I really do try to keep the audience in mind when I'm editing something and I remember having a post-it note on my editing desk when I edit it , saying if the audience does not squirm or gasp in shock when watching XYZ sequences , you failed , right , yeah .

Brett Stanley 50:01

Well , I can tell you I may have embarrassed myself a little on the plane , because I was . I say full disclosure I'm highly , highly claustrophobic . Oh dear , yeah . And the , the , the scenes under the ice were giving me heart palpitations . So , yeah , well done on that one .

Nays Baghai 50:20

I'm sorry to revel in your discomfort , but I'm very relieved to hear that it did the job .

Exploring Filmmaking and Animation Techniques

Brett Stanley 50:29

No , I mean it's mission accomplished and also it was engaging the whole way through . I mean kind of knowing the story already . I was kind of like , you know , because I've had Jill on the podcast and we've kind of talked about a lot of that stuff , yeah , but I was kind of expecting to kind of go yeah , let's move on . But it flew really well and , as you say it , kind of there were things where I was like , oh , he hasn't touched on that bit , and then then we would go back and touch on that and I'd be like , oh no , this is good like it was . It was kind of like riding a you know , it was like riding a current . It was just kind of just go where you take me and we'll just see what happens I hadn't thought of it that way , but I'll .

Brett Stanley 51:04

I'll take that as a compliment , so thank you , yeah , yeah of course , and now , the other thing as well that I really liked about what you did was the . A lot of the flashback sequences were animated . Yeah , what was the the inspiration behind that ?

Nays Baghai 51:19

Well , to be honest with you , it was really a combination of a logistical and a creative decision .

Nays Baghai 51:26

I mean the logistics of going back to the 70s and 90s and finding an actress that looks like her , getting the props , getting the extras , the locations , was just a pain in the ass from a producer's perspective .

Nays Baghai 51:42

And also , I felt like I had done reenactments with Descent before showing Kiki as a younger girl and a younger woman , and I just had a gut feeling it wouldn't work , for Jill wanted , uh , the challenge of not only doing something I hadn't done before , but also using the limitless nature of animation to tell a story in a way that live action couldn't . And yeah , um , it really it was . Also another challenge that we faced was trying to have that right balance between , you know , feeling nostalgic but not rosy , like a disney , pixar movie and , on the other hand , having grit and maturity , but not too much that it felt like an out of place batman graphic novel . So trying to find the right or , as we called it , the the goldilocks level of style for the animation was not easy . But the animators who were from norway , I think they they did a really good job of pulling it off and so how did you find them ?

Brett Stanley 53:00

had you seen work of theirs before , or was it just through the research process you started found them ?

Nays Baghai 53:05

really through the research process I went through about does like dozens of youtube and vimeo channels from young , up-and-coming animation studios that had the right kind of style that I was after and I saw a film that the norwegian somnium animation studio , by the way that they had done and I zoomed with them and asked them about , you know , various questions and they asked me a few questions and I pretty much hired them on the spot after that .

Brett Stanley 53:37

It was when it , when the movie went to the animation sequences , there was a little bit of it was like oh , but then it was like this is fine , like this , this works , like it wasn't . It didn't take me out of the movie .

Nays Baghai 53:49

Thank you . I mean , I think the thing that I was trying to keep in mind like there's many movies where you can clearly tell that it's just done to satiate the director's ego and I was really trying to make a conscious effort of you know what , forget what I want or what I want to indulge in what's right for the story and the overall picture and , yeah , I talked to the other people on the team and that just naturally came about as the solution to utilize and yeah , it was very challenging Again , like probably comparable to the cave sequences that we shot , but at the end of the day , it was a good learning experience for me as a director .

Brett Stanley 54:42

Oh , no , totally . I mean mixed media . I think it must be hard when you have so many options . Like you know , going through all those Vimeos and through those YouTubes , you must have found so many things that you were like , oh , I want to do that , but is that right for this one ? Yeah .

Nays Baghai 54:56

I just remember .

Nays Baghai 55:02

Do I bookmark that for later ? You know this on another on her own podcast . But to get her likeness right , the animators asked her to take literally like a hundred different selfies of her facial expressions , like look sad , look angry , look happy . And I also had jill send over all of her archival photographs from her childhood to the animators so that they could just really tap into the details and bring it to life . And there's a scene with the National Geographic magazine covers and the backgrounds and those magazine covers that you see were the actual magazines that Jill had as a kid .

Brett Stanley 55:49

Oh right , so you managed to get photos of your scandal . Yeah , that's awesome . I mean , having access to that much collateral and that many assets must have been a little bit of like a kid in a candy store .

Nays Baghai 56:03

It was definitely a kid in the candy store moment and it made all those torturous days in the editing suite completely worth it . Yeah , that's great .

Brett Stanley 56:15

So what's next , naze ? What is your ? Have you got anything coming up that you can talk about ?

Nays Baghai 56:19

Yeah , I mean , there's dozens of stories that I want to tell .

Nays Baghai 56:25

It's hard to say when it will happen and also , I mean , the industry is changing faster than we can , you know , keep up with it . So your guess is as good as mine is in terms of what will be happening in terms of the feature film industry . There's a lot of other projects that I want to you know do that are not feature film related and , as a , when we were making this film , I just fell so in love with technical diving and cave diving that that's kind of something that I want to keep doing and , you know , tell stories with . And , yeah , honestly , but honestly , though , like it was fairly tiring spending two years , you know , bringing diving into the darkness to life . So I would like to , you know , take a bit of and I'd really love to , you know , do an underwater science fiction film similar to what you know , not identical to what Yane and Rich did , but something that kind of continues that like to , continues to bear the torch forward in terms of marrying those two loves together .

Brett Stanley 57:46

Oh , yeah , that sort of stuff is amazing . Yeah , yeah , like bringing it back from the abyss , literally .

Nays Baghai 57:54

Yeah , I mean , every time I put the rebreather on and I look at the heads up display and hear the breathing and the look at the also wearing a dry suit with the rebreather it's it's begging to like , you know , do it and like use it as a prop in a science fiction suit . So who knows what my mischievous director will come ?

Brett Stanley 58:16

up with in the next few years , absolutely so . One last question and I did pose this to Jill and I have posed it to a few other people but would you go to space ? Hell , yeah , of course I'd go . You don't find , because some people answer that where they're like no , no , no , water is all I need . Going to space is a whole different beast , but for you it's the same .

Nays Baghai 58:39

Yeah . Well , jill and I both have like an insatiable sense of curiosity and a desire to seek newness , so I think that I can't speak for her , but for me . I definitely love the challenge and the novelty of going into space and I , yeah , I love the water , don't get me wrong but that I think that the little kid in me that watch , you know , george Lucas , james Cameron and Stanley Kubrick films would , would scream with joy at the opportunity to do that . That's great awesome Nays .

Brett Stanley 59:21

This has been so good man .

Nays Baghai 59:22

I loved hearing , hearing your story and and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with soon thanks so much , brett , and thank you so much for having me on this podcast , especially with all the royalty that you've had before me .

Brett Stanley 59:34

It's totally . Everyone fits right in man , Everyone's got a good story . Everyone has a very different outlook on the same thing , so it's always good .

Nays Baghai 59:43

Yeah Thanks . So much , man , yeah thanks so much , man .

Brett Stanley 59:50

Thanks for listening everyone and , as always , if you like the podcast , please subscribe , review and share . If you'd like to support with the production of these episodes , you can purchase our very cool merchandise at theunderwaterpodcastcom . We've got branded coffee mugs , stickers , beer cozies and posters featuring our amazing illustration and logo by Joe Hottono . If you'd like to connect with us or learn more about our guests , you can reach us at theunderwaterpodcastcom or on Instagram . We also have a Facebook group where you can discuss the episodes and even get your questions answered by our guests . There's a link to it in the show notes . Also , don't forget about Waterproof Magazine , showcasing the best in underwater art . Read it online or purchase a print edition at waterproofmagorg . You can learn more about my underwater photography workshops and mentoring at brettstanleycom or brettsphoto on Instagram . The Underwater Podcast is presented and produced by me , Brett Stanley , and our music is Neo by Oboi . Keep creating , everyone . I'll see you in the water .