Synopsis

A group of sprightly middle-aged women take up cold water swimming on the Northern Irish coast. With squealing laughs in the freezing water and hot cups of tea sprinkled with sand, they leave behind sorrows, form friendships, and redefine the idea of longevity.

Behind the Baltic scenes

A few cold water swimming films had been made in recent years, such as Tonic of the Sea (Scott, 2017), Chasing The Sublime (Bluglass, 2019), Hydrotherapy (Davies, 2020), to name a few. Most of the existing films present a wide range of subjects, such as wellbeing, mental health and competitive swimming, but I found that the social aspect of the sport, the joy of sharing the experience with fellow swimmers and the formation of new friendships were missing from these films. 

The ‘Ballyhornan Rubber Duckies’ is a group of swimmers that was formed a couple of years ago at the Ballyhornan beach in Northern Ireland. During my research on social media, they sent me a group photo with colourful duck suits from on of their swims, and it became the inspiration to make a film that was all about squealing laughs in the freezing water, hot cups of tea sprinkled with sand, and fresh friendships with a refreshing approach to longevity. 

Filming took place during the coldest months of the year, between January and April 2023, when the sea water of the Northern Channel between Ireland and England gets as low as 6 degrees Celsius. Most of the swimmers do net use wetsuits, a big part of the pride of cold water swimming ritual. We spent 4 months interacting with the swimmers, filming and recording; I was swimming with them every week and filming underwater shots.

"Baltic, so it is" is an Irish expression very often heard at the beach all year around, as the water temperature does not exceed 14 degrees even during the summer months.

A few films that I enjoyed watching played a catalytic role in adding a few pieces to the collage: the Irish banter and cultural references inspired by The Irish Pub (Fegan, 2013) (hence the title of our film Baltic (So it is!)), the underwater shots and friendship theme from My Octopus Teacher (Ehrlich & Reed, 2020), and the poetic and immersive aesthetics of Leviathan (Taylor & Paravel, 2012). 

The approach of direct cinema combined with observational mode (Nichols, 2010: 31) constituted our filming and editing processes, following as much as possible a non-interventionist manner with “no voice-over commentary, no supplementary music or sound effects, no inter-titles, no historical reenactments, no behaviour repeated for the camera, and not even any interviews” (Nichols, 2010b: 172). My choice to avoid interviewing, staging our subjects, constructing narratives, and excluding conventional cinematic practices, gave the film a life of its own, emphasising the sensorial and experiential power a film can offer to the spectator.

A poetic mode was employed during the editing process in collaboration with our editor Jiale, by sacrificing “the conventions of continuity editing and the sense of a specific location in time and place … [we explored] associations and patters that involve temporal rhythms and spatial juxtapositions” (Nichols, 2010b: 162); shots from different locations and different days were interwoven into a montage of graphic (Bordwell and Thompson, 2020: 219) and emotional (Murch, 1995: 18) rhythm editing, between the transitions of submerging and emerging from underwater, PoV shots of swimmer-filmmaker to swimmer-subject and at times the PoV of the sea itself. In as similar manner, the dialogue editing is not meant to follow specific logic and rhetoric, as the “social actors seldom take on the full-blooded form of characters with psychological complexity and a specific view of the world” (Nichols, 2010b: 162); the film is not about narrating a particular story, nor representing someone’s point-of-view, neither advocating the benefits of cold water swimming, but merely an effort to represent the experience of swimming in the cold sea waters with the particular group of swimmers. Dancygar (2011: 125-126) describes the use of poetic editing, referencing Fellini’s editing technique for character externalization, as “a thought rather than a plot, an impulse to introspection”. The underwater shots in our film edited in a poetic way, a leg, an arm, a sky and a wave, escaping air bubbles and swimmers’ laughs, constitute a filmic glimpse, a cinematic moment, but represent the swimming experience in its entirety.

My strong interest in ethnographic filmmaking also assisted in building the foundation of the concept. A few key aspects of ethnographic filmmaking were consciously incorporated in our production methods, particularly prioritizing immersion in the community with prolonged engagement, which will continue in the future as I became a member of the swimmers’ group. During the production period, I myself met with them more often just to join for the swim, as I thought that a break from the filming process would allow them to enjoy their swim without the pressure of cameras and microphones, as well as strengthen our relationship and ensure mutual trust (Pink, 2013: 65). As much as the swimmers were keen on being filmed by our crew,  the intrusive character of the presence of the camera is undeniable, and as Pink (2013b: 105) emphasizes it is “impossible or inappropriate to video record people or culture ‘undisturbed’”. These breaks proved to be beneficial also for myself, offering space for inspiration during my swims without the constraint of operating a camera.

By omitting interviews and staging social actors, and using small cameras and small crew, we aimed at avoiding as much as possible disturbing the characters, as well as discovering the film’s narrative instead of constructing it. The use of GoPro camera offered flexibility, freedom of movement and the possibility of representing the PoV of the swimmer, while preserving a discreet presence during filming. Bates and Moles (2023: 69), in a hybrid ethnographic project comprised by video diaries and text, used GoPro cameras “to evoke and represent the sensory, embodied, emotional, and social nature of swimming”, as mounting the GoPro on the swimmer “affords a more embodied and immersive perspective … everything is recorded from the participant’s Point of View (PoV)” (Bates and Moles, 2023: 71). Furthermore, as in Leviathan, the PoV shots offer a creative freedom in subject representation, favouring active spectatorship: is it the PoV of the swimmer, the filmmaker, the sea, the seagull, the fish, or even the seaweed? Bates and Moles (2023: 77) aptly describe how “the sound, smell taste and feel of the sea are evoked through the GoPro footage, so that it takes up space … [and] moments with no words are not empty – instead they are filled with the significance of water”.

Paul Henly (2020: 225) references Jean Rouch’s ‘shared anthropology’ as an “ethnographic filmmaking praxis based on a collaborative relationship between filmmaker and subjects”. Although, as the filmmaker, my role did not constitute a central part of the film in a reflexive manner (even though there are moments that I appear in the film), my participation in the swimming practice and the relationship that has been formed with the swimmers as a result of making this film has strong ties to Rouch’s shared anthropology. Pink (2013: 65) alerts us that “very little remains once ethnographers leave their field sites, apart from … things that did not fit into a suitcase”, but I am confident that our film Baltic(So it is!) established a relationship with my new swimming group, which will be maintained long after the completion of the film. To that should be added the use of dynamic consent offered to the subjects, with continuous communication and sharing of the footage and film at each stage of post-production. 

Most importantly, it is very rewarding the fact that the swimmers loved the film. It seems that it played a significant role in strengthening their relationship, as it made them realize how their group interacted during their swimming practice, how much fun they are having and how close they have become with each other ever since they started swimming together. This also helped overcoming my initial fear of making the characters uncomfortable during the filming process, and taught me the importance of sharing the moment and forming mutual trust.

However, the biggest lesson was to learn letting the film take a life of each own, without forcing a particular narrative, or a certain truth. Following the words of Bazin (Aitken, 2001a: 209) referencing fiction filmmaking, and for this module within the context of the controversial affair between non-fiction filmmaking and representation of reality, I learned how “to seek the significant within the mundane”.

Filmography

Bluglass, Amanda, Chasing The Sublime. 2019. Film UK

Davies, Jack & Davies, Fin, Hydrotherapy. 2020. Film. UK

Ehrlich, Pippa & Reed, James, My Octopus Teacher. 2020. Film. South Africa

Fegan, Alex, The Irish Pub. 2013. Film. Ireland

Scott, Jonathan, Tonic of the Sea. 2017. Film. UK

Taylor, Lucien & Paravel, Verena, Leviathan. 2012. Film. France/UK/USA 

Bibliography

Aitken, I. (2001) ‘Late European Cinema and Realism’, in European Film Theory and Cinema: A Critical Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 203–227.

Bates, C. and Moles, K. (2023) ‘Immersive encounters: video, swimming and wellbeing’, Visual Studies, 38(1), pp. 69–80.

Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2020) ‘The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing’, in Film Art: An Introduciton. 12th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 216–262.

Dancygar, K. (2011) ‘International Advances: Interior Life as External Landscape’, in The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice. 5th edn. Oxford, Burlington: Focal Press, pp. 115–132.

Henley, P. (2020) ‘Jean Rouch: Sharing Anthropology’, in Ginsburg, F. et al. (eds) Beyond observation: A History of Authorship in Ethnographic Film. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, pp. 225–255.

Murch, W. (1995) ‘The Rule of Six’, in In the Blink of an Eye. 2nd edn. Beverly Hills, USA: Silman-James Press, pp. 17–20.

Nichols, B. (2010a) ‘How Can We Define Documentary Film?’, in Introduction to Documentary. 2nd edn. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 1–41.

Nichols, B. (2010b) ‘How Can We Describe the Observational, Participatory, Reflexive, and Performative Modes of Documentary Film?’, in Introduction to Documentary. 2nd edn. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 172–211.

Nichols, B. (2010c) ‘How Can We Differentiate among Documentaries?’, in Introduction to Documentary. 2nd edn. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 142–171.

Pink, S. (2013a) ‘Planning and Practising Visual Ethnography’, in Seaman, J. (ed.) Doing Visual Ethnography. 3rd edn. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, pp. 49–69.

Pink, S. (2013b) ‘Video in Ethnographic Research’, in Seaman, J. (ed.) Doing Visual Ethnography. 3rd edn. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, pp. 103–121.