German director Florian Fischer, 40, discovered diving at the age of 18, while on a trip in Egypt. Today, he describes diving as his favorite creative playground. « For me, diving is linked to creativity. I like diving but I’m not the typical diver who enjoys just to be there. I need my camera because I always have some visual ideas. » Florian evolved from being a graphic design working in the advertising world to a documentary filmmaker documenting the civil war in Burma to an independent filmmaker. Guided by his creative instincts, Florian co-founded Behind the Mask six years ago in order to shine a light on the beauty of nature and the ocean. « Dealing with conservation with a clear conservation message is important, but we figured out how we could raise awareness differently, » he explains. « Today, we document the beauty of the ocean to bring people want to save it. »

Behind the Mask’s films and stories are loaded with authenticity. Drawing from his experience as a creative mind in a narrow world that didn’t suit him, Florian believes that nothing beats telling true stories with guts. « It’s not about me, it’s not about a production company, it’s more about a community. At the end of the day, we portray authentic feelings. And there is no other way to do it than actually feel these emotions. » Similar to French freediver Guillaume Néry and underwater & wildlife photographer Greg Lecoeur, Florian is surrounded by a global network of creative nature enthusiasts. This community being the masterpiece of his work.

Avoiding compromises, looking for beauty, the collective constantly dives deep in the seven seas. From Azores to California, from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia, across the fjords of Norway or on a recent trip to Antarctica in -1°C water, Behind the Mask managed to combine what all creatives dream of: the perfect balance between a certain kind of creative freedom, a bunch of transparency, lots of passion and a needed touch of insanity.

Tell us more about you and your background..

I’ve always been working as a freelancer in the creative industry, mostly doing websites and graphic design. I studied filmmaking and worked a lot in the advertising industry. At the same time, I was also working for a big advertising agency in the south of Germany as a documentary filmmaker. I worked a lot in Russia (Siberia) and in Central African Republic. Then I spent most of my time working on the issue of the civil war in Burma (Myanmar). I’ve always seen myself more as a documentary filmmaker rather than a scenic filmmaker where you need a lot of people and need to wait a lot of time until something happens. While documenting the horrible genocide in Burma, I realized how difficult it was to raise awareness on something because it’s hard to find the right way to address people, especially when it comes to human rights or conservation. Everyday, people feel already guilty about a lot of things. So it’s difficult to make a difference. After my studies, I worked as a creative director for a company for a year. And I hated it. Then, I had a company with 18 employees for 4 years. It was an online agency where we developed websites. I was in charge of the design and creative part. After that, I did a lot of filmmaking for advertising companies and fashion brands. And I also hated that. The fashion industry is a very bad place for creative people. I decided to use my passion and do it for my own fun.

That’s when you decided to created Behind The Mask?

Yes, it was 6 years ago. I started Behind the Mask with two friends. Nothing serious at the time. We all had our job but thought maybe we could make a few films about diving, and maybe we could go on diving trips for free! That was the whole idea at first. We were 3 guys at the time, a photographer, the other one was a diver, and me as the filmmaker. We first worked with travel agencies and brands. I live in Germany and I know there’s a lot of people living close to the sea and have way more opportunities than we have. So at the beginning I thought it was not something very promising, just something to do on the side. But eventually, 3 years ago, I quitted my job and sold my shares in the company. I didn’t like working as a CEO for the company and preferred to be fair to my partners. So here I am today, working full time for Behind The Mask.

How did you get introduced to the sea, the ocean or the global water element?

Diving is very much connected with the filmmaking. I’ve not been diving without a camera for many years. I like diving but I’m not the typical diver who enjoys just to be there. I need my camera because I always have some visual ideas and I hate when I feel like I miss something I can’t capture. When I don’t have my camera, most of the time I don’t go in the water. For me, diving is linked to creativity. I started diving at the age of 18, more than 20 years ago, on a trip to Egypt with my girlfriend. We had a camera with plastic bags around, this kind of homemade housing. We had to fix it several times because there was water coming in. Slowly, it became a thing! Today, if you look at the diving community, I don’t relate much to it. I have a very specific opinion regarding the diving industry especially in Germany. When I started diving, I thought it was fun. It meant adventure, excitement, being close nature, it was about discovering new things and, at the same time, diving is something you can share with other people. My vision of diving never included any notion of competition. I’ve always enjoyed diving as a creative playground. I see it as a feeling, as a chemistry. Diving is an easy place to collect all the emotions and feelings, it’s also an abundance of stories, people, species, animal and locations. There’s a million things. Diving is the coolest thing on earth. The diving industry in Germany is far behind this vision. So I thought there was a great opportunity to combine all the things unique about diving.

3 years ago when you sold your shares to the company, what was your precise vision of Behind The Mask?

I have been quite lucky since the very beginning. I could have made decisions not based on business only. I don’t have a lot of money on the bank but thanks to my work, I achieved some creative freedom. I can be both creative on one side and be paid on the other. I don’t have to make compromises. Every creative person dreams about doing what they like to do, grow their creativity, and be valued and respected for it. For me, it was clear. I wanted to invest in something bigger. It’s not about me, it’s not about a production company, it’s more about a community. Most of our collective decisions are taken with a strong eye on community, on bringing people together. For example, for most of the projects, we spend 80% of the global budget on the logistics and on paying people. Most of the time, we bring more people than we need on set and during trips, just because we want to have a good time together, and we want to achieve this together. At the end of the day, we portray authentic emotions and feelings. And there is no other way to do it than actually feel these emotions. So it’s been a journey to find people I enjoy working with, who are also flexible and who want to serve that community. We like to make tutorials in order to share experience and knowledge. In the first place, the idea of Behind the Mask was to be very transparent with everything. I always hated it when I saw a picture about a place where somebody obviously tried to make it even more than it actually is, by not telling where it is, or not telling when it is. So I thought it would be pretty cool to give these infos to the viewer. Transparency means we always disclose everything. What we do, how we do and what equipment we use… We show and share everything as we’re not trying to make ourselves super cool or super special. All of that is only possible because of this sense of community. We have enough clients and projects to allow us to do that today.

Tell us more about this community gathered around Behind the mask…

There’s a lot of people who are considered to be a member. There are 4 to 5 core members involved with mostly everything. Hamdan Chowdhuri is from Bengladesh, Canada and Singapore and he is our Good Vibration Manager. He also shoots a little bit underwater. He’s an amazing person, everybody loves him. Timo Dersch is the project manager, doing the office stuff, planning things, posting things and writing comments. He’s from Germany and comes from the diving industry. He’s been an editor for a magazine and also shoots photos. We also have Maika Grützediek , she worked as the editor-in-chief of a magazine and resigned a couple of years ago. She’s more experienced in life than the rest of us. She communicates with potential partners and sponsors, and knows all the advertising clients. She has a very good standing in the watch industry for example. Dada Li comes from China, she is a freediver and Padi ambassador. She’s also a very successful blogger in China, she helps us in the Chinese market and is also part of our production works. She is definitely a smart brain. We have Marta from Spain, the newest member of our team. Marta won a competition on Facebook to join us on the project. She is now part of the team. Vanessa comes from Germany and is doing all the tutorial videos about underwater images, she does motion graphic. Peter is also a new member and works as a filmmaker. These are people I communicate regularly the most. Everybody is doing his or her own stuff so that it’s a loose network, but when you look at how much we spent time together last year, it’s maybe more than with our own family. Mario Medarevic is in charge of Dive World Canada, he’s been on a project in the Bahamas with us recently. Whenever we have technical issues, we can relate to him. Then, there are a lot of freelance friends, ready to go on a trip whenever it’s possible but they’re not involved in decision making. Greg Lecoeur is one of the photographers we regularly work with. We’ve been to Antarctica in February and March along with Guillaume Néry…

Tell us more about this recent trip to Antarctica with french photographer Greg Lecoeur and freediving champion Guillaume Néry…

It was a project of 3 different personalities. Guillaume Néry is a freediver and more of a creative mind. He’s also a writer and a multitool creative. Greg Lecoeur is an outstanding National Geographic photographer, and I’m a filmmaker. We thought that doing a project together, we could, from different angles, raise interest of the same place. It was also an experiment to do something together and see how we relate to this special place of Antarctica. None of us has ever been there. Guillaume is wiring about it, I’m doing a film about it and Greg made pictures. We’re thinking of doing an exhibition, a book and a multi series-documentary. The trip was more challenging than expected because of the weather and because we didn’t have enough time. So we’re thinking of going back there and doing it again. It was an interesting experience because it worked well with the 3 of us. We became even closer friends. Now, we’re currently releasing a few videos about this trip.

There was an ecological aspect as well, wasn’t it?

We partnered with Parley and took water samples to see whether scientists can find micro plastics in Antarctica, which is an inhabited continent. It would be interesting to see the human influence on such a continent regarding plastic pollution, but we don’t have any result yet. We took 75 different water samples on different locations that scientists will have a closer look on. The samples are still in Ushuaia, Argentina, as we need to figure out how to send the samples to the US-based scientists. Antarctica is an interesting place with a challenging environment. Swimming in -1°C water in a wetsuit was a thing! We learned a lot about ourselves.

Most of Behind the Mask’s projects seem very challenging indeed. What was the idea behind your « Life is an Ocean » project made in collaboration with Boot?

Behind the Mask is the official ambassador of the Boot show, so we work together with the show as an umbrella company to support what we do. We promote the show because we think they’re doing great. Boot is one of our partners. Life is an Ocean is basically a summary of our four last years. It shows the viewer how we feel about what we do. Life is an Ocean relates to all the emotions that you have, you can mirror those emotions in the ocean. It’s a bit of a philosophical narration. We want to inspire people and get them interested in this world they might not know much about. At the same time, we also want to inspire people who are already divers or content creators. At the end of every year, we create a video that sums up our year’s projects and this video campaign is a common platform your can relate to.

In one of these summary videos, you said « We believe that more people should feel the ocean magic so that we can save it. » Is Behind The Mask a way for your to raise awareness of the ocean?

Well, we’re not there yet as we didn’t find the tool we can use to really promote conservation ever more aggressively. For now, the goal is not to point at negative things. We try not to push people to change their life while providing content that people can make this conclusion by themselves. In the beginning, I thought the idea was a bit weak, NGOs would do differently, but I don’t feel confortable doing that. We’re not scientists and we don’t want to end up in the same box as everybody else. Dealing with conservation with a clear conservation message is important, but we figured out how we could raise awareness differently. Today, we document the beauty of the ocean to bring people want to save it. Everybody relates to the beauty of the ocean and we need to protect it. It gives us more satisfaction and confidence and it acts better than we thought.

What do you like the most in your job today?

I have the freedom and capability of bringing together people, and involving different kinds of people. I like to collaborate with creative minds and like to support and assist people in what they want to do. I also try to include this under Behind The Mask. The biggest challenge is to deal with teams and people, and to give people enough room to grow and do their own things. How I envision Behind The mask in the future? I see it as a lot of different things. We’d like to release masterclass tutorials for underwater imaging for free, so people can learn how to technically do it. We’d like to create a community, giving them the possibility to be part of something. Now that we have a lot of dedicated people united under the same philosophy, I personally need to give some things away. The freedom of creating projects not based on how much money it makes is probably what I enjoy most, as well as the trust from collaborators and clients. For example, we never make storyboards. The way we work is very creative and free. We always keep for ourselves the option to change things. When we go somewhere and realize the conditions are bad, we change our plans. We have a deal with our clients: They don’t have to pay anything if they dont like it, and won’t be able to use it. 

Do you have funny stories to tell about projects that didn’t work out well?

We had a few funny catastrophes where things didn’t work out! We had a project for Mercedes, a story about a small girl and sharks in Scotland. We drove there with two cars, it took us 2 days. We had 12 people around. Greg Lecoeur was there, there was all the logistics planned for 2 weeks of shooting on an island. But the weather was so bad that we couldn’t do anything so we needed to rearrange and move everything to the other side of the UK. We reshot the video about the girl with great seals, which, in the end, the client loved very much. But it’s the perfect example of what challenge means! In the end of the day, this is what make the best memories. I enjoy to collaborate with interesting people like Fred Buyle, amazing freediver and underwater photographer. We stayed in his house in Azores for two weeks and became friends. Stuff like that is the coolest. I love to plan new projects and involve creative people.

What are the new projects coming up for Behind the Mask and its team of creatives?

There’re so many different things going on. Next week, we’re going to Italy, we do an interesting collaboration with a glass artist who is shaping glass, statues and objects out of glass and water. Then, we stay a week in Egypt with our community, a group of 24 people, diving all together. We fly to Philippines a week later for a Chinese customer. After that, we stay in Indonesia for 3 weeks. Then we’re heading to cover the Sardines Run, making a film about this great adventure. Then back to Indonesia, Komodo National Park, as part of our community trip. Then, we work with the Tourism Agency of Papua New Guinea. We have a 7 weeks project there. Then, heading to French Polynesia with Guillaume Néry, one in October then in December. We might be in Norway for the orcas. Then, it will be Christmas and we have to prepare the Boat Show. This year, we gonna have a live studio over 9 days, interview people from the image community and broadcast it live on the internet. Then, April 2020, we have a nice project with a group of handicapped divers in the Bahamas. Our schedule is pretty much busy until June 2020!

Learn more about Behind the Mask on their website.

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The sea can be a place of hope and dreams but also of despair and death.  Oscar-nominated director Skye Fitzgerald has created this powerful nine minute documentary for Sea-Watch about the dangerous plight facing refugees  attempting to cross the Mediterranean. 

At least six people still die every day fleeing across the Mediterranean. In 2018 alone, at least 2,277 people attempting to cross the sea were unable to reach dry land. As the work of civil sea rescue organisations is hampered, the proportion of deaths and missing persons in the Mediterranean has quadrupled since 2015. Alarmingly, 85 per cent of Germans are not even aware of the extent of this crisis, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by Sea-Watch.

Michael Schwickart of Sea-Watch explains: »When we started civil sea rescue in 2015, the mood in Germany was different. A few years later, the willingness to help and support has faded. But even in 2019, the Mediterranean remains the deadliest border in the world.”

Called Lifeboat – The Experiment, the film allowed 40 volunteers to experience a simulated Mediterranean crossing in a rubber dinghy, which was developed together with five refugees who had survived Mediterranean sea crossings and  told of their experiences and impressions. Based on the first hand accounts of these traumatic experiences, the simulation was designed to be as realistic as possible.

The result is a a film that caused the participants to re-evaluate their views of immigrants attempting dangerous sea crossings.

The support for this cause is still quite limited and the topic has not been at the centre of the news cycle recently. With Lifeboat – The Experiment, Sea-Watch intentionally chose a different way of creating attention and reigniting the conversation around the lives lost at sea on a daily basis.”

To find out more please do visit www.lifeboatexperiment.org

#refugeeswelcome

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Known as a scientist, an expert in acoustics and a nature lover, Jorg Rychen managed to combine his passion for science and for nature. Working as a researcher and a lifeguard, Jorg is definitely not your typical scientist. He focused his work on neurophysiology research on freely behaving animals and managed to spend his spare time in wilderness, both as a freediver, a ballooner and farmer.

In last December, he joined our Panthalassa crew members on our latest expedition up to Tromsø, Norway. The expedition was above all about the journey of a group of adventurers meant to record and understand the secret language of the Orca Killer Whales, described as the most intelligent creatures on earth. We spent a few days with Jorg on a small size boat under below-freezing temperatures, sharing one of the most spectacular visions which is witnessing orcas in their natural environment. 

Hi Jorg, can you tell us a bit about your background?

I studied experimental physics, I obtained my PhD at the ETH Zurich for studies of quantum phenomena in semiconductors. Then, I founded a company that provides scanning probe microscopes all around the world. I sold the company in 2008 because, even though it’s very interesting, everybody in physics is a little bit of a nerd and it remains an all-male environment. To be honest, it’s socially boring. Today, I split my time between my lab and the shore of a lake since I’m also a lifeguard during summer in Zurich. As a lifeguard, you’re in the sun, you feel the wind, you see the clouds, you have a lot of friends and people around you. This job is basically at the very opposite of being a lab technician. I’m also employed at the Institute of Neuroinformatics where I work as as Prof. Hahnloser research group. My interest is to solve automation, measurement, and instrumentation problems arising both in neurophysiology research on freely behaving animals and in anatomy work using high-throughout electron microscopy. I work with a lot of mathematicians, physicians, and biologists used to do a lot of experiments with song birds. Working with them, I would record all the songbirds. Songbirds are a model for basic research and provide ideal signals for study and experiments. Birds are a model animal in neuroresearchs, as process happen in the brain. Only birds, bats and dolphins can do that That’s why it would be interesting to learn more about orcas.

Where does your fascination for the orcas and, more widely, for freediving come from?

I’d probably need to tell you the full story. My father was a mountain guide in Switzerland. When I was a kid, we did a lot of adventures in the mountains. And I remember that, even as a child, I could hold my breathe longer than anyone else. I guess it’s just something that’s given to you somehow. So, since a young age, I’ve been very good at freediving. I remember being on holidays and seeing Russian girls with wetsuits diving down deep in the water. They told me « this is freediving, it’s an old sport . » It was around 1999, and I was hooked. However, freediving is all about numbers. It’s all about how deep you can go, how far you can swim, and how long you can hold your breathe. I’ve never been very interested in this competitive side of freediving. For me, freediving is more about freedom. I like the fact that you don’t need a lot of equipment; just your mouth, the mask, and fins. It’s the same with climbing. I prefer bouldering these days because what you need is just a pair of shoes. This is everything I love. Going back to freediving, when you dive down, you’re overwhelmed by this really strong silence. I think it also has to do with the ears, it makes this feeling of complete silence. You can also hear the orcas from far away. It’s just a beautiful sound. I first met Jacques (De Vos) a few years ago, he was my freediving instructor. I remember the first time I saw an orca. I was standing on a stand up paddle and the orca just went close to me. The dorsal fin was about 2 meters high, so taller than me. The orca itself was 3-4 times bigger than its fin. Orcas are really big, especially when they come close to you. It was very impressive so, at that time, what I had in mind was to study the orcas the same way I study songbirds. One experimental method to decode the ‘neural algorithms’ underlying song learning is to record the song of a bird with a microphone and interact with the bird via a loudspeaker.

The December expedition aimed at decoding the secret orcas communication. From your scientific point of you, why is it so interesting and so important?

There are several aspects. One aspect is the scientific side of the expedition which is basically the information approach. Obviously, orcas are able to exchange some information and perform conversations. For example, when orcas hunt, they agree on a hunting strategy beforehand. During the hunt, orcas remain silent. It means every individual agreed and organized their hunt before. They are somehow able to discuss what to do together. I wouldn’t call it a language yet – in the terms of a subject, verb, and complement – but it’s interesting to see how orcas are sharing information. Orcas’ ears are their primary sense, while for human, it’s the eye. Orcas rely on sound production and also see with the ear, using their sonar. They use the vocalization to see, but they also use the vocalization to communicate. For us, the two are separate, we have the eye and the ear. Orcas navigate by echolocation, and the clicks and whistles are part of the orca’ sonar. I think it’s an interesting thing to study.

How did you proceed to try to start decoding orcas language?

It’s always a bit of a problem because we’re used to make just small announcement. We put the hydrophones underwater and recorded the orcas. The most challenging part was to separate individual vocalizations from the background noise and from the other orcas. This is a difficult part because, at the end, we want to come up with one single track of a single orca. Orcas are known to have three kind of vocalizations: clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls. So the idea is to analyze the single track and see which orcas is responding to which one. The collected data creates statistics. Analysing data, we’ll be able to understand who is talking to who. The objective is to study whistles in order to make a catalog of whistles and analyze how often they are repeated. Doing so, we’ll be able to make a vocabulary, a kind of protocole, and learn how they discuss. For example, science have studied bats for a long time. Because of their near blindness, bats use vocal signals – echolocation – to communicate, they are easier to study. As sound goes everywhere, they somehow steal the echo of another bat and use sound wave for communication. They echolocate within specific frequency ranges, and I think it’s the same for the orcas. The questions is « what kind of frequency do orcas have? » Last year, I made some recordings and it was interesting to see that they recently found a frequency. Orcas can basically tickle another orcas remotely. It means there’s maybe a physical interaction over a long distance.

What do you expect from the data collected during The Sound of Intelligence expedition? 

We’ll gonna analyze it in order to create a vocabulary and statistics. We’ll start classifying the produced sound and test in playback experiments. It’s a good idea to try to create interactions with them. For example, we’ll maybe find out that orcas have a signature call, like a name! If we have a collection of signature whistles, we can maybe compose another new signature whistle, then restart playing back and then the orca can recognize the sound. That would be awesome!  

The December expedition took place in a remote fjord north Norway, above the arctic circle. What was the most challenging part of it all?

What I found out is that the most challenging part is always to handle the materials, for many reasons. It is very cold, you are in a wetsuit, everything is wet, cold and dark, and you wear gloves. So everything is tough and you need to be sure it works. I tried the same experiment last year so I gained a lot of insights regarding the handling of products. For this expedition, I built up a container to put the records, and did a test in the lake of Zurich.

When you’re not in your labo, what do you do exactly? 

I’m also a balloon pilot. Since I’m a child, I have this passion for airships. I’ve always wanted to build an airship but to do so, you first have to have a licence for ballooning. So I started ballooning a few years ago. My goal is still to own a human-power airship, that looks exactly like an orca by the way! I’m a member of a ballooning club and we co-own two balloons. I also have a small farm in the mountain in Switzerland where I grow herbs and spices. You have to climb up there, it’s a very steep region but I like that. I like to have a cool project in mind, something that gives me a focus.

Portraits : Pierre David 

Orcas photos : Jacques De Vos 

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The orcas belong to the most intelligent and mysterious creatures on earth. Their language is made of a highly developed system of acoustic signals. Understanding it remains one of science’s greatest puzzles. Until today.

Panthalassa is embarking on a mission to understand the language of the Orca Killer Whale, alongside the ETH Zürich, the world’s leading university for earth and marine science to reach a great and ambitious goal. It’s not about hearing orcas for the first time, it’s about using technology to hear things nobody could hear before: the voice of individual orcas in wildlife.

„With this first expedition we hope to lay the foundation of a great journey that will lead us to understand orcas. My deepest wish is that by proving their language skills, humans will change their perception and ultimately protect the habitats of these wonderful creatures.“ 

Sergio Penzo, Panthalassa founder.

These recordings are essential for scientists to start solving the mystery of their language. Directed by Dr. Jörg Rychen, a leading researcher in acoustics and neuroinformatics, the expedition team will be deploying 4 highly sensitive underwater microphones. The four smart hydrophones using a GPS surface buoy will gather real-time acoustics and stream data aimed at being processed by software. »Artificial intelligence applied to language technology is making significant advances. It is just a matter of time that we can process sets of data like the one we will be collecting from the orcas,« says Jörg Rychen, researcher in neuroinformatics at the ETH Zürich. Like humans, orcas are highly social and actively interact with each other, which makes it almost impossible to record them individually. On top of that, everything takes place underwater, where sound travels faster and noise pollution can become an obstacle. For that reason, we will be travelling above the arctic circle in December, 2017, heading to the remote fjords of Tromso, Norway, where hundreds of orca pods come together each year.  

Besides the scientific value of the expedition, Panthalassa will be capturing highly emotional content to share this fascinating journey with the world. You can follow the news about the expedition and research across our social channels and our newsletter.

Photos by Jacques de Vos.

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« Where everything happens at the touch of a button and requires a computer science degree to understand and repair, Infinity’s working parts are manual, simple, laborious, greasy and somewhat comprehensible. » 36,7 meters-long, Infinity have properties that make it exceptional for a polar vessel. We met Northern California-based director and filmmaker Nico Edwards, author of ‘Sea Gypsies: The Far Side of the World’, his first feature. The movie seeks to tell the ambitious journey of a group of modern seafaring gypsies across the Pacific Ocean. « Captain Clemens Gabriel has transformed Infinity into a sea tribe, comprised of crew from all over the world» he said. « Water, trees, dusk, mountains, sunrise and dramatically bad weather are some of the strongest catalysts for awe. So along with extreme pest control, the voyage is a quest for awe, and for the sheer joy of it. » So, please, get onboard this hand-built sailboat described as a ‘bunker that floats’…

Tell us a bit about Infinity, an environmentally friendly hand-built sailboat… 

Though by all outward appearance, these voyages appear to be exercises in reckless abandon, and while it is true that infinity was not designed to travel through ice, Infinity is an incredibly tough boat made of ferrocement. She was constructed in 1977 in Oakland CA, and is believed to be the largest ferrocement yacht ever built, meaning she’s made of metal reinforced concrete and is basically a bunker that floats. Ferrocement, a well tested and long practiced form of boat construction, no longer in fashion due to its downsides of being extremely labor intensive during construction and heavy compared to fiberglass or aluminum, does have properties that make it exceptional for a polar vessel, such as incredible toughness, impact resistance and strength in any temperature. In the Ross Sea, Infinity made impact with a large number of icebergs without so much as a scratch. Infinity is also very green, as her sails are recycled from super yachts, and sowed up to fit. She also has a very large solar array, which provides for all her electrical needs as well. Right now, she is also a vegan ship, trying her utmost to source all foods locally.

Sailors, a captain, an electrician, a carpenter, and filmmakers… Most of you are, above all, adventurers with a taste for the extreme…

Infinity seems to be a magnet for those who just don’t fit in anywhere in particular, mainstream societies cast offs. A rotating group of wanderers, they come together on Infinity as a sort of ocean going tribe, then they head off across the globe to earn a living for a while doing various things. We have carpenters, surveyors, electricians, professional sailors, and even a former NASA rocket scientist, but they always seem to return to Infinity just as soon as they are able. 

When did you first have the -crazy- idea of the « Sea Gypsies » project? 

In 2011, well ensconced in a little padded gray cubicle, in a nondescript office park on the side of a generic highway in Silicon Valley, I was growing grim about the mouth. The 3 hour-commute and job that would most likely be replaced by an algorithm in a few years was not providing much in the way of stimulation. So one day, I took stock of the situation, and having nothing in particular to interest me on shore, I decided I would sail about a little and see the watery parts of the world.

Before I left, I did the first thing that anyone nowadays would do… I googled my options. This led me to a website called FindACrew.org, which connects crew looking for boats, to boats looking for crew. Opportunities abound for all skill levels, from landlubbers to salty sea dogs. This is how I came across Infinity. I was looking to learn to sail and she looked like a learning boat. By this I mean, that unlike the more modern, technologically advanced sailboats of our day, where everything happens at the touch of a button and requires a computer science degree to understand and repair, Infinity’s working parts are manual, simple, laborious, greasy and somewhat comprehensible. 

I joined the boat in Singapore in early 2012 and we sailed through the Malacca Straight into Malaysia, all the way up to the Andaman coast of Thailand. This was probably the most memorable 5 months of my almost 30 years of life. The time machine slowed to a crawl as it gorged on the abundant unknown. Roughly a year after leaving the boat, I was back in the US, plugging along, when out of the blue one night I get a call from Captain Clem. He says the boat is infested with tropical termites he can’t get rid of, and he heard that if he dropped the temp of the boat below freezing for 3 days it would serve as an environmentally friendly, yet extreme form of pest control. To get the boat below freezing for such a long time, he had it in his mind to make a pacific crossing from New Zealand to Patagonia, with a visit to Antarctica, and wanted to know if I might like to join in and video the experience. The decision seemed brash, as he intended to start the 15,000 mile voyage in “a couple of days”. I quickly agreed to go, and informed him I would join the boat as soon as I had sold my possessions and put my affairs in order.

The plan had more than a touch of madness to it, due to Infinity not being at all designed or equipped with cold weather in mind. I was pretty sure Infinity did not have any heaters, insulation, nor did the main saloon have a door to keep the outside, outside. I looked at an atlas and tallied up my frequent flier miles (hard earned through years of signing up for credit cards solely for the bonus miles) and schemed up a way to meet the boat in route. A couple weeks later and I would be rejoining Infinity on the island of Trukk, in The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Our path would lead south-ish, meandering down the international date line, to New Zealand before heading east. It would cover over 15,000 nautical miles and was expected to take roughly 10 months.

You’re currently travelling on 8,000 miles across the Pacific ocean, from New Zealand to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica. What are your motivations, intentions, and goals?Just « for the sheer joy of it »?

Awe has the power to diminish the emphasis on the individual self, encouraging people to forgo strict self-interest, to work towards improving the world around them. Research conducted in the 1960’s on awe or transcendent ecstasy found that the most common triggers come from nature. Water, trees, dusk, mountains, sunrise and dramatically bad weather are some of the strongest catalysts for awe. So along with extreme pest control, the voyage is a quest for awe, and for the sheer joy of it. 

How is life organized onboard? Does everyone has duties and a daily schedule?

Though perpetually exploring, daily life onboard consists mainly of sailing and maintaining the boat and crew. The rhythm of life onboard reflects the necessities of a sailing vessel. Cleaning the boat, navigating an approximate course, raising sails, keeping the boat clean, maintaining an approximate course, oiling, greasing, scraping, scrubbing, disinfecting, cleaning, lowering sails, killing bugs, and of course… cleaning. Crew join up with every level of skill, and the experience they gain depends on what they seek from their time aboard. Some join up with the intention of becoming professional sailors or some already are and just want a change of pace. Everyone contributes, everyone learns something, and yes, lots and lots of work, mostly in schedules. 

« What can be found in abundance on board is blood, sweat, enthusiasm, risk tolerance, disdain for authority, and an ample supply of alcohol,» says the voiceover of your film entitled « Sea Gypsies: The Far Side of The World ». Does it sum up your balance onboard?

Pretty much, its a whole lot of work just to keep it going. A boat is a delicate structure of rapidly decaying materials, floating atop and constantly being bathed/marinated in, a caustic brine of destruction. They are holes in the water in which people throw money in, never to be seen again. Unless you’re really hardworking and crafty, up to but not necessarily over the point of conniving, a boat owner can expect to part with upwards of 10% of their boats value per year in upkeep costs. To avoid the constant shelling out of cash, one has to do all the work oneself… or have volunteers/suckers do it. This voyage being no exception, Clem maximizes the blood sweat and toil of his crew. 

The movie tells the ambitious journey of a group of modern seafaring gypsies across the Pacific Ocean. Were you prepared to the level of adrenaline you’ve been experiencing? 

I think for the most part people were prepared for a lot, but the massive hurricane of ice in the Ross Sea was a whole lot more than we expected and we’re pretty lucky to be alive in all honesty. I think if we did the trip 3 times, one of those times we would not have made it… at least. When help is 3 weeks or more away, you hope that you just die as quick and painlessly as possible. When you’re alone at sea, you feel like anything and everything is possible. It’s also a lot like groundhog day when you don’t see land for months at a time, you start to think you might be trapped in purgatory. 

What’s next now?

I head back to the boat in one months time, and we plan on heading North, attempting to sail further north than anyone in history. Following the two warmest Arctic summers on record, the sailing vessel Infinity will tackle the formidable Northwest Passage, attempt to reach the Northernmost inhabited settlement on the planet, aptly named Alert. More than just breaking a record, reaching this normally icebound settlement at the tip of Ellesmere Island, will be a stark warning to the world. To reach Alert at 82° latitude, Infinity will traverse through Nares Strait, a narrow channel of fierce currents and rapidly moving mountains of ice at the height of summer. Along the way, the ship and crew will battle severe storms, avoid marauding icebergs and hungry polar bears, and explore a part of the world that is rarely seen. This is the most dangerous maritime route in the world; more people have been to the top of Mt Everest than have successfully taken a sailing vessel through the Northwest Passage, and no one has ever sailed this far north. The full route will be over 15,000 miles and take 10 months from Tonga to Greenland. The expedition begins Nov 2017.

Follow their adventure online.

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The film “Into the North” is a project commissioned by Oceana the world’s biggest organization dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans.

We joined Oceana and its team of marine biologists on its first North Sea expedition. On board of the Neptune, we soon learned that the North Sea isn’t any longer the paradise for whales, plankton and seabirds it used to be. 

“Into the North” is a visual ode to the North Sea, the men and women working under extreme conditions to study and protect our oceans, but most importantly, it’s about the very cause that is turning our seas into deserts: overfishing.

« Shooting in the open sea is always a challenging experience. We faced severe climatic conditions» says creative director and Panthalassa founder Sergio Penzo. «We tried to stick to our storyboard, but, sometimes, we had the feeling that the weather was the real director calling the shots. We faced some of the most challenging weather conditions a filmmaker can experience, but that didn’t stop us from telling the story of these passionate individuals who work so hard to protect our oceans. »

The two-minute film which also features pro-surfer Aritz Aranburu and Spanish model Almudena Fernandez, is the official kick-off for the “Stop-Overfishing” campaign. An initiative launched by the NGO Oceana Europe to create awareness for the biggest threat to the health of our ocean.

Photos by 

Pierre David & Sarah Arnould / Panthalassa Society

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»Floating into Fire« is a proof of concept short film written and directed by  one of our favorite filmmakers, the imaginative Olivia Wyatt. Based in Los Angeles, award-winning filmmaker and photographer Wyatt has directed three feature-length documentaries, Staring into the Sun (2011), The Pierced Heart & The Machete (2013), and Sailing A Sinking Sea (2015). »Below the surface of the sea there is a lot of magic happening. It is so incredibly cosmic down there,«  she said when we first interviewed her earlier this year.

Her latest film entitled »Floating into Fire« is centered around a tragic magical realist love story that leads a man and his heart adrift at sea and on the brink of a psychedelic existential crisis. His journey of letting go is woven through Trinidad during the time of carnival and leaves the viewer dripping in Caribbean culture and mythology. »My one true love beyond filmmaking is sailing and somewhere along the ride of life I got my bareboat captains license. Shortly after that, I helped deliver a boat from from the San Blas Islands in Panama all of the way up to Brunswick, Georgia. It took us 14 days. When I got there I met an incredible sailor who shared a true story about one of his good friends,« she explains. »The film is based on a true story and is very psychedelic. It involves love, sailing, carnival in Trinidad, Haitian Vodou- my second film was in Haiti and focused on two religious pilgrimages- horses, synchronized swimming, an angry sea, psychedelic hallucinations, chess, and mermaids!«

All of Wyatt’s films to date have been ethnographic glimpses into other worlds and with this film, she hopes to capture the magic of the Caribbean while sharing this powerful story. Cate Timothy of Cate Le Bon (Drag City) will play the role of Lola. This film also stars the Aqualillies, who will perform as the synchronized swimmers. 

Check out the film’s Kickstarter campaign.

Discover more of Olivia Wyatt’s work on her website.

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Shooting on Super 8mm was like taking a 35mm picture except that I was able to capture the moment and atmosphere in movement.

We’ve seen thousands of surf films. We’ve watched them from age 15 to today. We know them by heart. The songs, the waves, surfers and silences. There is this delicate routine in surf films that make us smile, make us mumble and raise our eyebrows. So when we find something different, we like to share it to the world. We met Tristan Mausse, French filmmaker known for his artistic approach. He recently launched his latest short film entitled »Eight Short Breaks«entirely shot on Super 8mm.

Tristan started to get interested in making films almost 3 years ago. »At that time, I made a 52 minute long documentary about the underground scene of the surfboard industry around the world.« Screened in Germany, France and Spain, the ‘Sacrebleu’ movie won the Special Jury Award during the International Surf Film Festival in Anglet.

Since two years now, Tristan has been working on the idea of creating a movie entirely shot on film. »I’m passionate about images and photography. Above all, I’m passionate about the traditional analog process. So the fact of shooting on Super 8mm was like taking a 35mm picture except that I was able to capture the moment and atmosphere in movement. I could even add a soundtrack to it.« Throughout this project, Tristan really wanted to produce a surf film using beautiful travel images. »So I bought an old Beaulieu Camera and boxes full of 8mm films. I left on a trip during 8 months without interruption. I went to Brazil, Vietnam, Australia and visited New-York.« Originally, Tristan works as a sander-glasser and is used to work for workshops and factories in France and abroad. »I largely shot surfers who surf Gato Heroi boards cause I worked a lot with the guys from Gato Heroi and Gato Bask. And those guys became my friends.«

Joyously told with jazz music in the background, that’s what the movie is about: Friends having fun. Images of Jack Lynch, Robin Falxa, Evan Daley, Guylhem Dupouy, Andy Findlay, Robin Kegel, Yann Baldenweck follow one after another, inextricably mixed. Eight Short Breaks could be defined as a contemporary escape with the intention of showing a deep vision of the surfboard culture. We smiled, mumbled and raised our eyebrows. Twice.

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We’ve teamed up with the digital agency Salon91 to create a wonderful web special for the film Sea Legend. The simple task was to create a cautious website to host the teaser. Out objective was to mirror the website which underlines the mood of the film: calm-cinematic pictures with a bit of suspense and drama. So we used a few of the most impressive pictures and added some tiny scrolling animations to let the scenes speak for themselves. Besides, we wanted to show the background information on important historical sea legends to let the roots of our story reach slightly deeper and to make it more exciting for the viewer to find out what it is all about.

Get immersed in the world of Sea Legend and watch the trailer here: 

www.sealegendfilm.org

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