Mermaid's Lament - Island of Hawaii

“Moments before drowning, she became the sea.” - Mermaid’s Lament

In this episode, we temporarily ditch our surfboards and plunge into the raw power of the ocean, its intersection with salvation, and creativity. I talk with the director and stars of Mermaid’s Lament, a film about trauma, grief, resilience, imagination and…mermaids! Shot entirely on the island of Hawaii with a regional cast and crew, director GB Hajim has created, in his words, “a love letter to all people who find peace in the ocean.” Stars Dayva Summer Escobar and Justina Mattos share their stories of breath-holding, fire-breathing, reef-harrowing ocean stunts, the surreal experience of being surrounded by dozens of mermaids, the development of trust, and the power of risk. We dig into the heart of art, and I couldn’t help but feeling, as we talked, that perhaps this surge in women’s surfing, and women’s community, is its own art form. As Dayva says, “Our job as human beings is to tell stories and share experiences that make everybody else feel less alone.” And, in surfing, art, and life, may we all follow GB’s advice, “Go out there and fail wondrously.” Listen and enjoy the passion and brilliance of these deeply authentic artists and if you are on the island, don’t miss it on the big screen!

11/17, 7pm, Hilo Palace Theater Tickets: https://ticketing.uswest.veezi.com/purchase/716?siteToken=gm8khysj2xp8q7h501dqxk57cg

Silent Auction of Movie Memorabilia to benefit the Palace: https://givebutter.com/c/mermaidslament/auction

11/25, 7pm, Aloha Theatre Tickets: https://prod5.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=347091

12/15, 5:30pm Honoka'a People's Theater: TBA

@mermaidslament

Mentions @sharksofhawaii, @oneoceandiving

Love the podcast? Buy me a coffee! 💜💜💜

🏄‍♀️💜 Never miss an episode! Stay up to date with Dropping In To Power Podcast and (when I finally get back in the swing-- a love poem from the ocean) - Sign up for the Substack here.💜🏄‍♀️

Follow the pod on IG: https://www.instagram.com/dropping_in_to_power/

Love the podcast? Buy me a coffee! 💜💜💜

Or drop a rating for free!

Transcript

[00:18] Sheila: Welcome to the Dropping into Power podcast, where we'll be hearing stories about the transformational power of surfing from women surfers of all ages, all levels, and all over. We'll hear about courage, commitment, struggles, frustration, epiphany, and of course, life transformations, large and small. I'm your host, Sheila Galleon, and I am stoked to share these conversations with these amazing women full of so much passion with all of you. Aloha, and welcome to the Dropping in to Power podcast. I'm super excited today because we have a very unique episode. We have a departure on a number of paths. Number one, we've got three people that we're interviewing today, all of whom are completely spectacular. You're also going to hear a masculine voice for the first time on this podcast. And we are not exactly talking about surfing, but we are definitely talking about the transformational power of the ocean. This episode, this podcast is about a film called Mermaids Lament that was shot entirely here on the Big island of Hawaii by three people who are intensely immersed in life and culture here. Incredibly talented. I'm going to read their bios because they're so spectacular. And the movie, well, we'll talk about the movie at great length. So, to start off, I just want to say that the intersection of surfing and creativity and culture is very near and dear to me. And I feel like many people, part of their transformation has been in some way, not just through surfing, but through the ocean, to unlock parts of creativity, to heal trauma, to find their voice. In my case, very personally, I've really found my voice as a writer and a storyteller through my experience with the ocean. And I know each of you will have your own personal stories. So that intersection is really powerful to me. And I did have a personal connection with GB. And it's funny how it came so full circle. When I was a theater major in Humboldt State University and I was doing my senior project, I had this brilliant and amazing woman, Samira Sahibi, who was my actress, and she was a one woman show. And decades later, I met JV through Samira here over in Hilo in his gorgeous home. She had been in his master's thesis. But the funny thing was, I was out of touch with Samira for so many years, decades, literally, to have her come back in my life. The movie I wrote about surfing takes place in Humboldt. The reason I live in Hawaii is because of the transformation of surfing. So all of these intersections just felt very much in tune with the flow. When we all get to experience that flow with the ocean and something just kind of transmutive in and of itself. So that's my personal preamble with it and the movie itself. I've deliberately not seen it. It was really hard choice because I was dying to see it so I could actually speak to you guys. But GB really sort of pushed me off of that to really feel the mystery of it all. I'm going to go ahead and read you guys'bios so that, you know, the people and how this movie grew from its own kind of roots. I'm going to start with GB Hajim. So for the past 30 years, GB has been producing, directing, shooting, and editing Hawaiian language dramas and educational programs. We will definitely hear his trial by fire, how he actually started films in Hawaii. It's a great story. His last feature, the animated Sci-Fi lesbian musical strange theme, attracted an all star team including Tim Curry, Academy Award winner Gary Rizzo, and Pink Floyd. His most recent film, the psychological drama steeped in magical realism, Mermaid's Lament, was nominated for Best Feature at dances with films and is beginning its limited theatrical release. It actually just won last night Best Picture at the Big Sin Festival, where it will be shown on the big screen in Piccadilly, London. And I'll go through the screenings of where to see it real fast before we get started, because it's actually making its full feature debut in Hilo. So Hilo Friday, November 17 at the Palace Theater, then Saturday, November 25 at the Aloha Theater in Kona, December 15 in HonakA at the People's Theater, and again November 14, Piccadilly Circus. There will only be clips of that, so you'll have to come to Hawai for now to see the whole film. I can't wait to hear exactly the story of how you all came together, but I'm going to go ahead and finish with BiOS to start with. So Dayva plays a mermaid or Deshi. And it's Dayva Summer Escobar as a Latinx actress and artist from the bigger land of Hawaii where she grew up surfing every day. She's worked on various indie films, most notably Mermaids Lament, where she performed her own underwater stunts. I really can't wait to hear about that. She graduated from the University of Hawaii with majors in gender and women's studies and communications, and a minor in performing arts, where Yustenomatos was her professor and is passionate for intersectional human rights and advocating for social change. You guys are just so badass. And now we get to Yustena. So, Dr. Yustena Matos is an actress, writer, stage director and professor of theater. She teaches drama for the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where she serves as the chair of the Performing Arts Department. She has a special interest in the drama of Hawaii in the Pacific and co founded the Kayaka Hawaiian Language Theater Festival. She also hosts an online playwriting group called Kayaka Lehua, where playwrights gather to hear their work, read aloud and receive feedback from a supportive group of theater practitioners. Mermaids Lament was her first feature length film. I really wanted to read all of that for everybody because just the rootedness of your contribution to the arts here, which is for people that don't live in more rural or more regional areas, it is a feat to really cultivate the community, to bring the talent out of who is just latently here and who may have moved here by choice or may have totally undiscovered talent. I've seen some incredible performances in regional theater and local theater, and it's not like it's the big bucks attraction to cultivate these pieces, and it's just such pieces of your heart, your soul, your gifts, so really incredibly powerful. So thank you. I've been talking for 100 hours already. Welcome, everybody.

[07:18] GB Hajim: Aloha.

[07:18] Justina Mattos: Thank you.

[07:19] Dayva Summer Escobar: Aloha.

[07:20] Sheila: So I'm going to jump right into the film. We already did the screening, and like I said, normally this podcast is about surfing, but really this podcast is about transformation. If you listen to the stories, it's mostly women who started as adults and what's happened to their lives as a result of immersing in the water and the power of that call. Now, Ustana, I don't know what your relationship is yet with the water, so we'll talk about that in a little bit. I know a little bit about GBS, but I want to start with your tagline. So mermaids lament moments before drowning, she became the sea, and there's a lot to unpack in there. So I'm going to start with GB. And what do you mean by that?

[08:04] GB Hajim: Well, just like the film, I want people to take away what they take away. But for me, this ocean is so healing. And so when I feel overwhelmed, when I feel oversaturated by humanity and basically the horrible existence that Western civilization has put upon this planet, when I get into the sea, it saves me. It saves me and it saves me by becoming totally at peace there and letting it wash over me and envelop me. That's what it means to me. But I really want this film and even that statement to be whatever it needs to be for whoever.

[08:50] Sheila: How about you, Justina? Do you have a different take?

[08:52] Justina Mattos: Well, from the perspective of the character that I play in the film, her name is Nell and she spends a great deal of the film trying very hard to control her life, to keep everything tightly under control. And it's not working for her, especially after she meets Oi. And Oi just introduces chaos into her life and that influence of the ocean. Nell is terrified of the ocean to begin with, at the beginning. And finally, when she just can't take any more of the chaos that her life has become and Oi has temporarily left Nell's life she is at a point of giving up. And that's when she just lets go and accepts whatever will be. Whatever will be will be. And that's when the magic happens.

[09:53] Sheila: Okay. I heard a lot in the reviews and I don't know if this is the word you introduced into the reviews or if it's just what comes. I think almost every review uses the word resilient and should also say, in case people don't have the image, you should watch, for sure, watch the trailer. This is a film about trauma. This is a film about grief. This is a film about imagination. And those are really the themes that come up consistently. Grief, trauma, imagination and resilience. And Justina, I found a quote of yours that says, in terms of genre, I think the film is similar to Thelma and Louise in that it's a buddy pick for women. And thematically, the film deals with a few things. One, women finding ways to survive in a male dominated world. Two, the careless destruction of our natural resources. And three, mental illness. How it's defined and how it's treated. That, I felt, gave a little bit of a window into the backdrop of what role the ocean might play in it. So I'll shift to you, Dayva. In light of all of this, what does becoming the sea mean for your character?

[11:10] Dayva Summer Escobar: I mean, I think in regards to playing Oe, I relate a lot to finding peace in the sea. I was raised in the ocean, so I grew up surfing every day. And the oceans have always kind of been like my peaceful space. It's like the one place I can go where I feel like I can actually fully meditate and actually be in my breath and just exist and not think about anything else. And so I think becoming the sea is sort of embracing the chaos of your life or whatever your circumstances are and just being.

[11:38] Justina Mattos: So.

[11:38] Dayva Summer Escobar: I think the sea can be something different for everybody. But for me, it quite literally is the ocean. Kind of like Dubie, what was it.

[11:44] Sheila: Like then, bringing this? Maybe it's just an amplified version of any moment which you might be bringing into the sea, but bringing literally, as you said, I was saying, this character who is in this utter chaos and literally Entering the water in this way, what was that experience like for you?

[12:05] Dayva Summer Escobar: Definitely challenging, because I have grown up surfing. I'm good with big waves and stuff, but I am not used to holding my breath for a long time. So there are lots of times where it was really arduous and they'd put me in a heavy wedding dress that would fill up with water and I'd feel myself, like, sinking and I'd have to be loving it because oe feels so at ease. And there are a lot of times where I was challenging that sense of ease and feeling, kind of the sense of inner panic and having to find that groundedness that Owie was experiencing and also the groundedness that I know in the ocean and kind of trust the circumstances I can't control and just coexist with that moment. But there are other days where we'd shoot and he'd be like, okay, go as deep as you can and deep dive. And I had never gone free diving before, and he wanted me to go as far as I could. And it was probably about, like, 30ft or so. And it was actually kind of scary. But I don't know, just the feeling of kind of defying your body, telling you that you need to breathe, knowing that you still have lung capacity and just being present in the silence of underwater was so grounding. It was like a meditation.

[13:08] Sheila: Wow. That feeling, I know from being held down, mostly I have a problem with my ears, so I can't go very deep. But that feeling you're saying of when you start to run out of oxygen, you think you run out of oxygen, you really do have plenty of more oxygen, but from just a personal place, having to come to that place of surrender is really powerful. But how you just kind of encased it. It's like you did become the character in that, and you brought courage to the character, and the character brought courage to you. So I wanted to just talk about the concept of mermaid. Now, Dayva, I know that GP had said he knew of you because you actually played Ariel in high school, right, with his son. So we'll come back to that. In one was your. From all of you, what was your impression of mermaid? And I have one more question. I'm going to front load for Justina because I want to speak to whether or not Mermaid is actually an archetype, and I think you're the one to. So. But what were your concept before you explored these layers? I'll start with you, David. What was your concept of mermaid, and did it change?

[14:24] Dayva Summer Escobar: I think that's such a tricky mean. I think mermaid, in a way, is kind of an abstract concept because we know of the beautiful mermaid in the ocean, but we don't know of the, I guess experientially just the feeling of being one and what it means, because usually you think of a princess or you think of just a mythical creature, but I think it represents coexisting with nature. Like in this film, there are so many different symbols of just coexisting and being one with the world. Rather than fighting against it or taking pharmaceuticals to take yourself out of it or cope with it, it's kind of just being one, I guess.

[15:03] Sheila: Oh, wow. Love that. GB, how about you? Did you have any preconceptions? Because you said the title just popped into your head when you went to make this movie. So what sort of images or concepts do you think brought into it and how did they erupt or change as you developed the story?

[15:21] GB Hajim: It became deeper and deeper over time. At first, it was really just the simple thing that I knew so many people that were mermaiding. Like, it's a new thing. Like, a lot of people dress up as mermaids and they go out and they swim in their pools, swim in the ocean, and they enjoy the water that way. And I wanted to give them a boost. I wanted to give them an affirmation that this is totally cool. Nobody should be shaming you for this. Nobody should be calling you out that this is weird. I think we spoke about this before, that capitalism is more of a mythology than mermaids. I mean, mermaids has this deep, long, mythological root, and capitalism only has existed for a couple of hundred years. And it's a mythology just as flimsy or as firm as people that do that kind of thing. And so it just started as that, and then the more we explored it, the deeper it has. I mean, if I had the knowledge I had now about making something about mermaids, it probably would have been a trans person, because there's something incredibly intertwined with the transformation a trans person does go through that a mermaid will have to go through about going to the land, that devastating change, that hard change, or going back into the A. It's a multi layered thing, just like anything mythological. The more you delve into it, the more fruits it reveals. And I'll let Justena speak more to that.

[16:57] Sheila: Yeah, I love. Do you. Is a mermaid an archetype unto itself?

[17:04] Justina Mattos: I don't know the answer to that. I've just always been intrigued by the historical development of the concept of the mermaid. Where did that come from to begin with?

[17:15] Sheila: Right.

[17:16] Justina Mattos: And I always wondered, was it when Western sailors, out at sea for months at a time with only men on the ship, came to a place where they found people, like in Hawaii, they found people swimming in the ocean, which Western sailors didn't necessarily do? And was that such a shock to them that they considered them? I mean, mermaid is literally woman of the sea, right? If you look at the etymology of the word. So I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question.

[17:53] Sheila: Well, I will thank you guys for getting me to Google the difference between mermaids and sirens. So maybe, you know, I didn't know that sirens are actually birds. So sirens are half woman, half bird, not half woman, half fish. And I kind of had them confused in my mind. And maybe because there is a connotation that mermaids perhaps lured sailors to their death, but the sirens did, and you had to be the Odyssey. He had to be strapped to the mast so that he wasn't lured to his death by the I. But I stopped short of looking up the earliest, other than Hans Christian Anderson, like, the earliest appearance of mermaids in know. Do you know Easterna or JB?

[18:44] GB Hajim: I don't know. The thing is that if you look across cultures like Mamawati in Africa, that might predate all European uses of the word mermaid. But Mamawati is a half woman, half sea creature, mythological character. So that that might have evolved in the cultural consciousness into something like Mermaid, it's hard to trace the actual origins. There's also, in South American culture, there's also a mermaid like creature that lived in the Amazon. It's something that humans have been involved in in many, many different mythologies around the planet. So I don't think that there's any one source. When you have something that goes back that far, I don't think there's one place in history you could point to. I do know that as far as the sailors, there was one story that it was because when they first came across manatees, dugongs, the sea cows, that when they first saw those, that they thought they were half human, half fish, because their faces look like kind of a combly looking woman, and then they have their tails. And so these sex starved sailors.

[19:57] Sheila: Right.

[19:58] GB Hajim: Delusional with a little bit scurvy. And all that, might have looked down and thought, oh, my God, there's women poking their heads out of the water. That's where that one came from. But like I said, I think that the idea of a mermaid predates all of that by far.

[20:12] Sheila: There's probably so many layers to it. There's just that creature from the deep. There's that fascination of the deep. There's anyone who's ever been weightless underwater and especially been able to open their eyes. There's that power of what you feel, and there's always the darkness and the danger, along with the dream and the beauty. So I think it's really, whatever we call it, archetype, or just part of our collective unconscious. It just brings up these powerful images, and I feel like it brings up. We only tend to see know before mermaids lament this kind of more sanitized version. But even the story of Ariel surrendering the voice, there's. There's a dark undertone to all of it. I mean, we could go down a whole nother path about that. But there's something in the power. I guess that's what it is. I think there's universally recognized something incredibly powerful beyond the human form that comes through with the concept of a mermaid. And it might just be partly the superhuman ability to breathe underwater and explore worlds that we'll never get to see, unfortunately. Well, I really want to get into the making of the film, but GB, it would just be robbery to not hear your story about how you became a filmmaker here on the island of Hawaii and what was going on. You were ready, you were trained, you were immersed in culture in so many ways. But tell us that story.

[21:54] GB Hajim: Okay, I'll try to keep it short. Yeah. I moved to the island in the early 1990s and tried to get a job in the film and television industry, and Waterworld was just rapping, which was kind of a nail in the coffin of film production on the Big island for quite some time. And so I went to Oahu. I signed in at the Union House, and I just kept on trying to get in productions and productions, productions, and I couldn't get a couldn't. And so I was working as a beekeeper. I was working as a substitute teacher. I was mixing sound for bands at night, and I just couldn't get a job in what I trained to do. And then there was this television show, the Jason Project. It was a live show that had been rehearsing out on the active lava flows for safety's reasons. For two weeks, they were going to be broadcasting at night. And the two sound guys, the day before they were supposed to go live, the two sound guys got in a horrible accident. One was paralyzed and the other one was in a coma and they were obviously unable to work. And so I got a call. Can you walk backwards over hot Lava holding a boom mic? I'm hungry. I don't know if you guys serious or not. I said, of course I can. So I showed up without any rehearsal for this live, this big budget live show. And they rigged me up with a wireless mic and a boom and pointed to this lava flow that was less than an hour old. The ground temperature was, I think, 400 degrees. The air temperatures were like, in between 120 and 140. There was cracks in the lavas that I was informed it was over 700 degrees that I had to avoid. And they pointed me out there and I walked out with my hiking boots on and the ground actually felt spongy because it was so new. And I got in a position and they counted down and went live. And I started walking backwards in front of the scientists across the lava. And I look down and the soles of my hiking boots are starting to slide off my feet. But I get through the shot and they cut. And they cut something else on the show. And so the gaffer comes out with a staple gun. And he staple guns my soles back on and get set up for the next shot, the next live broadcast. We get back in a position and I start walking backwards and I can feel that multi hundred degree heat being transmitted through those metal staples, burning the socks on insides of my boots. But remember, this is my first gig. I'm not going to blow it. I'm not going to complain. I'm going to get through this. So I got through it cut and the gaffer came back and he pulled out the staples and they duct taped on my soles onto my boots. And I got set up for the final broadcast and I started walking backwards and I smelled smoke and I looked down and the duct tape was catching fire. But I kept my cool because I knew if I blew it, then I never would work again. And so the duct tape caught fire, but I didn't miss a step and I kept on walking. And then when they cut, the guys came out with the fire extinguishers and got my boots off and everybody applauded and, yeah, after that, I ended up with lots of work. I ended up producing a documentary about Hawai Volcanoes National park and worked up for two years and then started working with the lions and the rest is kind of history.

[25:23] Sheila: So I wish you could have seen Davis and you said his faces while they were listening to, you know. I just wanted people to really understand the level of your commitment to your art.

[25:36] GB Hajim: Well, they can speak to that about on production. I've bled on set a couple times.

[25:42] Sheila: Yeah, we're going to get to that one next. It just is such a great story, and we live in a very unique place. So molten lava is not completely. Well, the crazy thing is, it's actually relatively unregulated, too, where right now there's no rushing, but you pretty much can. They kind of tell you not to, but you kind of can go walk in molten lava if you want to, especially more so back then. But I don't think that isn't the typical approach to dealing with lava. Is your experience typically? I mean, I have heard of people trying to roast marshmallows and things, but.

[26:25] GB Hajim: We used to take Jiffy popcorn things and bring them for a break, and we used to keep them up on the lava, and I'd stuck my veggie dogs in oil and stick them in the tracks and cook them while we're waiting.

[26:36] Sheila: Yeah, we did all kinds of events, unique setting. It's not just ocean, so. All right, we're going to jump ahead for a minute. Dava and Justina, how did you get involved in this film with GB? Who came first?

[26:50] Dayva Summer Escobar: Who came first, the Justina or the Dava? Actually, GB had messaged me around.

[27:00] Sheila: I.

[27:00] Dayva Summer Escobar: Guess, April of 2021, right after COVID had been going on, and he was just like, hey, I'm kind of wanting to make a movie. Are you interested in doing a movie? And I was like, yeah. He's like, yeah, I want to do something creative. And I was like, okay, cool. And then we just signed on, and we had a little Zoom meeting with our other teammate, Liz, and we started discussing it and started having writing.

[27:25] Sheila: Stena. So one thing TV had said to me that it was really critical that there be trust between the character. So two questions for you, then. How did you get involved? And then, why do you ladies trust each other so much?

[27:40] Justina Mattos: Okay, so I heard about it later in the process, a friend of mine reached out because I teach acting at the university, and she asked me for. She said, GB Hajim is looking for an older actress to play a role in his film. Can you give me some names? So I gave her a bunch of names, and I had heard about GB's work in the Hawaiian language community, because I also use the language and work that I do and I was always curious about working with him. So when I heard about the project, I was like, can you put my name on that list, too? I'd like to throw my hat in the ring. And then I auditioned, and lucky me, I got picked. But as far as the trust between me and Dava, Dava was my acting student many years ago now, and she know, just a fabulous student. And when you're in an acting class, at least in an educational setting, the classes that I've been part of, you develop a really sense of trust between everyone in the group. It becomes a safe space where you explore empathy, really. I think because we had that experience together, and I've worked with her through the years while she was a student at, uh, Hilo. We just built up a good foundation.

[29:12] Dayva Summer Escobar: Yeah, no, definitely. I receiving an email and it said that Easten Amatos had signed on, and I was so thrilled because I'd always really admired her and I enjoyed working with her so much. And I was like, oh, how wonderful. Because I was going to be graduating, and I was like, okay, are we going to be losing ties and stuff? And so it's such a wonderful adventure.

[29:30] Sheila: That's so cool. I really love what you say about that, that acting classes, particularly in an educational setting, create empathy and the vulnerability for people that haven't been in such a class because you only ever see it kind of on TV, usually done with a little comedy or you can't really get a sense of what actually happens and how terrifying it really is to reveal yourself in all these ways. It's not really just trying to act like other people. It's trying to find these parts of your humanity and then show them to each other and then hoping you're doing it with some craft. So all that vulnerability of whether or not you're talented, whether or not you're doing a good job. Yeah, it's quite a thing. I did more acting classes than I did acting, and I found it incredible and humbling and bonding. GB, when I asked you also about what the movie was about, you said, I like this. You said, there's a Little mermaid in all of us, and this movie is a love letter to all people who find peace in the ocean or find themselves outside the norms, kind of what you've already touched on a little bit, that this movie says there's nothing wrong with that. So having been in theater programs myself and theater people, I think artists of all kinds often feel like outsiders in some ways, and both relish and suffer from that. How do you think that sense of outsiderness, which maybe isn't true for everybody, but sort of delivers the artist. How does that sense allow your art to kind of come through?

[31:20] GB Hajim: I think that when you're an outsider and you're standing apart, that you have a different perspective that you can share, that other people might identify with, but they haven't really manifested within themselves, doesn't exist within the mainstream, but it makes them feel seen, and it makes them feel that they have a home on this planet. I mean, I grew up thinking I was an alien because nothing seemed to resonate with me here. So I think that that's the role of the artist. In some ways, that's the role of the artist. It's like you take that otherness, and you make it feel warm and fuzzy for the people that are struggling with it. But one thing that was brought up, I just want to speak to that was brought up. That vulnerability in the theater classes is that I brought in yesterday and Dava and we workshop the script from their own personal experiences so that the characters would really resonate with real feelings that they had about real events. That I didn't want to be performative. I wanted it to feel real. I really did.

[32:36] Sheila: Wow. Well, that's really courageous, too, to bring that into the story. So I can't wait to see it.

[32:41] GB Hajim: Oh, my God.

[32:42] Sheila: I might have to come to Hilo, too, but I'm definitely coming to Kona. Yeah. I was really thinking about trauma just in general, and I'm wondering, in relationship to creativity, do you think there's a spectrum where you need a certain amount of trauma to be able to be an artist, but then there's a tipping point where too much and you're not functioning. I don't know if that's a question any of you could answer, but I'm curious. All right, Shebe's got it.

[33:14] GB Hajim: I think Davis said it not too long ago that this world, you can't be in this world and not experience a certain level of trauma, so that we all experience that. I think that how we deal with it, how we process it, is all differently. And like the character Nell, she tries to shut it down and tries to contain it and tries to hold it in and hide it and bury it. And a lot of people, that's what they try doing, and it comes out sideways for them artists. A lot of times, we just wear it right on our sleeves, like, all over our with. It's imbued in everything that we do, and that's part of the way that we process it. So like I said, I think that everybody, you can't get through this world without experiencing some level of drama.

[34:02] Sheila: SO ALL OF YOU ARE REALLY. Oh, YES, GO AHEAD. No, please.

[34:07] Justina Mattos: I was just going to say that I think for artists, when we experience tragedy of some kind in our life, art really helps us cope with it in a way. And like GB said, process it. YEAH. Explore it, live in it, sit in it, and get through it, through your art.

[34:30] Sheila: I'm trying to remember who it was that I saw interviewed. I don't know if it was like it was or if it was the Utah Hagens book, but there was a great actress who talked about going through her mother's death and just feeling this agony and going, I can use this. I CAN USE. Yeah, I relate to know you guys are all really embodied artists, and you've all taken pretty good risks, powerful risks in your work. So I really want to ask each one of you, for a person who has that creative impulse, but who is too afraid to step through that threshold to create, and you stand as a teacher, you may really have good answers to this, too. What do you say to people who are being stopped by fear of mediocrity, by fear of you? I want to ask each one of you, I'll start with Justena. What could you say to people who are in that position?

[35:30] Justina Mattos: Well, there are different kinds of art, so I'll talk first about acting. And I often have students who say, oh, I can't do that. I don't do know. And I ask them to cry or scream or anything like that. And my answer to them is, this is where you give yourself permission to do things you wouldn't do in your normal life. We do a lot of that kind of thing in acting classes and the production work that I do with people. But there are also different kinds of art. Putting yourself on a stage or in front of a camera is too terrifying. There are other kinds of art you can use to process things going on in your life. You can use music. You can paint. You can pick up some crayons and draw. You can do mask making. Marriage started falling apart. I used mask making as a way, like, I'd be up in the middle of the night trying to process what was going on and cutting papers to make. There's a way of sculpting paper to make masks. And I remember being up in the middle hours of the night doing that, trying to think through my thoughts, because it also helps to keep your hands busy. I love that as you're processing thoughts yeah.

[37:01] Sheila: Dava. So I would just ask you the same question. You're very young. You have been obviously drawn into the arts for a long time. But if you had friends who were. I mean, I feel like I know a lot of people who say I'm not creative, but I know they are. And getting over that first threshold, I think you really said it first. Just. And it's permission, like giving yourself permission in this place, but, yeah. Is there anything you would say to people who are stuck in that place?

[37:33] Dayva Summer Escobar: I'd say that nobody has your perspective but you and everybody has something to offer. And I think our job as human beings is to share stories and share experience that makes everybody else feel less alone in their journeys, and you just pass it on from generations. And so I think it's a lot better to take the risk and maybe embarrass yourself or do it wrong than it is to not have risked at all, because I think that's a lot bigger of a risk to just not try. I guess you could.

[38:00] Justina Mattos: Sorry, you don't have to show your art to anyone else. You can just do it for yourself.

[38:06] Dayva Summer Escobar: That's true. There's such pressure to make art that's presentable. And I think I've struggled that a lot, too. Like making things that look good or that are perceived as skillful, when in reality, art is supposed to just be about the process and exploring yourself, and it should teach you about yourself and the journey rather than, I guess, the destination. Like that cliche?

[38:29] Sheila: No, I love those. That's awesome. TV. I know you have something to say.

[38:34] GB Hajim: Well, I mean, David just said it basically, that art is so much about. So many people are looking at the final product, and in film, unfortunately, that's all that people mostly see and all that they care about. They don't call about the budget or the struggle or anything that they're just like. They watch what's on screen and that's all that there is. But really, for the artist, by the time you finish a film, you've grown so much. You've changed so much that the film in some ways is **** to you because you already can make a better film now that you finished that film. And film making is such a long process. This was a quick film at two and a half years, and I've grown immensely as a filmmaker in that two and a half years. So, yeah, it's all about process, not the product. But the other thing is, and just didn't talk about it, and you don't have to make it for anybody. Else. I play guitar badly. I really play it terribly, and I don't play it for other people very often because it's so bad. But I play you just do it. Just go out and do it. Just try it. Fail. The bigger you fail, the more you learn. That's the thing that also I've learned in the process. If you do something and you do it really poorly, you learn far more than something that you've actually succeeded in. If you do something that comes off really great, how you can remember all the things that made it great, but when you do something that's working and that's not working, and that's not working and that's not working because so go out there and fail wondrously.

[40:15] Sheila: Oh, I love it. Well, and that certainly relates to everybody I've ever had on the podcast about surfing, because as anyone who's ever surfed knows, it's all failure. It's primarily failure, 99% failure. And then especially the older you learn. But it's those same with art, really. It's those tiny little windows, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, that flow like this tiny little windows where you have that moment that's got it.

[40:45] GB Hajim: Magic. Magic.

[40:46] Sheila: Got it.

[40:47] GB Hajim: That's what it was like in the movie, is that here we are in this rolling ball of chaos with this tiny crew and our tiny cast, and there'd just be certain moments where just like, oh, my God, we captured a little bit of magic.

[41:00] Sheila: Right know, I like to say to people overall about film, because I worked more in the Hollywood world, this accomplishment is so personal and so intense, and I really want to talk about the making of the film next. But I just always like to throw this out to people because people are so critical of films. It's so easy to rip films apart, and you're talking about these moments. It is so hard to have a moment. It takes so much. And so when I see a film, I just see all the work. I see all the people, all the dedication, all the years, and I have a lot of forgiveness for any film that I see. And I look for these moments because I know what it took from the writer, the director, the huge teams of people in those big budget films, the commitment, the years of their lives, the compromises. I worked for a big screenwriter, and to your point, GB about you evolved so much after years, and he would send the script off to the studio, and as soon as it was into the script meetings, that's when he had his best ideas. Like, as soon as you send it off, then you get all your ideas, especially if it starts filming. And then in Hollywood, a lot of times, the writers are kicked off the set. It's all kinds of madness. But I just like to honor on all scales, the art of all of it. This is another reason for everybody to try art so that you have compassion, appreciation for those moments, too. Like, wow, they got there. So that's just my rah rah for filmmakers altogether.

[42:42] GB Hajim: And the other thing that people have to realize, that you shoot a film with these intentions, and you capture so many beautiful moments. We spent way too long down here on the river with Dava, and we shot all this beautiful stuff of her coming with the river, struggling, busting her butt, hurting, know, and it was so freaking gorgeous, but it was way too long to put it all in there. And so we kept on paring it and paring it down, but we lost so many beautiful, gorgeous moments. And if I was Peter Jackson and everybody knew my name, they would be in there. I mean, he could put a five minute sequence of Hobbits walking across New Zealand, and people will watch it. But since I don't have that name cred, I had to be very careful on how much time we spend looking just at the beauty of it all and the magic of it all. What's in service of the story? And people don't realize that. People don't realize that there's this film that you shot that might be so magnificent, but you get to the editing room, and everything has to service the story.

[43:55] Sheila: So let's talk about. Just give me the quick recap GB of the genesis of how the film came together. But I really want to talk about some of the scenes you were describing and how they were shot, the mermaids descending on the beach, and all of that. But just to give, because you talked about it developing over just a couple of months. But I just want you to share a little bit more about how quickly it came together and your intention of setting it regionally so that it was something you had a mentor that told you that, like, just shoot this film with where you're at, so just give that little bit of background, and then let's get into some.

[44:34] GB Hajim: So right before COVID I had been struggling for years to fund this horror comedy called the Big Pig, which is set on the Hamakua coast. BUt I raised enough money to shoot it not here, but in Colombia. And so we were getting ready to put together that whole situation to move the cast down there and all that. Then COVID hit, and the money ran away, and so I didn't want to go through that again. And I put myself in this creative lab wide class for producers, and they had Sean Baker there, who shot Tangerine on iPhone Five s or iPhone seven s. And that got into Sundance. And so that really, in some ways, launched his career. He'd made movies before that. There's this myth about everybody starts at Sundance. No, he'd been making movies for a while, but that really launched his career. And he basically said to me, you have the ability, you have the equipment. Go look around you. What can you make with what you have? Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for money. Just go make a movie. And basically, that afternoon, after he said that, mermaid's lament kind of popped in my brain when I was thinking about the ocean and all these kinds of things. And I think that was in March, and I thought it was the end of March that I contacted David, but it might have been the beginning of April. She was the first thing that popped in my brain when I thought mermaids because of Ariel, the Little Mermaid. And so I brought her in, and Liz, who is one of the key people in our tiny little crew, she was one of our former students when I was teaching film at the community college. And so we brought together this small team, and we started workshopping the ideas behind the film struggles, the pivotal moments. And we have these, like, I don't know, weekly meetings. Tapa.

[46:33] Dayva Summer Escobar: Yeah, because we had one on Zoom, and then we met in person, and then I think you brought in, like, Rosellio and a good handful of others.

[46:39] GB Hajim: Yeah. And so we would just sit there and just workshop everything. And. Yeah, we were shooting, so end of March, came up with the idea, and we were shooting by the end of May. So it's very fast compared to usually one to two years to write a script and then finding the money for two to God knows how many years. So it was incredibly fast that we ended up in production.

[47:03] Sheila: That really is incredible. And I love just that it grew out of that. You just went right to workshop, like, let's do it. Let's make this story and just have it come to life. So once you started filming, I have people that are listening locally, but there's a lot of people that may not. And there's ocean is one thing, but we're not talking just ocean here. We are talking about rocky, jagged, sharp, reefy, hurling, sucking vortexy. I mean, the ocean here is not easy. There's no nice sandy bottoms. This isn't even know the land was created last week when GB was walking on, you know. Now the know has its own say so. You had described a couple of scenes for me, GB, but let's talk about going into the water and how did you do that filming? I mean, you mentioned, of course, in big Hollywood, they film in tanks. They don't do this. They don't drag their mermaids into the lava created. Dave is a surfer, but I doubt everybody was. And you're a free diver and Merman, but were you jumping in there with the cameras? How did this all work? Like, walk us through some of these scenes.

[48:33] GB Hajim: I'm going to open it up to them, too, but I'm going to just set the stage a little bit for a couple of locations that we worked in. One location that we shot was Puco, and Puco is a rocky shore with about 100 meters swim to the drop off. So you're swimming over shallow water for 100 meters, then it drops off to about ten meter depth. There's no sandy bottom. And then this terrible place that Estena had to do one of her seminal scenes was La Poyo Point, which is all these jagged rocks. And David did a scene out there, too. And there's no sand at all. There's zero sand there. So those are the two most intense. The mermaid scene. We shot a Holkenna, which has a sandy beach and is in a sandy bay, but still, we had to ferry some of the mermaids in and out on paddleboards because the distance of where we wanted to shoot in the bay to where the beach was, was quite extensive, and the water gets cold, and we were in the water all day. So as far as that goes, those are the things, the places that they should talk about as far as shooting it. Rosalia was our DP, but he didn't really have much underwater experience. So I brought in Ron Murray, who did an incredible job, and Warren, who did an amazing job as well. And then I went in just with my GoPro. And amazingly enough, we ended up actually using some of the GoPro footage, because the GoPro, you can get way more intimate than one of these big housing cameras, so that you'll see, like, there's a lot of intimate shots, and a lot of them were taken with a GoPro. So I'll let them speak to the puko shoot and the Lapo Hoyoi shoot. Just know that I did bleed at La Poyo, so they weren't the only ones suffering.

[50:30] Sheila: Is this Lapo hoy hoy on the Kona side or the point over on? Yeah. Okay, so where should we start, ladies? Should we start with Puako.

[50:43] Dayva Summer Escobar: Can I just say that at La Pahoi Point, our probably most arduous shooting moment wasn't even in the movie.

[50:50] Sheila: Oh, no.

[50:51] Dayva Summer Escobar: Had us like, kneeing in this lava, rocky, freezing water at like eleven at night. Poor use. Jenna had to be laying in it for like 2 hours.

[51:03] Justina Mattos: That was not the scariest part, though. It was going to the jagged rocks in the dark, and I wasn't familiar with that area prior to the darkness, so I didn't know what I was walking into. And the waves are crashing and the rocks are sharp, and I had put on knee pads and tubbies on my feet to protect my feet, and it was cold. But what I really appreciated was know, being asked to do scary things like that. There was nothing that GB ever asked us to do that he wasn't right out there doing with us. He was right out there.

[51:45] Sheila: I don't know.

[51:46] Justina Mattos: Were you holding the boom for that?

[51:47] GB Hajim: No, I was holding the light. I was holding the light for Ron.

[51:54] Justina Mattos: That's my little shout of appreciation.

[51:57] Dayva Summer Escobar: No, that's so true. Because there were times like on the same day that we first started shooting and we had to trudge up an entire riverbed. There is this area where there is a waterfall and I mean, it looked a little bit sketchy, but GB was sure to walk himself all the way over there and do the scene for me first. So make sure I was.

[52:18] Sheila: Where? I don't know which area of the river, but. The Wailuku River. I see, you mean.

[52:24] GB Hajim: Yeah, no, it's actually a river right on my property called.

[52:29] Sheila: Just. Okay. Everywhere I've been in the rivers, it's slippery. There's crazy cane grass. Not just want to paint the picture for people. It's not like walking along the river with the little smooth. It's like slippery and muddy and red mud and cold. Really cold. The river water is very cold, too. Not just chilly because it's night, but yeah, everything is so wild that you guys are talking about.

[53:00] GB Hajim: There's no lifeguards.

[53:05] Sheila: Go to these places that you're talking about. It is not Zuma Six. It is not Baywatch.

[53:13] GB Hajim: Nobody's coming to save you if you **** up, right?

[53:17] Sheila: Nobody is. And nobody will get there in time, too.

[53:22] GB Hajim: It's a big island.

[53:24] Sheila: Yeah. There's a wildness to it that it's hard to explain to everyone. And it's why occasionally tourists come once or twice a year and get washed off rocks. It's really sad, but they just don't have any concept of being in the know, like, it really is. So now you guys courageously GB, what'd you do with their footage?

[53:44] GB Hajim: Oh, you mean that suffering?

[53:45] Sheila: What happened to Poija?

[53:48] GB Hajim: Since it was mostly cut from the movie, I guess I could talk about it. There's this great movie called the Fisher King. I don't know if you guys know Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams. And Robin Williams plays this almost mystical character who imagines this knight this night that's on fire, and it's kind of his nemesis. And I thought that was such a beautiful thing. Like, I want to do something like this in the movie. And so we had all these scenes where we were having basically a flamethrower with a mask on it and blowing flames all over the place to try to represent this just terrible, patriarchal, industrial power that was oppressive, and it just was too much when I got to the editing room, so I just kept on cutting it. We shot all these very strenuous swimming scenes at Lapaway Point all day and got them out of the way. And then at the end of the night, we had to do these fire monster scenes. We had poor Cam with the fire monster, our key grip. He's holding fireman. So the flames. The wind's blowing the flames back on him. He's searing the hair off of his arms and all this stuff. And, yeah, Stena and Dave are freezing cold from being in the water. All know. And the wind's all blowing, and, yeah, we ended up cutting all that ****.

[55:09] Sheila: You needed some of that flame a little closer to you.

[55:12] GB Hajim: It was already too close. It was already too close.

[55:15] Sheila: Yeah. You're, like, going back to your roots. So, all right, let's talk about some Puico action. So I want to explain what it feels like to go to what a drop off feels like in Hawaii. So I would reference most people to finding Nemo. It's a drop off, except in this area. It's sharp coral. It's sea urchins that you're floating over, like, all of these things that can cut and scrape you, and then suddenly it's the deep abyss where who knows what lives there. So what were you doing in Puaco? What were those shots like? Were you swimming with this mermaiding or what was happening?

[56:01] GB Hajim: The weding dress day?

[56:04] Dayva Summer Escobar: Yeah, that's right. There were times where I was pushed out on the paddle board, and I paddled back in, but I was, like, chauffeured out on, like, a water taxi. And then there are other times where Jeebie would carry me into the water. I think he just came out in his water shoes and helped me walk over. But, yeah, that was the arduous wedding dress scene.

[56:24] Sheila: Okay, that's. And that's when you had to go.

[56:28] Dayva Summer Escobar: Yeah, it was just so soggy that I felt myself getting pushed down just with the weight of my dress.

[56:36] Sheila: Yeah, that's okay. And did you see any sharks or any creatures coming up from there?

[56:42] Dayva Summer Escobar: No, but we did hear that there's a shark setting, like a sighting later that evening.

[56:47] Sheila: Exactly.

[56:48] GB Hajim: Tiger shark. But that was a moment where it's like when you have just enough people to get the shot, but not enough people to actually manage everything. We had me and the two other cameramen in the water because I wanted to try to get as many angles as possible. And most of the time, it worked. But when the sea turtles came right up to Dava, we were all in each other's shots, so I almost could use none of that. And it was so sad. Like, I got into the editing room, like, oh, no, Warren's in the background. Ron's in the background of that shot. No, there's always somebody in the background of the shot with Dava and the sea turtles. But, yeah, we had sea turtles come right up to so magical moment where she almost looks like she's lifting one of the sea turtles up, not touching it, just like right motioning. And the sea turtle just comes right up.

[57:41] Sheila: Oh, that's funny. All these things. One thing I also love about what you're talking about is how you get things in your head and imagine they're going to be, and then have they are this concept, and anyone that's ever tried to write anything or do anything, you just think you have the most brilliant idea, and then there it is, and you're like, oh, that is not quite what I meant. But you keep going, and it's just a great story for anybody that's trying to do anything. Like, you do everything full out, and you just don't know what's going to work for the next thing that you're making. But you have these incredible stories and memories of what you made, and you did it and you survived, and it's living on in its own piece of art somewhere. So, Justina, what is, did you have experience in the ocean coming into this?

[58:43] Justina Mattos: Well, I grew up in Hawaii, so going to the beach, not every day, but very frequently. And the beach was always where if I was sad or sick, I would go to the ocean to feel better. And I think everybody in this room probably has done that. I've always felt a sense of peace being at the ocean, but not so.

[59:14] Sheila: Much being in the ocean as much as in the ocean, too. Okay, so what was the scariest filming for you? Was that the Lapo hoy, that was scary.

[59:29] Justina Mattos: And the deep diving. We trained with a world champion free diver, and then we all went out to where Dayva was talking about how she went down 30ft. And I didn't know, but I also have an ear issue, so I couldn't go past, like ten or 12ft. I think it just hurt too much and I couldn't equalize my ears. But I realized that I have a fear of sharks because I was worried about that while we were up there. And I also realized how peaceful it is when you just hang out down there and you're just in this blue abyss. And some of those words that Nell speaks at the end of the film, if it didn't get cut, are feelings that I actually felt being down there and just existing where there seems to be no sense of time or anything except you in the blue abyss. It's pretty beautiful. It's a wonderful experience.

[01:00:37] Sheila: Oh, I love that. And it's something sometimes surfers forget to have that experience because it becomes this jonesing for the next wave. So sometimes you don't find that place where you have pushed yourself, but you're just present. This is sort of an OD shout out, but if you on Instagram, there's an Instagram called Sharks of Hawaii, and it will either bring you great comfort or great discomfort. But he has a drone, and he films the sharks cruising mostly along the Kona coast. And so you'll see the sharks just swimming right past the surfers, the swimmers, some of them very large tigers, just totally disinterested. And my daughter and I did this amazing dive. I so recommend it. With one ocean dive over on Oahu where you go out and you swim with sharks. Not in a cage, they don't. Chum. One ocean dive is created by Ocean Ramsey, who's done a lot of work to try and bring awareness to sharks. But we went out and you always get, oh, my gosh. The name of the sharks, not the Madagascar Galapagos. Thank you so much. Yeah. So the Galapagos and the sand sharks. But my daughter desperately wanted to see a tiger shark. Okay. This was not my goal. It was her 18th birthday. So sure enough, two tiger sharks show up. And I have the most amazing footage. And it was just a really. Now, I did do some self hypnosis before I went in, so the photographer would say, like, swim out there towards the shark, and I'd be like, got to get the shot. Got to get the shot. But it was weirdly, incredibly calming. And when this shark turned around and looked at me right in the eye, it was just the most ancient being, just DNA from I don't even know how long. And you just felt this kind of jolt through your nervous system. But we named her Natasha. She was just know, a little bit curious. So it doesn't in any way diminish whether or not another shark could get confused. But it was a really incredible feeling. I mean, I can't describe it. It was a oneness in a sense. Yeah. That I just felt an ease, kind of like that deep blue. So I like to share that story because we do have so much shark fear, many of us. But I also think it's good that we're animals, and when we have a bad feeling, we should go in. I don't know, that was a distraction, but I really came to appreciate sharks because I've been surfing a long time, but they do scare me. Jimmy, this is from yesterday.

[01:03:35] GB Hajim: This is from yesterday. Yeah. There's one cave that I swim into, Fuku, and there hasn't been the shark there for a while. And yesterday I was blessed to have that shark. But, yeah, to speak to what you experienced, I think that anybody has a problem with being present, just go swim with the sharks. You will be present. You will be absolutely present, and in the moment, there's nothing that pulls you into the moment and puts you right in your body than being there with a shark because you can't think of anything else. No other thought is as important.

[01:04:09] Sheila: That is really well put. Yeah, really well put. Maybe that's why it's so peaceful in such a weird way. So since nobody could see what you just held up, describe the picture you just showed.

[01:04:21] GB Hajim: Oh, yeah. I swam down to a cave off a puako, and inside the cave was about a five foot white tip reef shark, and it was circling around, and then it wanted some space, so it came at me to give it some space, and then I didn't move away, so it went back into the cave, deep into the cave, and that's the end of the shot. But, yeah, it was a great little interaction with the shark.

[01:04:51] Sheila: It was beautiful. So the last piece I'll really talk to is this, and this whole mermaiding thing that you kind of started in the very beginning talking about. First of all, describe this image of how many mermaids descended upon you with their tails.

[01:05:09] GB Hajim: So I put out a call via Facebook and all the social media and just found every mermaid that lived anywhere on this island and just said, hey, show up at Ho Cana on the steak. Because we're filming this movie. And we had over 20 mermaids show up, including children that were too small to actually be in the movie. But we tried, and, yeah, it was an amazing scene to have all these mermaids out on the beach, putting on their tails and swimming out with us. And we created some spectacular moments out there in Ho'Canna. And we did get permits for that shoot. We had a lot of gorilla shooting in this movie, but we did get permits for that one.

[01:05:52] Sheila: Probably not a lot of La Poihoi permits issued, I wouldn't think.

[01:05:57] GB Hajim: I think we got a permit for La Poy. Most of the water scenes we had to get permits for because we didn't want to get shut down. It was too much. It's too involved to be out there to get shut down. So we got permits for almost all of our water activities. But, yeah, I could let Dayva speak to the day at, um, every other time we went out. Dayva was, like, the centerpiece and the shoot.

[01:06:22] Dayva Summer Escobar: Yeah, no, that was crazy. If you can imagine just a beautiful, kind of blackish, whitish sand beach filled with all these women in mermaid tales who love mermaiding. And we're all just swimming out. It looked like one turtles hatch.

[01:06:37] Sheila: Yeah.

[01:06:38] Dayva Summer Escobar: And he had us all swim out about, like, a half to maybe a full mile way out there.

[01:06:42] Sheila: Oh, wow.

[01:06:43] Dayva Summer Escobar: It was beautiful, but it was quite a swim. And there was this one scene where he wanted all the mermaids leaving Oe while Oe was not standing. Well, essentially standing underwater as they go away before going the opposite direction. And I remember just how challenging that scene was, because every single time I would be about to run out of breath, they would just be starting to swim the opposite direction. So they had to put a weight in my tail to keep me down. And just imagine being so deep that you can't see the bottom, really, and you're just weighted down, and you're like, I have to hold my breath or else I'm going to ruin the scene. So that was crazy, but also such a fantasy moment. I remember there was another during that day where they were trying to get some shots of just oe swimming and frolicking and loving the ocean. And we had found out later Ron, who is always so on top of it, had accidentally been clicking play record when we were done shooting each little snippet. So as soon as everybody started to swim in, Ron was like, oh, shoot, and we had to retake that. That was crazy. But it ended up better, so it was a good thing.

[01:07:51] Justina Mattos: Oh, my gosh.

[01:07:53] GB Hajim: Yeah, I guess that was a demanding director moment. It's like, it's not deep enough here. We need to go further. It's not quite deep enough. We need to just go a little bit further because we had to have it deep enough for this one shot where the mermaids are circling around on the surface so that the diver had to get down and shoot up so that we could have a big circle of mermaids overhead.

[01:08:15] Sheila: Wow.

[01:08:15] GB Hajim: And if you're shoveling, you just can't do it. So you have to keep on going to a spot where it's okay. We finally got the shot. We did that whole shoot. I think we all did free diving. We didn't have any scuba. Ron brought Scuba gear to a couple of the shoots, but that one, I think, was all free diving, which was pretty crazy. Yeah.

[01:08:38] Sheila: Wow. So were you already a mono finner? Were you already good, David, at swimming with a monofin?

[01:08:47] Dayva Summer Escobar: Gosh, no. I hated fins so much. I had never swam with a mermaid fin before. But we did one rehearsal where we just kind of swam laps in GB's pool, and then that was that. The next time we swam with it was in the.

[01:09:03] Sheila: Did you. I was going to say, did you grow too accustomed to it, or were you ready to kick that thing off?

[01:09:09] Dayva Summer Escobar: Kind of both. I definitely enjoyed it, but I didn't really know what to do with my arms, and it was like, how do I control this?

[01:09:16] Sheila: All right. Yeah, I haven't seen. I'm going to have to. Well, I guess I'm going to see some footage of these mermaids pretty soon, but it is. I know it's a thing. I mean, GB, you said there's hundreds of thousands of people who basically identify as mermaids.

[01:09:30] GB Hajim: There's a patty certification now that you can get in mermaiding. So, yeah, it's a big thing now.

[01:09:36] Sheila: That's really wild. And then. I know. Well, I was going to ask this question. I was going to ask, but I'm not going to ask it because I don't want to give anything away about the film, so I'm beyond that. Well, thank you so much for all of you coming. Is there anything else you want to share about the film that I haven't touched on? I see long silences.

[01:09:57] GB Hajim: Everybody should come. Everybody should come to the screenings. Everybody talks about supporting independent artists, and this is your chance to support a bunch of independent artists. The only way that Hawaii island film is going to grow is by the community supporting, you know, I just hope that we have huge turnouts at all the theaters, and then I could take those huge turnouts and book theaters on the mainland and then spread this mermaid goodness all across the it.

[01:10:26] Sheila: I love it. So send me, we'll talk afterwards and get the links of ticket sales. And I think I know if you go to Mermaids Lament on Instagram, there's a link there for the Hilo Tickets Aloha Theater. You can just Google Mermaids lament and is there any. I know you're going to try and stay in theaters. Do you have any goal to have a streaming option or a different way to release it at some point?

[01:10:52] GB Hajim: We will definitely be streaming. It's just I don't want to, I guess this is a whole other thing. My last film took me almost ten years to make, and by the time I was done with it, I was so burned out, I went straight to the first distributor that offered me money up front and just gave it to them. And they're a very good distributor. There's very few good distributors out there that will do good reporting and give you the money that you earn, but they weren't good at promoting it. So I rushed into a distributor that was really not a perfect fit, and I don't want to do that with this film. So I'm not rushing it. Originally I was wanting to do a streaming release by this winter, and now when it happens, when it happens the right way, there will be a streaming release, but I don't know exactly when I want to have the right partners to do that.

[01:11:36] Sheila: Well, when that happens, I will probably relist this podcast because there is kind of a big international, you know, since they won't have a chance to know right here in Hawaii. But also we'll definitely share. We want to get people into theaters to see, so well, it was really fun. I really appreciate you guys all showing up and taking time of your day, and I'm really excited to share this, share all of these pieces and this beautiful story. So thank you.