At last night’s screening of Vindication Swim and during its post-screening discussions at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, we learned all kinds of cool, interesting, and unique backstories of the independent British film written and directed by Elliott Hasler and produced by his father Simon Hasler.

Swimming Scenes

Lead actor and executive producer Kirsten Callaghan who played protagonist Mercedes Gleitze did all the swimming scenes herself. No stunt women, no body doubles, no green screens and computer graphics were used to film or edit the swimming scenes in the English Channel or the authentic 1920’s pool in Birmingham.

Callaghan knew how to swim before she signed on to play Gleitze, the most prolific marathon swimmer of her generation, but she had to step up her open water swimming game. As such, she trained extremely hard and diligently for this role in the year leading up to the start of filming and continued training throughout the three years of filming.

Water Temperatures

Callaghan is a British/Irish actor and built up a good resilience to the cold water temperatures in the English Channel, but Hasler filmed in the English Channel from April to October where Callaghan did not wear a wetsuit – ever – in water temperatures that ranged from 7°C to 17°C. She worked in the cold water for up to four hours of filming at a time.

Wool Swimsuit

The production sourced an actual old wool swimsuit from the 1920s for Callaghan to wear that gave the film an air of genuine authenticity.

Googles and Swim Cap

Callaghan wore old-school goggles and a swim cap from the 1920s. The Hasler’s could only find one swim cap from that era with an old-fashioned chip strap. In the film, Gleitze complains of chafing due to the chin strap. But in the actual filming, the hat unfortunately broke. “We look all over, but we could not find a replacement…anywhere,” recalls Elliott. “We had some a lot of filming with that one old swim cap, so we had to work into the story line how Mercedes continued swimming without that swim cap.”

Street Scenes

The Hasler’s were working on less than a shoestring budget, but Elliott wanted to make the film with the production quality of The King’s Speech, a historical drama starring Colin Firth who plays the future King George VI in the 1930’s.

But this meant that the vehicles used in the street scenes had to showcase authentic cars of the 1920’s.

So Simon committed himself to calling up classic car clubs in England and told them that their cars would be featured in a film made by his then 19-year-old son Elliott, but that he could not pay them anything but their gasoline. The classic car owners were only too happy to oblige his requests – and the resultant street scenes showed these classic cars from the 1920’s.

1920’s Wardrobe

Similarly to his request from the classic car club owners, Simon called up U3A, University of the 3rd Age, the Women’s Institute, and local amateur dramatics troupes in the area and asked them to loan them both extras and wardrobe from the 1920’s. Like the car owners, the troupes lent their wardrobe and themselves to the film effort.

Simon was greatly appreciative, “We don’t come from the film industry and our family worked with our son so we could help him achieve his dream of making this film about a long-forgotten heroine.”

Environmental Perspective

Elliott said, “We did not use one single-use plastic in the making of this film. We localized everything that we could and made sure that we were low-impact on every aspect of maintaining and preserving the environment. Our oceans, and indeed the English Channel, have suffered a lot in recent years so it was very important to us, as we were utilizing this incredible environment, that we didn’t have any negative impact upon it.”

Breaststroke versus Freestyle

During the movie, Gleitze was filmed using both breaststroke and freestyle in swimming across the English Channel and in her training, both in the Thames and in the Victorian swimming pool where Gleitze trained in the 1920’s.

But, Elliott reminds us, “Mercedes only used breaststroke in her channel crossings and marathon swims. She didn’t use freestyle. But there were scenes where I thought filming her using freestyle were more appropriate because the speed and dynamism of the scene was enhanced.”

Real Jellyfish

With hundreds of hours out in the English Channel, Elliott had plenty of time to get acquainted with real jellyfish. The jellyfish that appear in the film were real, live jellyfish – not computer-generated or animated jellyfish.

Youthful Inspiration

Elliott was 18 years old when he first heard of Gleitze and the remarkable life she led. Elliott was born in the same hometown was in Brighton on the south coast of England, about an hour south of London. He loves retelling and recruiting stories of remarkable people – and Elliott researched everything that he could about the first person to swim the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco, who crossed from Robben Island to Cape Town in South Africa, and becam the first British woman to swim the English Channel.

He started writing the screenplay at 18 and filmed the entire movie – by himself – over the next three years: the street scenes, the channel swimming scenes, the bar scenes, the work environment and boss encounter, the shoreline, the post-swim inquisition hearings, the intense discussions – both indoors and outdoors – between Gleitze, her coach Harold Best played by John Locke, and rival swimmer named Edith Gade who was played by Los Angeles-based Victoria Summer.

Gade was a character who fictionalized the real Dr. Dorothy Cochrane Logan whose hoax swim called into question Gleitze’s actual 1927 crossing that led to Gleitze having to repeat her channel crossing attempt under difficult conditions in late October 1927.

Future Projects and Inspiration

Elliott is inspired by three-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg. He loved the movie Jaws that Spielberg filmed at the age of 26. It was Spielberg’s post-Jaws advice to never film out on the ocean that inspired Elliott to shoot Vindication Swim at sea.

Could we see the emerging career of a British Spielberg?

We can only imagine his creative genius with a Hollywood budget.

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