The ocean’s vastness has inspired a great many movies. Using a GoPro,  Swiss filmmaker Simon Helbling adds to the sea drama genre with “For the Sea Which Is a Shining Desert.” This remarkable  short film about survival was honored as the Best Swiss Film at the 2017 MoMo Film Festival. Currently earning a master’s degree in filmmaking at the London Film School, the director takes us behind the scenes in an interview following the movie.

Interview with Simon Helbling

MMM: What motivated you to become a filmmaker?

Helbling: Unfortunately, I don’t have a fancy “epiphany story.” I never thought of doing anything else.

MMM:  How did you develop your filmmaking skills?

Helbling: I learned my skills working in theatre as a director for ten years. I always had a very visual mind.  But when I started working in movies, for a long time I was not able to communicate about technical issues such as  t-stops and focal length. That made me work very closely in communicating my “vision” to the crew.

MMM: So really you learned on the job?

Helbling: Yes. I made hundreds of commericals for online release. I  learned the “hard way” from the many mistakes that I made.  And then I learned the even “harder way” and worked in every possible department. I also read every book I could find, watched hundreds of youtube videos, went to film school, listened to podcasts, read interviews, and watched thousands of movies with an eye on “How did they do it?”

MMM: Did any filmmakers influence your work?

Helbling: I can name three.  Ava Duvernay inspires me with her relevant stories, Naomi Kawase who tells stories that are so humble and so honest, and Paolo Sorrentino who uses a fun meandering approach.

MMM: How did you come up with the concept for your movie?

Helbling: The idea came from a thought experiment: “Humans in desperate situations tend to support each other. So what might it take in a “laboratory situation” with two people completely isolated to make them turn against each other? This idea seemed so simple and clear that I wanted to craft a story out of it.

MMM: Could you explain the title?

Helbling: It’s a line from “Another Poem of the Gifts,” a poem of Jorge Luis Borges I really like. This juxtaposition of being surrounded by water and actually in risk of dehydration is very compelling.

MMM: How did you plan the shoot?

Helbling:  When I shoot with a mobile device, I work the same way as I work with any other camera instrument, meaning there was a script, a breakdown, a mark-up, a shot list, and storyboards.

MMM: Where did the shoot take place?

Helbling:  At the coast near Rome.

MMM: Could you talk about casting the movie?

Helbling: I was lucky enough to have worked with Salvatore Greco before. He’s a terrific actor and had just finished a big series in German television. We both wanted to work together again. I played the other role in the film just to reduce the costs of getting people there. This was literally made on set by three people: the DP (cinematographer) Andi Meyer who also recorded sound, the actor Salvatore Greco and me.

MMM:  Tell us about your approach to directing.

Helbling: The situation didn’t allow for us to do replays of what we have shot. So we rehearsed beforehand in the living room of the Airbnb we were staying in. We used the couch as the boat and rehearsed every shot to get it right.

MMM: Why did you decide to shoot using a GoPro rather than a traditional camera

Helbling: We couldn’t afford a proper water tight case for a cinema grade camera or a DSLR. As a joke, the DP said “Well, I have a GoPro,” and we laughed about it. But then I got a visual memory of all the Youtube and Instagram stuff we are constantly seeing. There is a tremendous intimacy evoked by the GoPro footage of surfers, for example. You feel like you are in the middle of the action. So I started to look closer about how I could use the GoPro look as a storytelling value.

MMM: How did you achieve those spectacular high-angle (bird’s-eye-view) shots?

Helbling: We just used a long GoPro stick. Thanks to the short focal length of the GoPro lens, distance gets exaggerated, and we were able to pull off those shots. We absolutely intended to have a drone kind of extreme long shot. But weren’t able to use drones because we were shooting pretty close to the Fiumicino Airport in Rome.

MMM: What other gear did you use?

Helbling: Regarding lights nothing but the sun. For audio we had a zoom mic in the camera boat. Grip stuff included a stick, a head mount and about three or four cameras.

MMM: Did you encounter any unexpected problems?

Helbling: Ha! Massively. Our schedule allowed only two shooting days, and we knew it was a high risk shoot because we would be on open water all day. We had the action prop boat, which was just a regular boat, and also a hard shell boat for the camera. Both wouldn’t be any good in the slightest waves. We had a long list of safety points in order to keep the shoot as safe as possible. We were ready, but then . the first day the sea was so stormy we couldn’t get anything. That meant we  had to adapt and make it happen in one day, which was also the day we had to check out the airbnb, go to the airport, and catch the plane. So  there was zero room for unnecessary retakes. In my opinion, problem solving—adapting without compromising—is the ultimate skill for a director.

MMM: Now what about editing?

Helbling: This was done with Premiere. Because of the unstable boats, we often drifted and had a coastline in the background while we obviously wanted to portray an open, endless sea. This meant there was a lot of frame by frame brushing involved to get rid of the land. The transitions—fading to black— were part of the original idea from the script, to mark clearly “chapters.” We didn’t want to be explicit about how much time was passing.

MMM: And the soundtrack?

Helbling: We originally used a music track but getting the rights would have taken too long and was too expensive, so I composed and recorded my own soundtrack using nothing but Apple music-making software.

MMM: You give onscreen credit to the cinematographer, the editor, and the costume designer. Could you talk about the contributions of these artists?

Helbling: The costume designer Carola Bachmann and I have worked together many times. What characters are wearing is to me a huge thing. It helps the actors discover their characters and can be a very strong, subtle and honest storytelling device. The editor Luca Faes is an experienced storyteller and working with him on the footage was a no-bullshit situation, meaning no matter how much I liked a shot, if it didn’t had any story value, he wouldn’t let me have it. I also had worked with the cinematographer Andi Meyer before, and his part in this film is huge. We carefully crafted the storyboard and shotlist, discussed in long exhausting sessions the best way to tell the story, and re-wrote parts of the story. This led the situation that on set I never checked the footage. I knew he would get it right. It was kind of “directing in extremis”, meaning that we had to have such a proper pre-production to work in these conditions. On set, I was able to watch the performance directly and not through a monitor or in replay, and knew the framing would be as Andi and discussed.

MMM: Do you have any advice for people who are just beginning to make movies?

Helbling: Be honest. Make mistakes. Learn from mistakes. If you think you are Kubrick or you’ll become famous, let it be. If you have a story to tell, tell it. If you think you can’t afford it, think again and check your pocket. There’s the camera—your phone.

MMM: Want to say more about that?

Helbling: Filmmaking used to be the most expensive art form. It was a very privileged thing. But with phones, we are actually in the middle of the probably greatest cinematic storytelling revolution since color came to the pictures. Mobile filmmaking enables literally everybody who has a mobile to tell visual stories. This means we will hear voices we never heard before. The privilege barrier gets knocked down by this technological advancement. Plus we filmmakers actually can do training. Without any other investment than time, we can perfect our skills: set up shot, evaluate our storytelling approach, etc. Sure, there are always limitations and we always have to adapt. But that’s true even on a multimillion dollar production. What counts is that we have democratized the most privileged art form. and I think we aren’t even aware yet of what this will mean. A good story will always be a good story, everywhere, and that means, that those voices that now have the possibility to tell the story will be heard.

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You can find more about Simon’s work on Instagram, Twitter, his website,  and his Kickstarter campaign for his next film “The Weight Of The Land.”

The editors of MobileMovieMaking Magazine have chosen “For The Sea Which Is a Shining Desert” as a Mobile Movie of the Week.