Jill Heinerth & Nays Baghai: Diving into the Darkness

In this captivating episode, award-winning film director Nays Baghai and legendary cave explorer Jill Heinerth discuss their collaborative journey in creating the film 'Diving into the Darkness.' They delve into the complexities of underwater filming, the importance of safety protocols, and the emotional depth of storytelling. The conversation highlights the challenges faced during production, the role of fear in diving, and the significance of sound design. Both guests share personal anecdotes, bloopers, and insights into the diving community, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and authenticity in filmmaking.

Chapters

• 2:00 Catching up with Nays
• 3:00 From book to big screen
• 8:15 Extreme re-enactments
• 17:25 Equipment issues & the difficulties in filming
• 31:00 Fear
• 38:50 The creation of sound
• 46:32 Memorable moments
• 49:49 Diving with Master Liveaboards
• 53:15 Jills current and future work
• 56:24 Jills advice for aspiring dive explorers
• 1:03:30 The diving community & it’s equality

Transcript

[00:01:43] Matt Waters: Welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. How's Sydney treating you so far? 

[00:01:48] Jill Heinerth: Fantastic. If I can ever get on this time zone, I'll be happy.

[00:01:53] Matt Waters: Hence the coffees. 

[00:01:54] Jill Heinerth: Yes. 

[00:01:55] Matt Waters: Excellent. Excellent. It's been a while, mate. 

[00:01:59] Nays Baghai: Yeah, it's been too long. 

[00:02:00] Matt Waters: Yeah, and, um, as I've just suggested on the intro there, I think, uh, it would be quite nice to hear about your journey from last we met to where we are now. 

[00:02:10] Nays Baghai: Well, funny you bringing that up is because I remember when I was last on the show, I was literally days away from driving down to Montgomery to do my first ever cave course, driving to Melbourne for AUSTEC where we ran into each other again.

Yep. Then I had to catch a flight all the way to Ottawa to work with Jill and then for the next two months I was on the road bringing the bulk of principal photography for Diving Into The Darkness. And then 15 months of editing later it's finally ready to be seen in the cinema. 

[00:02:42] Matt Waters: God, it's awesome as well.

Um, spoiler alert, it's awesome. 

[00:02:46] Jill Heinerth: How much do you think you aged in that process? Well, let me put it this 

[00:02:50] Nays Baghai: way. I definitely saw my first grey hair in Mexico. And I like to say that I'm 26, but I'm 59 in fatigue years. 

[00:03:01] Matt Waters: Now, um, Jill, how, how did it all come about? Because, you know, you're in Canada. He's down here in Australia.

How on earth did you two meet and then decide on how this project was going to go ahead? 

[00:03:11] Jill Heinerth: We actually met here. We met in Sydney at the OzTech tech diving show Seven years ago. 

[00:03:17] Speaker 5: Yeah, 

[00:03:18] Jill Heinerth: and Nase came up to me and asked if I had a moment and we And we struck up a friendship and they continued over the years.

And I guess, I guess it was during COVID that you read my book and, uh, shifted gears. Well, maybe I 

[00:03:30] Nays Baghai: bought it just before, uh, like when it came out in late 2019. And I remember when I first got a copy of it, as soon as I hit the first page, I was like, I've, the first time I read it, I was like, wow, this is a great book.

And then the second time I read it, I was like, I'm getting my hands on this by hook or crook. This is something that I really want to. If I'm not directing it, then I want to be a part of whoever does bring this to life. 

[00:03:55] Jill Heinerth: It's Into the Planet, it's a memoir of my life and the first line is, um, If I die, it will be in the most beautiful place that nobody has ever seen.

[00:04:06] Matt Waters: That's quite powerful. And it kind of describes you in a nutshell, really, doesn't it? 

[00:04:11] Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:04:12] Matt Waters: Your journey. And speaking of journey, I mean, that's what Diving Into the Darkness is all about. Your life's journey. 

[00:04:19] Jill Heinerth: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's kind of daunting when someone wants to make your life story, but, um, because we developed such a, you know, a deep friendship and, and trust relationship, it was an easy yes.

I mean, Nase is so unbelievably talented in every area of filmmaking, but he's also the most empathetic and, and positive director I've ever worked with, like in terms of interviews, like that's a hard craft. And, and it's fascinating, you know, He's less than half my age. And yet his, his wisdom and his empathy and, and just brilliance in the, in the interviews really made me comfortable to share everything.

And, and the movie's not going to be good unless you're your true authentic self. You know, you've got to reveal and share it all. 

[00:05:10] Matt Waters: And it is, it's fantastic. I mean, I watched it the other day at the show and you can't help but get a lump in your throat at how, you know, Passionate it is. And there's so many questions surrounding and I've been, since I told a few people that we're having this chat, the amount of questions I've been fired are just phenomenal.

Oh, excellent. They all link into, um, to summarize it all into, into one would be how on earth do you go into such a hostile environment and achieve what you did by bringing the passion and power of the story? you How do you make that happen? 

[00:05:46] Nays Baghai: I think I'll start, I'll start off by saying that before all of us got in the water, the one rule that we had on the set, which was really something that I tried to spearhead was don't pay attention to the way that other diving docos have tackled this source material.

Let's go back to the movies that we grew up with, 2001, Godfather Inception, and really pay homage to the, Movies that made us fall in love with filmmaking and I think the, that really influenced the collaborative spirit that we all shared and, but it also meant that if we're going into a caves and be trying to get such cinematic footage, the list of people that you can call to do that is very finite.

And fortunately, um, Jill is such a legend in the community that as soon as I, it wasn't hard to convince people to, to join her for the project and make it happen. 

[00:06:48] Jill Heinerth: But I think, you know, NACE has no ego and that's unusual in filmmaking, quite unusual, for, for a director and, and, you know, Um, that whole collaborative process carried through everything, which was so beautiful because he would, you know, frequently turn to anyone on that crew and say, what do you think?

You know, and do you have any ideas or let's talk about this. And, and, and it was just a great way to work. I mean, it was fun and there's a lot of film projects I've come off of that I'm quite proud of the end result, but it wasn't fun. So it was just fantastic. I loved every moment. 

[00:07:23] Matt Waters: Yeah. And how did you, how did you manage to, I mean, I'm not going to be spoiler alert for people who have not seen it yet, but how did you manage to recreate the historical elements?

[00:07:32] Nays Baghai: Ooh, good question. You go first. 

[00:07:34] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, so the movie is comprised of some reenactments, a lot of my archival footage, um, and a lot of new footage. And then, um, a brilliant idea of Ney's was to bring animation into the process, because there's some aspects of my life, obviously, that aren't on record beyond a few photographs from my, my childhood.

And, and that can be really hard to reenact. I mean, it can end up being really cheesy if you don't get it right. Um, and I was kind of scared about the whole animation thing, but at the same time, I thought, well, this is really, This is really young and fresh, and I trust in the process, and I know that this might actually reach a wider audience, and the animations became quite compelling, but we also did have to do some reenactments of some scary moments, and those were pretty interesting to craft, because you don't just, like, Yeah.

Pick an actress and teach her to do extreme cave diving, stick her into a difficult life threatening environment and say, act, you know, you have to take a really good tech diver and then say, how do you feel about being, you know, a bit of a stunt diver? 

[00:08:41] Matt Waters: We're going to wrap you up in some line and trap you in a cave.

[00:08:43] Jill Heinerth: Yep. Yeah. Very real risk. And, and, uh, yeah, 

[00:08:47] Nays Baghai: that scene in question, the one that you're referring to was easily the hardest scene. It took us, I think it took us like four and a half days to do it, but to answer your question partially about how did you plan that? That what happened was I went to. Mexico two weeks before Jill, Yane, Rich, and everyone else arrived to see the case for myself and think, okay, this part looks good here.

And mind you, this is like, I just did my cave course like a month ago and nowhere, like to jump from that to 25 minute penetrations and being task loaded was not a walk in the park, but it was a. I think the thing for me was that being surrounded by people like Jill and also the dive shop that we worked with under the jungle, I felt like, okay, This is like working with the New York Yankees of cave diving.

So I've, I'm really relieved to be around people who are better than me and know what they're doing. 

[00:09:49] Jill Heinerth: And our safety divers had not just our safety in mind, but the safety and protection of the environment, the cave itself, and incredibly high standards. So, um, you know, filmmaking can get a little bit messy, but it, it, it does.

It can't impact the environment. That would be unforgivable. And so, um, we had the best people to, uh, help us continue to dive at the best of our abilities and point out when we'd, uh, made a few errors. It was just 

[00:10:16] Nays Baghai: good. Fortunately, the cave that we went to was of, you know, training section of a site that is popular with people who do like the advanced courses.

And we also shot it late in the day so that all the sediment that we stirred up at the time would have settled overnight and drifted 

[00:10:33] Jill Heinerth: away from the cave, you know, where people were actually working. So, yeah. And the 

[00:10:38] Nays Baghai: other thing is, is that it, um, Although we could have gone like 40 minutes into it, we actually chose to film closer to the surface so that if a genuine emergency did happen, help would not be far away.

So that goes back to the. safety protocols that Jill was alluding to earlier. 

[00:10:56] Matt Waters: I mean, the planning behind this is just phenomenal really, isn't it? 

[00:10:58] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, it's, it's massive because it's really the culmination of everybody's experience in, in, in life that brings you to together to do a project like this. 

[00:11:08] Matt Waters: And how did, how did it work then with like kind of storyboard in it?

Because you know, you've got this fantastic brain with all this ideas of what's going on. And then you've got the woman who's lived and done it. How do you combine the two? How does that get out of there? and into you so that you both work together in harmony to produce what you've done. 

[00:11:25] Jill Heinerth: Oh, okay. Me. Nase is impeccably organized.

Like he thought through literally every single shot in the film was in his head before we started. But even though you do that, you've still got to be ready to be organic and on the fly. And, you know, Every morning we would get together and we'd get a little briefing from him with storyboards and shot lists and this is what I want to do.

And then he would say, what do you think, Jill? And I'd say, no, we can't do that. Or, you know, we would have to shift gears because of safety, conservation or, or some other reason. And everybody sort of had their own department in a sense. Like, you know, we can't do that for safety. We can't do that for the cave.

We can't do that. You know, for some other reason, or I don't want to be the actress, you know, or something like that. And, um, and so we would sort of collaborate, come up with a new solution. And then, uh, the cinematographer, whichever location we were working on, would then do further storyboards to cement that vision.

And then we would have rehearsals on shore, you know, I'm going to be here, you're going to stand there, we're going to move this way. So everybody knew exactly where they needed to be. 3 at any given time. Because once you go underwater, we were not using comms at all. And we haven't been diving together for a lifetime, but, you know, we started to develop those intuitive, you know, understandings of each other's, uh, you know, movements and issues and communication.

And it all it all worked out. 

[00:12:53] Nays Baghai: Yeah, I think the other thing is that on which is very unusual for a documentary production is that I started storyboarding and shot listing in March and then by September I had a proper, like, I think it was 120 pages of storyboards and all sorts of information to do that.

And you were involved in that the whole time. And I was like, um, did it look like this? What was that? So it was very Interesting to have you be kind of like a conciliary for the whole time. But as you said, like, I was so heartbroken that we had to practically throw out that entire encyclopedia. Cause what happened was.

We, it was clear that there was almost too much detail to do. And there was no way that, um, it was possible to memorize all of that in advance. So the way to do it was that we all met at the dive shop before, like bright and early in the morning. And Yanni Suhun in the cinematographer, shout out to Yanni.

Um, he, the way that it works is that by me outlining the shot list first and giving a general direction of what I wanted. It offered him the chance to interpret what I had, I wanted in his own way, and that what he would do is he would draw his storyboards as well as diagrams where he wanted the lights, the cameras, the safeties, and so on.

But it ended up being a very organic, in the moment way where it worked for him. And it was really hard for me to adapt to that because I had never worked with, you Yone before that, but it's, it's something that happens on every film production is that you all find a way to work with each other rather than through each other.

[00:14:37] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, scripted entertainment is so different. Like when you're shooting a documentary, um, and you're shooting a documentary in a difficult environment and, and then sometimes arriving at a location that you can't even shoot in because of the environmental conditions, you're constantly having to rethink.

And so, you know, at the end of the day, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, but Naysa's got to be up all night and look at all of the footage. it, you know, shift gears because of whatever weather we're about to face and, and come up with a new vision. And even after it was all shot, even towards the end of shooting in New Zealand, like we were sitting down every night and rethinking the narrative arc of the film and moving things around and trying to decide what we were missing.

And, um, it's very high stress. And, um, and that's before you're, You're 14 or 16 months of editing, 15 months of editing, all alone in a dark cave of an edit suite. 

[00:15:28] Nays Baghai: The thing with New Zealander is that we ended up arriving right at the height of Cyclone Gabrielle and we had eight days planned for that. Um, we were filming at the Poor Knight's Islands and of those eight days, six of them were canned because of the swells were too, too dangerous to it.

And the most rain I have ever seen. It was like Camino from Attack of the Clones. It's just constant downpours. And I know that there are some UK divers thinking, Oh, we get that in the North Sea. That's nothing. And they're like, no, there's no way you can, can do that. So we pretty much got over the dinner table.

And. And we're thinking, okay, what caves do we have in the, and dive sites are there in the neighboring area. And sure enough, there, there was a glow worm cave about 90 minutes away from my Airbnb, which they happened to film planet earth. And so we, which was 

[00:16:21] Jill Heinerth: also flooding from the cyclone, but it looked great.

Yeah. And 

[00:16:26] Nays Baghai: it's, um, for the camera nerds that are listening, it was so dark in that cave that, The Sony A7S we were using was pushed to 200, 000 ISO. Wow.

[00:16:39] Matt Waters: I'm amazed you could pick up anything in that. 

[00:16:41] Jill Heinerth: It's beautiful though. That was, that was actually such a great win and it was fun too. Some of the crew had never been caving before we, and they were just sort of like, wow, this is the world. We were like kids 

[00:16:53] Matt Waters: in a candy shop. Was Pete with you by this one?

He was. He was with us. I wonder why it was fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're going to go to New Zealand and dive, that's the man to host, isn't it? Absolutely. 

[00:17:07] Nays Baghai: Yeah. He was a, um, when we finally did manage to get out to the ocean, he was the best dive marshal that you could have, and you know, like, there's no, because he's so strict with safety.

I knew that there was no chance that. anything could happen and the other thing is we're all on rebreathers for this shoot and as much as I love my rebreather to death, I know that it can be unpredictable and I think it was the first underwater day all of us had issues. Like you had a loop leak, my rig fell apart, and John, what happened to John's cerebrum there?

[00:17:42] Jill Heinerth: A counter lung hole I think, yeah. Oh jeez. You know it was funny because when we were watching the film this weekend at the Go Diving show, um, I was sitting in the audience and I realized there's one shot where you can see about that much water in the bottom of my canister in the prison. I'd never noticed it before because you remember I had a, I had a loop flood.

[00:17:59] Nays Baghai: Oh, in New Zealand. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:18:00] Jill Heinerth: Yeah. And so I had about that much water in the bottom of like, I have a clear canister for the, uh, the prison too. And uh, so I'm looking at it swishing around and I'm like, Oh, that's funny. 

[00:18:11] Nays Baghai: I had not noticed that until you pointed it out. Because I 

[00:18:13] Jill Heinerth: had spent that entire dive just drinking and 

[00:18:15] Speaker 5: trying 

[00:18:15] Jill Heinerth: to clear the, clear the water.

That was. Uh, leaking into the rebreather. 

[00:18:22] Matt Waters: Was there any, um, was there any point, because you're doing all this, this filming and trying to get all the shots, was there any, uh, point where the rebreathers became, uh, restrictive at all? 

[00:18:31] Jill Heinerth: Yes. Yeah. It's hard to film on rebreathers. Yeah. It's very hard to film on rebreathers.

On the one hand, like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. especially when you're in a natural environment and you want incredible fish interaction, the silence of the rebreathers is fantastic. But, but if you're in Mexico in shallow water caves, it's hard, you know, and there were times that we were shooting like multiple descents.

So I'm going up and down and up and down. And I think I only lost my sense of humor once in the production, but one of them was, It's one of those nights when we were, we were shooting in a cave and I just had to go up and down and up and down and my ears had had it and, um. That was side 

[00:19:07] Nays Baghai: mount open circuit, fortunately, though.

The worst, like, I remember when we were in this section in Taj Mahal and it was like 2 meters to 12 meters. That was, that was my least favorite day of the whole shoot. 

[00:19:18] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, it was, it was difficult. My ears were shot, you know, dealing with a rebreather in shallow water is a pain in the butt if you want to look good and you know that you're simulating something that's much deeper.

So you can't make it look good. shallow. Yeah. So yeah, they can be difficult. You have failures, you got to deal with them. You also have to keep up on all your safety protocols, which can be, you know, time consuming. So 

[00:19:41] Nays Baghai: yeah. In fact, um, the, one of the things I found the most frustrating is, and again, I really want to make it clear that I love my rebreather, but I should be realistic about it.

But, um, because it takes, it's so exhaustive to clean and prepare both before and after The dive, it was really frustrating that I had to stay up really late to after cleaning that, to then review the footage and plan the next day. So, but as fate would have it, um, Yane's, um, rebreather head broke completely in this last third of the shoot.

So I said, well, you, why don't you take mine? Cause I haven't been having issues with that. And it worked out perfectly because the cave that we had to film in was literally Too small to fit more than three people and it meant that I could, I had more time to review the footage. Although being the, the director that I am, I love being in the water and seeing what's happening down there.

So it was painful for me to do that, but it's like you got to do the best for the team as opposed to the best for your ego. Yeah. 

[00:20:45] Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:20:47] Matt Waters: Well, as Jill's already alluded to, we don't think you've got an ego at all. I'll try to keep it that way. Yeah, do that, do that. What was the, um, what would you say was the most difficult part of the whole process?

[00:21:00] Jill Heinerth: Wow, um 

[00:21:02] Matt Waters: I think his is going to be editing. 

[00:21:04] Nays Baghai: Oh yeah, for sure. I'll go into that later, but you go first. 

[00:21:07] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, um, you know, it was a difficult process. It was a joyous experience for me, genuinely. I loved every moment of it. I loved all the crews we worked with. These are all old friends and some new friends, but people at the top of their craft and just genuinely nice to work with.

So I didn't, I didn't feel alone. Hardship. 

[00:21:32] Matt Waters: So you've had a ball . 

[00:21:33] Jill Heinerth: I had a fantastic time. I mean, when you're in front of the camera and you don't have the pressures of the, of the whole production weighing on your shoulders, it's a lot better. Like, it's like pressure and sleep deprivation and, and challenge for the director.

But for me, I loved it. 

[00:21:50] Matt Waters: And what do, 'cause obviously when we watch, um, the production, we see you in the water. Yeah. What's it like when you turn around and you look at the camera and you see everything behind it? 

[00:21:58] Jill Heinerth: Oh yeah. What's that for you? Yeah. Oh. It's kind of fun. I mean, because I do work on both sides of the camera.

And so, yeah, being in front of the camera is fun, just, just watching everyone and thinking about what's going on and, and, uh, yeah, yeah. 

[00:22:14] Matt Waters: Easy days. 

[00:22:15] Jill Heinerth: Yeah. 

[00:22:16] Matt Waters: Go on then. Give it to us. 

[00:22:18] Nays Baghai: Um, I am going to go on the record and say that having been through the infamous stress test that cave divers go through and then pull like organizing and diving on a cave diving shoot, that was a walk in the park compared to editing.

about 60 terabytes of footage to a 96 minute timeline over 15 months. 60 terabytes. Yeah. 

[00:22:44] Jill Heinerth: I just thought of my worst moment. I just, okay. So we're in Mexico. We're shooting in a small cave and Rich Stevenson gives me one of his Um, it says, use, you know, use this light when you're swimming away from me, when you're swimming towards me, clip it off on your harness.

And I was open circuit on that part of the shoot and the light had a double ended clip on it. So for the divers out there, you know, when you have a single ended clip, you just hook your pink finger in the ring and you operate the trigger with your thumb and you reach back behind you and you put it away.

Okay. So, um, putting the light away quickly because we're switching the shot direction. And I reached back and because it was a double ender clip, my pinky in the other end opened the clip, the light fell off and it went straight down a crevasse, but not just a crevasse, but a silty, silty crevasse in a small cave.

And I'm like, 

[00:23:37] Speaker 5: no, 

[00:23:40] Jill Heinerth: I'm thinking 2, 000, 2, 000. So I, I whipped out a safety reel, clipped it on the line because the silt's sort of blooming just from me dropping the light. And I put the safety reel on and I hovered over that crevasse and I went, this is not the time to do this. This is not part of the plan.

And I just sort of dropped the reel in the crevasse so that we'd be able to find the light again because at least I could see it way down there. And, uh, and then I did not have my head in the filming cause I just felt. And I'm like, we're out of here and everyone's like, what, what, we have more lights?

And I'm like, no, my head's not in it. We're out of here. We'll make a plan. So we go back and we make a plan and to make the long story short, it took us about three days and, and Vince Roccatathala from, uh, Under the Jungle, uh, finally, uh, finally you know, was able to rescue the light after several iterations of creating a, a long sling, like a, a piece of wire bent over inside a PVC pipe that he could fish down the hole, snare the light, yank the, you know, cable and bring it out.

But if you can imagine carrying like a three or four meter long piece of PVC through a windy decorated cave just to get it to the point where he could snare the light, like when he came out, I was like, Oh, 

[00:24:58] Matt Waters: thank you. I bet he loved you for that, didn't he? 

[00:25:00] Jill Heinerth: Oh, yeah. No, he had fun. He did love that whole challenge of getting it back, but me, I was just like, Rich, I'm buying you a light.

I'm buying you a light. He's like, no, no, no. So I felt terrible about that. 

[00:25:13] Matt Waters: Well, at least you got it back. 

[00:25:14] Jill Heinerth: We got it back. Yeah. 

[00:25:16] Nays Baghai: Yeah. I remember when he came in and he had that big pole and I was like, this is a salvage operation happening right here. 

[00:25:24] Jill Heinerth: Cave divers are nothing if not ingenious. 

[00:25:27] Nays Baghai: Um, but going back to the difficulty of the editing, speaking of cave, I think that when you are trained to a, like operate in high stress situations and also.

Organized. I mean, you know what a rebreather checklist looks like. It's a lot of, you know, things you have to prepare, but also you get trained to adapt to failure points. And I think that like, that's why they call it technical diving because it really is technical. So I think that had I not gone through the cave and rebreather training beforehand, I probably wouldn't have handled the editing as well.

I mean, I would have handled it, but in the sense that. required a very methodical but adaptive mindset because one of the reasons for that is that the original script that we had written wasn't working in the edit. And I think it was Ron Howard who said that a film is written three times, once in the script, secondly during filming, and finally during the editing.

And it took forever to get that non linear structure in the right order and elicit the reactions that we wanted, but that and the opening sequence were a real painter to do. 

[00:26:44] Matt Waters: We know from last time you were on the show and then going off and doing all this training and then jumping over to catch up with Jill.

Did you, was there a fear point at the start there where, um, your own personal skill levels within the environment you were going into Um, did it, did it weigh on you at all and affect the start of the progress, or did you instantly fall into comfort with the people around you? 

[00:27:07] Nays Baghai: Well, I think that when I did my course with Ryan and Gambia, one of the things I said to him was, don't take it easy on me for this course, given what I'm going to go through in a month from now.

And I will admit that I was really stressed when I did the stress test. But fortunately, once I. Realize what it was all about. I got it right the second time and did the rest of the course. And then I think I, in the back of my mind, I subconsciously knew, okay, this is probably the worst it will get for me.

And whatever happens, if it does get worse for whatever reason, then. There's just enough of a foundation. And I, and I also thought I don't have time to worry about whether I'm the worst, like I need to just like give it my all and keep up with the crew. Although I will tell you that initially when you're surrounded by people like Jill, Aria, Yane, Rich, Vince, and so on, you, there is a little bit of pressure thinking, Oh shoot, I have to, really bring my A game in the presence of these people, but I think that because it was, there was such a, what's the word?

I think because everyone was aligned to pursue the same goal and get everything for the same reasons, we all were just thinking, let's just get the job done and Get out, get in the mud and literally and make it, make it happen. And I think that the more it happened, the more I got used to it. And I, I'm a perfectionist, so I want to keep doing it again and again.

But I think that, um, I, I got used to it fairly quickly and I was just thinking, don't, don't, don't. Focus about it, just do your best, and Yeah. 

[00:29:07] Jill Heinerth: It takes a while to build a team though, eh? I mean, although we're all friends and so many of these people I've had diving experiences with before or expeditions, um, but each team is unique and yet when you're filming, you know, you're day one, you're in the water.

footage, and you're still team building. So it takes some time to get into the groove, and then just as you're in, into the groove, it's off to another place and a new team. So it's challenging. You have to be really adaptable. And, and, and then also, you know, You Authentically honest about your own performance too and just say, you know, I'm having a bad day or, or, you know, I'm not happy with the, with how I performed and, and, uh, and everyone's like, it's okay, we all have bad days and we'll do better the next day.

And 

[00:29:55] Matt Waters: I think recalling what you were saying a couple of minutes ago about dropping the light and you indicated, 

[00:30:00] Jill Heinerth: you know, 

[00:30:01] Matt Waters: and that's just a perfect example to anybody at any level of diving that if someone shows the thumb, There's a lot 

[00:30:08] Jill Heinerth: of pressure. There's, I mean, think about the safety divers perspective too.

Like someone who's a safety diver is there to, you know, watch over the, the, the director, the cinematographer, the talent, whatever. And, and so nobody would ever expect for the safety diver to have an issue where they might call the dive. And, and so Pressure screaming in their head must be like, you know, I really need to call the dive, but I don't want to wreck the filming.

There's all this investment that's gotten us to this point, but, um, so it is important to really develop those team dynamics and make sure that those golden rules of cave diving apply right into the film. Like I'm really sorry, but my head's not in it. We're out of here. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:30:46] Matt Waters: And, um, it touches nicely on fear as well.

I think the, uh, I think the movie itself. Has that, uh, that story of fear and, and, and not avoiding it, but I think you quite adequately put living with it. 

[00:31:00] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, step into it. I mean, I, if I had a nickel for every journalist that had a headline that said fearless in it, I'm like, I'm not fearless. I'm scared every time I go diving and the day that I'm not, then I shouldn't be diving anymore.

Like, like, Yeah. Fear, being afraid, it means that you respect the risks that you're taking. Now, you need to mitigate all of the things that are causing your fear and solve those problems before you go underwater. But, but I want to dive with people that are also scared, um, you know, new divers will say to me, uh, Oh, you don't want to dive with me?

I'm terrified. I'm like, yes, I, I really do want to dive with you. I know you and I both want to come home to our, our loved ones at the end of the day. So embrace it, recognize it, bring it into your life and then mitigate those things that scare you before you drop beneath the surface. 

[00:31:51] Nays Baghai: Well, I think that's a really important thing because you really set the tone for the whole like, Um, the whole thing about how it's good to have fear.

And I think that in my case, at least, I definitely was scared, but the caveat is to keep that fear on a tight leash so that it's short enough that it doesn't interfere with your ability to get the goods, but long enough that it keeps you sober enough to recognize the risks It's on the dive when it's really going awry.

[00:32:28] Jill Heinerth: And creatively, if you're not a bit afraid, then you're probably not doing something that's new and fresh and edgy. So, so yeah, you, as a director, you need to be a little bit afraid about how this is all coming together. I can't imagine 

[00:32:40] Matt Waters: how much fear he's had in the last 15 months. A 

[00:32:43] Nays Baghai: lifetime's worth. The thing is, is like, there's still like, watching the film with an audience is very interesting, because there are so many.

scenes that toy with the audience and were deliberately designed. And there's one scene in particular that I get a kick out of because of how polarizing it is. And, but at the time of editing it, I was constantly that battle of trying to do something that's on the edge and, you know, pushes the boundary creatively, while also trying to make something commercial that can appeal to anyone on the planet is not a Fun game.

I would want to wish upon anyone. Okay. 

[00:33:25] Jill Heinerth: So what's the polarizing scene? I'm curious scene. Oh Yeah, okay. I 

[00:33:31] Nays Baghai: won't go into detail curve for anyone who hasn't seen the film, but I it's not to sound like an like cocky or pretentious but it's like the Sopranos ending either you like it and get it or you don't 

[00:33:45] Speaker 5: yeah You 

[00:33:46] Nays Baghai: And I always am amused when I see someone either walk out of that or send me an angry Facebook message saying, I hate this guy, and it's a non 

[00:33:56] Jill Heinerth: diving scene.

So the divers want more footage, but it was a very formative and, and. And traumatic, you know, incident in my life that's in the film. And, and, um, and without. I wouldn't be who I am today. And so I was really glad that that was a part of the movie. Um, it's funny because I watch it now and it still re traumatizes me in a way, I mean, cause it's quite compelling.

Um, but yeah, I, I think some people understand it. Some people don't. And, and, um, but that's very much a part of my life. Do 

[00:34:27] Matt Waters: you think that was the, yeah, that's, that's the key moment where you've, you've got that fear factor and you've, All of a sudden that fear factor has been, well, smashed out of the park by bravery.

[00:34:38] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, faced the ultimate, the ultimate moment that sort of, you know, existential threat. And, and, um, and then processing the PTSD from that whole experience, like a real revelation from a dear friend was like, Hey, you know, the good, the bad, the ugly, the, you know. crappy stuff that happens in your life, the trauma, you can't change that.

You've got to figure out how to move beyond it. And, and you've also have to recognize that the most difficult times, um, or even the most embarrassing things that you've ever done in your life, they are part of the fabric of who you are today. And, um, all of those things help you to move forward, like, there's no failures, there's no mistakes.

It's all discovery and learning and moving forward. And if you're going to live a whole and happy life, you've just got to accept that and push on. 

[00:35:25] Matt Waters: Nobody can be perfect, eh? 

[00:35:27] Jill Heinerth: No. Definitely not. I think the 

[00:35:29] Nays Baghai: other thing is that because another rule that we had for the film was to make it really character driven.

Really show Jill as a person beyond her diving career. I think that that scene had to be, because it is the defining moment. But a big debate that we had, which I haven't told this publicly, is the placement of that scene. Because if you've read Jill's book, you'll know that that scene takes place very early on.

I think it might be chapters two or three, if I remember correctly. But, um, Um, when we put it and going back to why the structure was so difficult, when we put it in chronological order, a lot of it didn't work because it's the equivalent of showing your hand too early. And it, and the thing that we wanted to do was to build up your, um, understanding and empathy for Jill as the film goes on.

And I liken that to the, the big climax that happens in act two as you go into act three and. But it was definitely a big challenge to figure out how that scene fit in it. But and then going back to the whole cinematic influences, I remember we Alfred Hitchcock, no country for old men and other, even, even the scene from the Godfather where they're in the hospital and you hear the footsteps.

And as well as the scene where Michael's in the restaurant, like it was really fun to study all these films and which I had seen before. But this time it was for the sole purpose of like, even thinking about the rhythm of the editing, like how long. a shot last to when you cut here and the sound design is working and it's sparse and 

[00:37:15] Jill Heinerth: So not only does Nese love these movie references and they influence his life, he knows the scripts, he imitates the voice actors, he knows the shots, he remembers every shot that built a scene and he'll say, do you remember that part in The Godfather when blotty blotty blot?

And I'm like, no, 

[00:37:36] Speaker 5: he knows 

[00:37:36] Jill Heinerth: every moment. He remembers the beats of the, you know, the audio, the Foley or whatever, it's all there. And he can remember each layer of that edit and then apply it to something else. It's a remarkable talent he has. 

[00:37:51] Matt Waters: Thank you. And it's reflected particularly in that part of the show as 

[00:37:56] Jill Heinerth: well.

Yeah. 

[00:37:57] Speaker 5: Yeah. 

[00:37:57] Nays Baghai: But another fun. Fact for your listeners is there, the sound design was also another fun challenge, which was actually not as torturous as the, in fact, that was my. One of my favorite parts of the whole process. And part of the reason was that is that there are actually over a dozen Star Wars sound effects that are heavily modified and adjusted so that I'm not getting in copyright trouble.

But if you watch the film, I dare you to figure out where they're smuggled in the next. I didn't 

[00:38:29] Matt Waters: hear C3PO or R2D2 say that. 

[00:38:35] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, people may not realize it's a completely original score. And then of course there's all these layers of, of sound effects that are, are created in very unusual ways. And then of course the sound edit is critical.

And the first time I saw the film in an actual theater, I was blown away by, by the visceral quality of the audio. I mean, the, the orchestration is magnificent. I mean, Kalish Reitman's did an amazing job with you, um, working on that. Um, but, but the sound editing, um, was making my heart race and I'm like, I know what happens.

So it's, it's magnificent. 

[00:39:12] Nays Baghai: Thank you. I mean, yeah, Kate, fun story about who Kalish Reitman's is he's a childhood friend of mine who, um, I think he's my oldest friend come to think of it, but he had done the score for Descent and another film that we had worked on together. And he said that this project was 10 times more difficult than Descent because it was much longer and the sounds that we had to create for that were much more demanding.

But again, going back to the movie references, it was. Kind of a fun challenge to think, how can we replicate that science fiction sound and do it in a way where it's appropriate for the source material? And one funny story is I have a replica of Jaco bass and Kalish said, bring your bass over. I want to try something a little mischievous with you.

So I thought that he was just going to take the normal sound of the bass and. Have me play like some bizarre passage But what he says is I want you to play every single note on every single fret line on your bass So i'm in his garden shed playing each note one by one and he said let me come back to you in two weeks from now and he literally created an entire palette of sounds from High white noise that sounds like your ears ringing to the low frequencies that sound like the brass of a Hans Zimmer orchestra.

And he literally manipulated that bass to sound like a full on. It's a full on instrument that blurs the lines between sound design and music. So I have to, although we work together very closely for that, really the execution of the music is all him. 

[00:41:04] Matt Waters: Particularly that element was literally. now he's give me the goods and then get out of the way.

Yeah. 

[00:41:09] Nays Baghai: But it was like having, bringing all those strings. I mean, there's, if you look, listen carefully to the Mexico sequences, there's a Spanish guitar that's included in it, and that's me noodling away to try and give it that, that, um, Yeah. 

[00:41:25] Jill Heinerth: One of the fun moments in production for me was when Nays and I were in New Zealand.

I guess we'd wrapped at that point. Yeah, it was our 

[00:41:31] Nays Baghai: last day off. 

[00:41:32] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, and we were all looking for something to kind of revive our energy a little bit and Nays was like, I need to play some music. I need to play some music. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. So we go to a music store and walk in. Walks up to the front counter and says, do you mind if I, you know, play a few instruments?

And they're like, have at it. And I think he sat down at the piano first and within seconds like the whole store is like kind of like coming around to him and Going hmm. Okay, this guy does his stuff and then he's over and picking up a cello and just playing every Musical instrument in the store and I'm like, he's like chill chill get some get some action here.

And I'm like, oh Oh no, I'm having too much fun watching you and listening and, and, uh, yeah. You know what, do you play an instrument? I dabble a tiny bit. I, I actually did have quite a musical start in my life and, and, uh, piano and stringed instruments and French horn and trumpet and things like that. So, so, so yeah, but I kind of left that part of my life behind for the most part, but yeah, this guy, it's, it's in his blood.

It's what he needs in the morning to get started. 

[00:42:38] Nays Baghai: You know what my favorite part of the whole story of that is that I hadn't played chill in like 20 years at that point, 19 years at that point, and as I'm, and I'm kind of fumbling my way through it, but what happens is as I'm fumbling, is this really, Creepy harmonic sound where you, a harmonic is when you put your finger just above the string and it goes like several pitches above.

And as I'm bowing this open harmonic, I'm thinking, man, this would be a really good sound for the song. I literally whip out my iPhone and record it for Kalish. He's like, you're renting a cello when we come back and I'm like done. 

[00:43:17] Matt Waters: I was going to ask because, you know, when you say it's got going about looking for those sounds for the show, did you find yourself walking around in the street at times and thinking, Oh, Oh yeah, that's good.

Oh, after it. A 

[00:43:28] Nays Baghai: hundred percent. But also like the other reason the sound design process was so much fun is because of how creative it is. It was, I mean, just so you know, that sound of Jill breathing through her rebreather loop in the film is actually me in my bedroom, breathing through my JJ loop, recorded on an iPhone.

Yeah. 

[00:43:48] Jill Heinerth: Oh, you should tell about the final sound edit too. Like the final, who did the very, yeah, that's a pretty good story. I'm 

[00:43:56] Nays Baghai: so this. Happened by complete accident, but the guy who did the sound, the final theatrical sound mix was the same guy who did the sound mix for the Mandalorian, Joel Rabe. And the funny thing is I never met Joel face to face, like, cause he lives in Los Angeles and we pretty much worked together completely remotely and across the Pacific and, and it worked like the guy's brilliant at what he does.

Yeah. So how many, um, how many locations 

[00:44:24] Matt Waters: did you do in 

[00:44:25] Nays Baghai: the end? Countries or specific caves that we're going to get specific. No, in fact, I'm not going to get specific. 

[00:44:33] Matt Waters: We'll be here till next week. 

[00:44:36] Nays Baghai: Um, I think we did in five countries in total. Um, Canada, us, cause we worked with Bill Stone for a day, which was really fun.

[00:44:44] Jill Heinerth: Mexico, 

[00:44:45] Nays Baghai: Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and then 

[00:44:48] Jill Heinerth: the archival. You know, material for me is from endless, endless locations, yeah. 

[00:44:55] Matt Waters: How does it feel looking back on it all? 

[00:44:57] Jill Heinerth: Fantastic. I'm thrilled with the result. And like I said, it's scary to kind of entrust your life story to someone. Um, and normally it would not have been such a collaborative effort.

process. Like, you know, you speak to a journalist and they get most of it right, but not all of it. And there's some misinformation and you're like, ouch, you know, but, but to be in this process and to have been so collaborative, collaboratively, a part of it is fantastic. I'm really, I'm really proud of it.

[00:45:29] Matt Waters: You should be, both of you. Thank you. 

[00:45:31] Nays Baghai: I kind of have like a, almost like a bittersweet feeling cause part of me knows that it will never get as good as this, as the experience I've had with Jill, especially like in how generous and, um, what's the word? I've yet to work with anyone on, who is an on camera talent that is as involved and respectful and also just really.

creative and fun in their own right as, as Jill. And I think as you said, cause you've been on both sides of the camera, you, that empathy for what I was going through really came through and it made my life really much easier. And I'm really, I would do it all over again if I could. 

[00:46:23] Jill Heinerth: You certainly 

[00:46:23] Nays Baghai: seem 

[00:46:24] Matt Waters: to have got extremely close, you guys.

[00:46:26] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, yeah, no question. 

[00:46:28] Matt Waters: Is there any, um, excuse me, I know you like a little jest every now and then. Is there any humorous bloopers that you've had to Oh, plenty. 

[00:46:38] Jill Heinerth: Oh, what's your top? 

[00:46:40] Nays Baghai: Um, I think the funniest one for me, this wasn't for me personally, but we were filming Brian K. Cook, who was Jill's expedition partner for a few of the expeditions in the film.

Um, so, we get Brian into my hotel room in Mexico, because that was the only place we could get a decent. And the housekeeping staff are right above, on the floor above us. Moving all sorts of chairs and tables and they're constantly, Brian's trying to get a response and they keep interrupting him. And slowly Brian gets more and more pissed that this is happening.

So as a way of lightening the mood, I play, uh, clip from Pineapple Express that communicates exactly what we're feeling. I won't say it on air, but if you, you were there when that happened, weren't you? 

[00:47:29] Jill Heinerth: No, I see when the interviews happen, like Nae's interviewed my family, my friends, my expedition colleagues, and that's actually scary because you don't know how other people perceive you.

Um, but of course those people have to be comfortable. So I can't be in the room. I mean, he's interviewing my sister, he's interviewing my husband. And, and so I might. Um, and then I have to go away, or I'm not even, you know, there for the shoot at all. And so I don't get to hear the interview. So I was only there to help you guys get set up and put makeup 

[00:48:01] Nays Baghai: on Brian and 

[00:48:02] Jill Heinerth: put makeup on Brian.

That was one of my first favorite moments. But that was just 

[00:48:07] Nays Baghai: like an instance of like where you can take a really frustrating obstacle that's happening and turn it into a lighthearted. And then another one was when we were filming Richard Harris in my house, actually. There was a kookaburra outside the room and it kept doing that.

And he gets, and like Brian, he was getting annoyed that there was a kookaburra just interrupting him in the middle of it. But you, when you're like, I think when you're under pressure, you have to laugh and have a, Uh, pressure valve, no pun intended for something like this. Yeah, for sure. 

[00:48:41] Jill Heinerth: But yeah, that I remember Brian's interview because we were trying to make a good sound environment in a busy hotel and you know, I've been on shoots where, okay, take the mattresses off the bed, throw them up against the window, you know, that kind of thing.

But there was one point when I think five of us were standing on a sofa looking into the camera to see if we had a good shot. Yes. Brian's sitting there and we're moving gear around him to, to create a little environment. And I think I took a photo of all five of us standing on the sofa looking into the cameras and it's quite funny.

[00:49:15] Nays Baghai: What's your blue pair? 

[00:49:16] Jill Heinerth: Oh, I, God, I don't know. I don't know. 

[00:49:21] Matt Waters: Did you have any, um, I call them brain farts, where you might be doing something on camera and they just. 

[00:49:27] Jill Heinerth: Oh, sure. Yeah. You know, he'll ask a question in an interview and you'll start down the story path and in your mind you're telling a great story and then you're going, Am I actually answering the question?

I think I took you on a wild goose chase there, but I didn't answer the question, did I? Yeah. 

[00:49:48] Matt Waters: Um. Other than being under the jungle in caves and caverns and dark dirty holes, I know that you've both been on liveaboards, and our good sponsors of the show today are Master 

[00:49:59] Speaker 5: Liveaboards. 

[00:50:01] Matt Waters: Naze, you've been to the Galapagos with them, I know that.

Yes, it 

[00:50:03] Nays Baghai: was easily the best overseas expedition, other than the filming ones I've done, where that I can remember, I mean, just so you know, like, I had just finished university and had been dreaming of going to the Galapagos for I think it was like 16 years and they more than delivered for that experience and I can't wait to go back with them again and hopefully bring my rebreather this time.

So that would be awesome. Fingers crossed I can do it again. And you just bring me back another photo of the hammerheads like you did. Well, I'll tell you this, that like when you're hovering in the middle of the water and there are a hundred hammerhead sharks right above you and you're just It's, it's like, I can die a happy man right now.

[00:50:47] Matt Waters: Yeah, 

[00:50:51] Jill Heinerth: I've actually, I've actually, uh, been on a master live aboard trip in the truck. And, uh, you know, so much of what I do is really hard work to go diving. And so to be able to just like, Park on top of the wreck and roll off and spend all that time underwater and then come aboard and just be pampered and taken care of.

It's like very unusual for me. So the service was amazing, the safety and excellence of the crew and, uh, absolutely fantastic. Fantastic company. Yeah. I love it. I, I, I love liveaboard diving. 

[00:51:28] Matt Waters: Hey there dive buddies. Uh, since recording this last episode with Jill and Nays, I've been chatting with our episode sponsor, Master Liveaboard, and I've secured the Philippine Siren for a six night exploration of the beautiful Tupataha Reef in May, 2026.

Now I am super stoked about this and even more so because Jill and Naze will be accompanying me on the trip as special hosts. This expedition will take 13 guests into the heart of the Sulu Sea. To snag a spot on this amazing adventure, simply follow the link in the show notes and I look forward to welcoming you on board the Philippine Siren.

Who was, who was the, do you remember who the cruise director was or the trip leader when you were in a truck? Oh boy. It wasn't Adam was it? Yes, it was 

[00:52:10] Jill Heinerth: Adam. Yes, yes, yes, yes. What a marvellous guy. Oh yes, yes. I first, I first 

[00:52:14] Matt Waters: met Adam when I first rolled from the, from the military into the dive industry. Oh.

And I was just doing a DM work. 

[00:52:20] Speaker 5: Okay. And he was 

[00:52:21] Matt Waters: doing his open water. 

[00:52:22] Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:52:23] Matt Waters: And, uh, I think he went on after his open water. It was either a fun dive or his first dive of his advanced or something like that. 

[00:52:28] Jill Heinerth: Yeah. 

[00:52:29] Matt Waters: And there's a bloody whale shark in the water. Ah. And it's, that's where he fell in love with diving.

[00:52:33] Jill Heinerth: But, you know, don't you love it when you're working with someone who's equally as enthused about the actual diving as you are? And he certainly is. Yeah. He's like, he was just waiting for the moment that he could have a chance to go diving too, you know. Once we're all squared away and taken care of and, uh, and we kind of bonded over his wife too, cause she's pretty exceptional human, you're doing amazing work herself.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a lucky guy. Yeah. He's 

[00:52:57] Matt Waters: punching way above his own weight category. That's for sure. Oh yeah. You'll love that. Yeah. But if you've not checked him out, have a look at Adam Beard and his photography. It's phenomenal. 

[00:53:07] Jill Heinerth: Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:53:08] Matt Waters: Happy days. 

[00:53:08] Jill Heinerth: Awesome. 

[00:53:09] Matt Waters: And what's, um, what's the future for Jill?

Oh, gosh. Where are we going after this? 

[00:53:16] Jill Heinerth: You know, that's so interesting, I'm doing some great work that I'm really excited about close to home, which I love, um, working in Canada's longest underwater cave system, and it's just about an hour and a half, two hours from my house, and, and I'm just loving that work, um, it's fantastic, um, and, but as I look into the sort of future of exploration, and I'm I'm I'm just starting to entertain these thoughts about, you know, here we are facing existential threats from climate change and, and, you know, will there be a point in the future where travel is not so easy and should we all be just focusing on things at home and finding ways to share virtually?

Like you never, I mean, it's easy to lose sight of what's incredible and beautiful in your own backyard and then go halfway around the world to have a different experience, but that may not be open to us in the future. And so I think I'm really, you know, cementing a lot more of my roots at home and, and, um, continuing my efforts with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the Ottawa Riverkeeper and just really enjoying that and, and, um, although I'm hardly home all fall, so I can hardly say this, but I'm just loving being home with my husband.

[00:54:28] Matt Waters: Yeah. Good on you. Good on you. Yeah. It's, um, I found it very interesting over the weekend at the Go Diving Show because obviously we, we watch. the movie and we learn about Jill and her history of depth and craziness and then the marvelous stuff that you're doing in Canada right now that's super shallow and you know just off just a step off the off the path kind of thing.

[00:54:51] Jill Heinerth: Yeah it's it's funny it's not an easy cave even though it's shallow it's really difficult to to work in and even to get to there's a lot of hiking and dragging gear through the bush and kayaking against the White water and everything just to, to get to these entrances. But my presentation was on mussels, freshwater mussel.

And so you're thinking, okay, who's gonna come to the talk ? You know? But I think I got some converts on, uh, the beauty of, of working in a, in a cave that has less than a meter of visibility, looking at little benthic invertebrates and getting excited about what they're doing. 

[00:55:24] Matt Waters: I never thought I'd be interested in muscles.

I'll give you that one. 

[00:55:26] Jill Heinerth: Yep. I know everybody says that to me. It's. Very cool. I remember 

[00:55:30] Nays Baghai: you were in conversation with Bill Gladstone, who's a really amazing local marine biologist, and I saw you two just going at it. We were! Yeah! And I'm thinking, this is the kind of crossover that cave diving can bring over.

Well, 

[00:55:45] Jill Heinerth: I love it when a marine biologist says to me, What? I didn't know that. And I'm like, well, I'm not, you know, I'm not a marine biologist with a lifetime of experience, but I'm now a specialist in this really bizarre and unique behavior that's happening and, and that nobody's ever documented before. So it's really fun when, when, And someone with such a pedigree as his says, I don't know about that.

Tell me more. Where can I learn more? 

[00:56:09] Matt Waters: And he's such a nice guy. He's a lovely guy. His intellect level is fabulous. He's a lovely guy. We'll keep him in and bring him on the show. Just not got round to it yet. Oh, you should. Yeah. 

[00:56:18] Jill Heinerth: Yeah. 

[00:56:19] Matt Waters: Um, I've got a few questions actually. Okay, first one for Jill. 

[00:56:24] Jill Heinerth: Okay. 

[00:56:25] Matt Waters: Um, what advice would you give to divers who are interested in pursuing technical diving or underwater exploration like yours?

[00:56:31] Jill Heinerth: Hmm. Um, the best advice I would say, I mean, take classes, don't Look at what agency your class is from. Pick the person for their, their background, their experience. Your instructor needs to be someone that you're going to gel with. That's going to have a working style that, that works for you. Like there's some people that are much more militaristic.

Some that are gentle and nurturing. Choose an instructor, not an agency. Take some class, gain some wisdom, and know that you should make mistakes. If you're not going to make mistakes, you don't need the class. So go make all kinds of mistakes, own them, and move on from it. And then get experience before the next class.

And that's it. Don't just fall in love with one instructor, you know, get a variety of viewpoints and experiences and your instructors and your dive partners and, and be humble, you know, we all make mistakes. It doesn't matter if you've got 20 dives or thousands of dives, we all make mistakes and, um, it's okay.

You know, it's survival doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to be effective. And if it's messy, but you got yourself out of a problem, it's okay. It'll be clean. That's the thing. 

[00:57:48] Matt Waters: If you're getting that learning point. 

[00:57:49] Jill Heinerth: Yeah. 

[00:57:50] Matt Waters: And as you're saying about the instructors as well, you know, I've always said so many people ask which training agency should I use?

Which person should I use? Well, you've got to have that harmony with the person that's imparting the information. And, It's relevant, which training agency it is. It's the experience you're gaining from the person. Especially 

[00:58:08] Nays Baghai: if it's a one on one course where that's, you're practically almost like a married couple.

So it has to, The Relationship between instructor and student has to be, has to work or else it's not happening. 

[00:58:20] Jill Heinerth: Also know that all of those mistakes that you make in your class that are so traumatic for you, like, I can't believe I did that. People come up to me, you know, down the road and they say, I can't believe that dive, you know, I can't believe I did that in front of you.

Like, I wouldn't have survived that dive in real life. It was, oh my God, I still am so embarrassed. I'm like, and I'm thinking in my mind, I'm going, I don't even remember that. Certainly don't remember you making a mistake. What I remember is that in the end you mastered your skills. You got over whatever the issues were and you earned your qualification.

The rest of that doesn't matter. And it actually probably built the fiber of who you are. So yeah, it's so funny. People carry that their whole lives. Can't believe I did that. Can't believe Jill saw that. Oh, I had that 

[00:59:05] Nays Baghai: happen to me multiple times. Um, again, I was a relative newcomer to rebreather diving in caves and my frog kick both and also my reverse kicks were not, and because I've got two bailouts, I can't do the reverse kick as well as I can without it.

And I'm just thinking, Oh my God, I look like a total moron in front of these guys. 

[00:59:27] Jill Heinerth: I think there were a couple of days when you said that to me and I'm like, Oh, okay. I missed it. Case in point. It's all in your head. Yeah, it's one of those 

[00:59:36] Matt Waters: pictures in your head. We didn't see that. I probably had those same 

[00:59:38] Jill Heinerth: pictures in my head about my performance.

I can't believe I just did that in front of a camera. Well, that's why we're perfectionists. Like it 

[00:59:45] Nays Baghai: just feeds into everything. Yeah. 

[00:59:50] Matt Waters: Nice. 

[00:59:51] Nays Baghai: Uh huh. 

[00:59:54] Matt Waters: What were some of the biggest Personal challenges that you faced while filming in such an extreme underwater environment 

[01:00:02] Nays Baghai: filming. Okay, um, I think there's two, um, one, which was a little darker and one that's a little lighter.

I think the darker challenge was, um, because I was still like, I still hadn't really, I felt like I had a lot to prove and I wasn't super confident and there were many times where I didn't share this with the crew obviously, but I was feeling really insecure and uncertain of whether I actually was capable of delivering and I thought, oh crap, what have I gotten myself into?

So, and There were some times during filming where I really felt the itch to give up, but I knew that I would hate myself more if I didn't do it. And I feel also not being in the cave for the really tight caves was very upsetting to me, but it was also a really good lesson for me in, in thinking about what's right for the project and versus what's not.

Makes you look good and like mr. Badass. So I think that When you're again going back to the fact that you're surrounded by people who have been doing this for 20 30 years really Let's you know that you're in the company of people who are Really there they will set you straight, but they ultimately are trying to help you.

I mean, that's what professionals do I think the Other massive challenge I had, which was ultimately one that I'm really grateful for in the end is that I ended up realizing, you know what? I think I love not only diving, but also the community of this world more than I do the film industry. And it was a little surreal going through that massive identity shift where.

The thing that I thought that I wanted to do wasn't, was actually, how do I say this? When you meet a community and a lifestyle that eclipses your original dream and is something that you want to do, but doesn't exactly fit into your master plan, it does throw you off a little. But I will say that I was really shocked and pleasantly surprised about how much I loved cave diving and technical diving and how before that I thought I would have just wanted to do recreational diving and that was another reason I felt insecure was because I didn't have the the massive background that these other guys had but being immersed in what goes into this side of diving made me I think this is what I want to keep doing and I'm not giving it up as, as, as long as I can.

Very deep, mate. 

[01:03:20] Jill Heinerth: Very cool. Is that a pun? 

[01:03:22] Matt Waters: Yeah. Um, yeah. Oh, I'll tell you what I did want to ask you, Jill. Yeah. Is, um, obviously your, um, your lifespan in this career, um, you've been in an environment at the start there and for the majority it's been very male dominated. 

[01:03:44] Speaker 5: Mm hmm. 

[01:03:45] Matt Waters: And it kind of came across in the movie as well about, you know, you don't want to just be, The greatest female dad.

You want to be the best dad. No, I mean, I just You know? Yeah, 

[01:03:55] Jill Heinerth: yeah. Recognized 

[01:03:56] Matt Waters: as an equal and not as just a female. 

[01:03:57] Jill Heinerth: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Y you know, uh, when I started technical diving, I, well, we didn't have the term technical diving, right. Um, but yeah, when I started pushing at the edges, um, there were very few other women out there doing similar things.

And I I was trying to find a community, trying to, to connect with people and often the only girl on the boat and, and that sort of thing and, and facing both intentional sexism and unintentional bias and some horrible things like there was a, an internet troll who I'd never even met. Face to face, whose name I won't even honor, um, because he sent me a package of body bags, you know, with a personally hand signed note, clean up after yourselves when your project is done so we can get back in there and kick ass, you know, and it's like, heartbreaking.

And so I, you know, I've always worked hard just to, you know, do the best that I can. And then also to nurture other people, specifically women to, to, you know, come up through the ranks as well. And, and, and yet I, I look forward to the day that we don't need, you know, uh, women's specific, you know, the women diving hall of fame, for instance, some people say, well, why do you have a women divers hall of fame?

You know, and I say, well, That doesn't further humanity. I'm like, well, we have it because we need it because some really iconic women have not been recognized for their contributions to the industry. And, and when the Women Diving, Women Divers Hall of Fame gets together, like, we raise money for scholarships for other women to bring them up through the ranks.

So I look forward to the day that we don't need to do that. But, but, but we still need it. We still have a ways to go. And, um, yeah, so I would prefer just to be known as, you know, a prolific diver that, you know, Did her best rather than, you know, I don't want to be the best woman or whatever, because you know, that's so subjective.

There's people doing amazing things now. So many women doing incredible things that, that are behind the scenes and science and exploration and engineering and technology and, and, you know, I hope I can encourage them just to, you know, chase the impossible dream and do it. Yeah. There's no reason why they can't.

[01:06:10] Matt Waters: Yeah. 

[01:06:11] Jill Heinerth: Yeah. 

[01:06:11] Matt Waters: And I think you're in a, in an environment in, you know, in the scuba diving world, the underwater world, where So, in my opinion, when you get beneath the surface, you're equal. It doesn't matter that I'm 120 kilos and Nize is 70 kilos, 

[01:06:25] Jill Heinerth: we're the same under the water. We're all mermaids. 

[01:06:28] Matt Waters: And you get to enjoy those experiences and, and, and have those experiences together.

[01:06:32] Jill Heinerth: And isn't that one of the beauties? You leave the surface and you leave all the beauty. All of the shit behind. And you just go there to float beautifully in the neutral buoyancy of the ocean or the cave or whatever. And yeah, it doesn't matter your color, your creed, your religion, your background, your gender.

We're all there together. Just having that time of our lives. 

[01:06:51] Matt Waters: It's that community thing. That's why it was 

[01:06:54] Nays Baghai: such a big thing for me. It was because I didn't experience that in the film industry, but in diving I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:07:02] Matt Waters: When we were, when we were at Oztech a couple of years ago, there was the after party and drinks and stuff.

And it was when Bill and M2 were up on stage giving it large and Stephen Fordyce was there and he'd just been on the show and he was just a completely different man. I'm like, dude, you drunk or something? What's going on? He said, no. He said, I'm around my people. Yeah. And he's a self confessed introvert.

Yeah. You put him in a room of divers. 

[01:07:23] Nays Baghai: Funny you say that is because the exact same thing happened to me after go diving this year where normal, like normally if I'm at an event, I am. and I have to take a day off to recover but as soon as I ran into Jill, John, Pete and everyone else who are lifelong friends that I've had, I could have stayed up until midnight hanging out with them.

And this is someone who normally leaves an hour after the party so for me, this is, this It's, when you know, you know. Yeah, 

[01:07:55] Jill Heinerth: we're all kind of introverted extroverts in a way. Yeah. 

[01:08:00] Matt Waters: Good people. Lots of still peeps. Cool shit with cool people. So many good stories. So many good 

[01:08:05] Jill Heinerth: stories. Fabulous. 

[01:08:07] Matt Waters: Fabulous. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming in and spending time with me.

[01:08:11] Jill Heinerth: Our pleasure. It's been an absolute pleasure talking 

[01:08:13] Matt Waters: to you. 

[01:08:14] Jill Heinerth: Thank you. And, um, 

[01:08:15] Matt Waters: I've still got my photo at home from the Galapagos that, that Nae's brought in two years ago. 

[01:08:20] Nays Baghai: Oh, really? 

[01:08:20] Matt Waters: Nice. 

[01:08:21] Speaker 5: Yeah. 

[01:08:24] Matt Waters: Let's do this again sometime in the future when you're back over these ways or even in London. Love to. Over the other side of the world.

[01:08:29] Jill Heinerth: Love to. Thanks. 

[01:08:31] Matt Waters: Thank you so much.