September felt like it was building up to something big; a slow release of tantalising clips online where we see a young woman orchestrating the wind and waves, all culminating in the release of the film The Outrun.
The Outrun is a film adaption of Orkney writer Amy Liptrot’s incredible memoir, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and starring actor Saoirse Ronan who plays Rona, a character based on Amy’s life.
Having spent her twenties in London, Rona, recently out of rehab for alcoholism, returns to Orkney where she was born and grew up. She spends her nights driving around the islands half listening to thumping dance music and half listening out for the rarest of sounds - the grating ‘crex crex’ call of the corncrake - now that she is employed as a ‘Corncrake Officer’ for the RSPB.
I have only heard a corncrake once in my life, at Marwick Head in Orkney’s West Mainland. As I returned down the field at dusk, I heard it call just twice, making me wonder whether I had heard it at all. Despite its loud call it’s not a flashy bird, neither in plumage or in mannerisms. Skulking around in a patch of nettles counts as a good day for this most elusive of birds. I called in my record to the local RSPB office, one which Amy would have written down in her notebook.
I was lucky enough to see The Outrun recently at the Phoenix Cinema here in Kirkwall where both Amy and Saoirse spoke briefly about the film. My overriding feeling whilst sat in the theatre was one of warmth from the audience. Perhaps that came from knowing what was soon to appear on screen wasn’t necessarily going to be comfortable viewing, and sharing a collective love of sorts for someone who’s life was now going to be shown raw and on display for everyone to see.
Seeing someone in distress and hurting is in itself distressing but this is also a film about the restorative power of nature and is directed in such a way that it avoids the cliches often associated with that.
Much of this restoration comes in the island of Papa Westray where Rona tentatively then embracingly enters the clear cold sea, home of course to the creature so often associated with change and storytelling in Orkney, the selkie.
That sense of change comes from local folklore that often describes the selkie as a shape shifter, able to shed its skin at certain times of the tide, taking a human form for one night and dancing on the shore. It’s at this time of dancing where the shape shifter is at its most vulnerable. In most of these stories when a man comes across these moonlit figures, he realises they are selkies and has already stolen a skin, and the skin always belongs to a beautiful girl, in most cases the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.
There’s always a sadness in these tales, of freedom lost, but there’s no doubt that the selkie is deeply embedded in the psyche and history of these isles and its islanders. The term ‘selkie’ refers to both species we have here in Orkney, the harbour and grey seal, though I think in most people’s eyes it really means the grey seal. The smaller harbour seal is a more wary character, though if you’re walking your dog along the shore, they can be very curious, closely shadowing you from the surf.
I met Nora and some other members of the production team very early in the planning process in the Kirkwall Hotel and spent an hour or so talking about selkies, Arctic terns, corncrakes, and whether it might be possible to film all these species. This period of pre-production is both exciting and daunting, but for me working on a dramatic film rather than a natural history documentary was going to be something new.
It wouldn’t be until a year or more later that I was asked the question: ‘Do you want to come out to Papay and try and film some seals underwater?’
My own experience of watching seals began when I was a peedie boy in Hoy. My Granny Besant lived in a small white cottage near Lyness that looked out onto Ore Bay. A pair of heavy old binoculars sat on the window sill and I would look though the single paned window at seal heads slipping effortlessly below the waves. The peat fire rarely went out in the cottage and so on the rare occasion I smell peat burning now I’m instantly transported back to that window and the selkie beyond, and drinking tea with my granny.
The shore at Rinnigill pier was our playground, though we were forbidden from going on the dilapidated pier itself in case we fell through the rotten timbers and into the sea below. One day whilst walking back along the shore to the cottage by myself I froze still. Thick fog had rolled in and from it emanated a loud mournful howl. I had no idea what it was but it echoed in the old wartime brick buildings that have long since collapsed and I was scared. It was of course the song of a selkie and unfortunately my dad had seen me running along the shore in a panic. Once I was told what it was, I was too embarrassed to admit that’s what I had been running from!
My first encounter with a grey seal in the sea itself was a much more positive experience. Floating in calm water at the entrance to a sea cave in Deerness, I admired the rainbow cilia of comb jellies as they drifted past. As I held my breath a face appeared slowly from the darkness of the cave, the face of a selkie. We just floated there, face to face, six feet apart. As a quiet, awkward, teenage boy I wasn’t prone to emotional outbursts but declared later to my younger sisters that this was ‘the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen’.
When I was asked to film the seals in Papay I wasn’t really sure what to say. I of course wanted to be involved in the film but with drama you have a good level of control. With natural history you have very little. What if I promised it was something I could do and it didn’t work? There was no guarantee. What also played on my mind was Nora often had close encounters with selkies whilst swimming but I knew that these close encounters wouldn’t be close enough underwater.
As a result of refraction, objects can appear up to 25% closer and around 33% bigger than they actually are underwater. This phenomenon occurs only if you are viewing the object through a flat surface, such as your mask, so you can be lulled into a false sense that the seal in this case is closer than it actually is. There is a mantra uttered by underwater photographers; ‘get close, then get closer’.
When I film wildlife for TV productions it’s common that I will be by myself having already gone through the aims for the sequence with the producer and researcher. A film production is very different with many moving parts and people, and yet I had a feeling that this was something I would still have to do by myself.
The Holm of Papay is a favourite haunt of selkies and they watched us as we made our way out on the small inflatable. As soon as I slipped off the side, I knew I was in for a tough time. The sea was much bigger than it looked on the surface and if I allowed myself to stop, I could feel myself being taken by the wind-driven waves. A fresh north-westerly wind threw lumps of water towards the Holm and me with it. The light wasn’t good and so the dark water felt less than inviting. Another problem with a sea that has a lot of motion, besides being thrown around, is that the bubbles generated by the waves are attracted to the dome port of the camera and readily stick to its surface. If you don’t remember to rub them off then you can see them in the footage.
I saw selkies at a distance but they too mirrored the conditions - skittish and unpredictable, appearing quickly and with a flick disappearing into the gloom. I felt a bit intimidated by them. By the evening the conditions had changed for the better, the sea was calm and so I tried again. However, this time I was accompanied by a member of the crew in his kayak, the idea being the few selkies that were in the bay might show an interest in him and then me. Unfortunately, they were interested in neither. Still, the water was fine and so I slowly swam around amongst the mermaid’s tresses until the light faded.
The Director of Photography on the film, Yunus Roy Imer, or simply Roy, is probably the nicest human being I’ve ever met. He encouraged me after seeing the footage from what I thought were my failed first attempts and I knew we could do much better. His words were in my ears when I pushed my face under the surface in a last attempt to film the seals; ‘Can you just hold your shots for a bit longer? Let them linger when the seal leaves the frame’.
I was still filming as if for a natural history production where I normally build sequences. I’m thinking of the next shot whilst filming the current one and so often the transition is a quick one as I have a good idea when the editor’s cut might come. After watching The Outrun for the first time a few folk said it was nice to see the seal shots lingering. Roy was right, of course.
For a last time, I pulled on my wetsuit and cleared my mask, tightened my lead weight belt and walked into the sea. ’Just take it slowly,’ I said to myself. I blocked out all thoughts of the film and what role the seals might play in it and just concentrated on gaining their trust. Still, after half an hour I wasn’t any closer to the seals let alone getting the chance to film them. The light was good, the sea calm, and the visibility decent, I just needed a seal. I could see them when I watched from the surface and they were only ten metres away.
When I turned around and looked at the shore, I realised I had swum much further out than I had intended. It was then though that I saw it; a young seal asleep on the seabed, and I knew this was my chance. All my encounters have been with young seals, most likely a year old and still curious and fun-loving enough to want to interact, and that is important. If you swim after a seal, it will simply swim away with a characteristic flap of its front flippers, turning whilst giving you some side eye!
There was a risk I could spook this one from its sleep but I was in luck, it saw me and simply bobbed to the surface. We floated towards each other and I knew I had cracked it. Suddenly it wasn’t only this sleepy individual with me but multiple seals darting underneath me like a game of chicken. I swam to shallower water with some beautiful amber seaweed hanging like curtains from the sea surface to the white sand below.
I knew from previous experience that if you quickly swim away from a seal that is already interested in you, it feels it has the upper hand. I knew if I stopped suddenly it would be right behind me. Sure enough, we almost touched whiskers as I swung around.
For an hour we played hide and seek amongst the seaweed curtains. Mostly we just faced each other, me getting increasingly cold despite my thick wetsuit. I looked at my watch and realised I’d been in the water for two hours; I didn’t want to leave but my hands were starting to shake. I’ve often wonder what fascinates us so much about selkies. I like the idea of their duality, inhabiting two worlds, and when they allow you into their space then you’ve entered theirs, and it’s a place I like.
At the moment I decided it was time to leave the water, I simply looked at its dark, wide eyes and said ‘thanks selkie,’ before it turned its silver body and slipped effortlessly away.
I don’t want to give too much away but the end of The Outrun culminates in a scene where Rona and Orkney soars, poetry and the hard elements of salt and water meeting in unison, and the light finally shining through the clouds.
Raymond is a wildlife filmmaker who also offers bespoke Orkney wildlife tours and one-to-one wildlife photography tuition. Find out more via his official website. You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
'The Outrun' is in theatres in the UK & Ireland now - find your nearest showing. Discover some of the locations featured in both the film and book with our special map.