Dolphin Club︱ Gaby Scott

withitgirl
5 days ago
6 min read

After a period of creative evolution and quiet development, filmmaker and editor Gaby Scott returns with The Dolphins, a deeply immersive and poetic portrait of San Francisco’s historic Dolphin Club. Known for earlier works like Zoe, A Surf Story and A Certain Personality, Gaby reflects on the challenges and joys of storytelling in a media-saturated world, where meaningful work can quickly get lost in the scroll. In this interview, she shares her thoughts on the importance of communal film viewing, the inspiration behind The Dolphins, and the intricate process of capturing the soul of a place and its people—especially the remarkable women swimmers who anchor this film with their strength, humor, and humility.

Woven together over the course of five years, The Dolphins is both a love letter to the city and a meditation on history, ritual, and resilience. From clandestine shoots during the pandemic to conversations in steamy saunas and long swims in the frigid Bay, the film embraces verité-style storytelling and the unpredictable rhythm of real life. In this conversation, Gaby takes us behind the scenes of her latest project, offering insight into her creative process, the wisdom of swimmer Suzanne Heim, and the deep impact of cold water on the body—and the spirit.

Please update us on the responses to your last two films? With media spread across platforms, films can be quickly forgotten. There's a trend of returning to theaters, fostering community and slowing rapid viewing. What are your thoughts as a filmmaker?

As a filmmaker, I definitely find it frustrating when we spend a lot of time and creative energy and yet most of our media content is primarily viewed on small screens on social platforms. It’s important to get the audience's reach and visibility that way, but seeing the content in a theater is a different experience. It’s really how we should be watching films. It’s such a great way to create community and get people interacting more thoughtfully with the films we make!

That being said, The Dolphins is screening at a few local spaces over the next few weeks. (I’ve also been submitting to film festivals - tbd)

Friday August 22nd @ 8pm, at the Artist’s Television Access (992 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA) - Link to the event site.

September/October TBD screening at the Four Star Theater

What was the inspiration for The Dolphins?

San Francisco is filled with ghosts; there is so much history here. I love to wander around the older neighborhoods and imagine what it was like 30, 50, 100 years ago, envisioning all the characters and stories of the people who passed through or stayed. I like to be a tourist in my city.

A friend of mine who was a member, took me to the Dolphin Club years ago and I think I just became entranced. The Dolphin Club is like a time capsule, it’s dense with history. When you walk in off the busy Fisherman’s Wharf streets outside, there’s a softness once you step through the doors. I don’t think the average passerby knows what the building is. The exterior looks like a big white barn and sits casually at the edge of the Bay. It’s unassuming. Inside, the adjoining massive boat rooms host old, stunning wooden row boats, hung from the ceiling or arranged around the room. It’s cavernous and welcoming, the worn floors creak as you walk through, like inside the hull of a large ship. There’s photos of all the members from throughout the life of the club decorating the ceilings, the upstairs lounge areas, and honorary photos of swimming trailblazers are framed or tapped up in the locker rooms.

Then you notice there’s chatter and banter, you start to see people milling around the club, walking in and out of the stairs leading to the beach - bathing suit clad in all months - gossiping, lamenting, talking about the water temperatures, the floods, the ebbs, the next Alcatraz race, the weather, their dog, last weekend, something about so and so. If you sit silently long enough in the saunas you will hear the wildest stories and meet some amazing characters who might tell you their life story, or how to stay warm on longer swims.

It’s an incredible and magical space, and I knew I wanted to make a short story about it all.

Can you take us through some of the specific challenges in making this film and some of the things you learned and how you overcame the challenges and barriers.

Logistically, finding cinematographers who were open and available to generously donate their time to this project. And specifically finding some water DPs! I worked with the amazingly talented Michael Enos, Stephen Amato and Lawrence Rickford who all brought their wonderful creativity and style to this film. We shot a few critical scenes during COVID, which was actually to our advantage, as we were able to shoot inside the locker rooms, which have a lot of energy. The club was closed for most of that time period, and so in small groups we were able to access areas that would’ve been too busy or tricky to film.

Discuss a particular individual(s) in the film, providing a more profound understanding of their journey.

I love all the women in the film, they each hold so much wisdom and grace, I think I’ve learned something from them all. One of my favorite archival clips that I found is of a newscaster interviewing Suzanne Heim just after she’s completed a massive, marathon cold water swim. She’s clearly exhausted and depleted and probably least of all wanted to be asked how she was doing. But the interviewer says, “Suzanne Heim has become the first person to swim this marathon, when’s your next swim?!” and she responds “uff, this is going to be the finale for a while.” and then she adds “at least until next week.” This completely encapsulates her, she’s such a badass.

The more I talked with Suz and got to know her story and many accomplishments, the more I realized how humble she was. I had no idea I’d discover how many accolades she had, and she didn’t gush them all out when we first met. It’s kind of incredible. She was the first person to swim the Golden Gate Bridge 6 way (6 miles), Tiburon to SF Swim (7.8 miles) and the Bay to Breakers swim (10 miles), she’s swum Alcatraz many times, the English Channel and many others, she’s recently been inducted into the Masters International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Any other films that have inspired you or other filmmakers, books, art etc..?

So many! I’ve been a professional film editor longer than I’ve been directing, but have been working to bridge the gap and take on hybrid projects. I read an inspiring article about Charlotte Zerwig who was a pioneering film editor and well known for verite documentary storytelling. She also had to fight to get directing roles, and I think being a strong editor and storyteller really informed her directing style and ethos. I also love verite storytelling and work to implement more of this style in my own films. In the process of making The Dolphins, I often went to just film/observe and capture the unplanned, candid moments.

Also reading “Why We Swim” by Bonnie Tsui was inspiring. She digs into the philosophy and soul space of swimming, cold water immersion and the joy of swimming especially. It echoed many of the sentiments of the subjects in my film. From reading the book, and beginning this project I felt I needed to start swimming regularly out in the bay. It helped me to resonate with the relationship these women have to water, and how to find my own.

Getting into post-production and editing, I started iterating dozens of versions which became its own natural, fluid journey. Sometimes it was frustrating, as I felt it wasn’t landing, and then would scrap a section or move things around. As much as I wanted to finish the film in a timely manner and get the story out there, I learned to have patience and sometimes just set the project aside (for months), understanding that it couldn’t be rushed or forced. I had the feeling of embracing the inevitable process of it and relinquishing some control. Watching it now, I think the film possesses the flow of water in its pacing and structure, which makes me super happy.

Additional Information

all photos courtesy of Gaby Scott

@dolphinclubsf

dolphinclub.org

Suzanne Heim-Bowen @swimmersuz

Joni Beemsterboer

Diane Walton @dianesfo

Producer and Director - 👋 @gabyscotts

DP - @michaeljenos

Additional DP - @lawrencerickford

Additional DP - @steevsea

Sound - @elm_audio