The sun begins to rise over the Florida Keys as the swimmers stretch and prepare to enter the water. The athletes dive in and glide, forcefully and gracefully across the pool. Their coaches, including 10-time Olympic Medal winner Gary Hall Jr. and renowned coach Mike Bottom, shout critiques and encouragement as the swimmers perfect their technique for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The documentary Three Styles of Freestyle (http://www.theraceclub.net/) takes a look at The Race Club and the training of 10 swimmers in preparation for the Olympics. This documentary not only features sage advice from famous swim coaches and captures breathtaking underwater cinematography, but it uses innovative and unique styles of music to support and enhance both the documentary’s visuals and message.

Co-founded in 2003 by Gary Hall Sr. and Gary Hall Jr., The Race Club was created to train swimmers of all levels, but especially world-class athletes in pursuit of the gold at the Olympics. The idea for “Three Styles of Freestyle” began in 2007; inspired by multiple offers for a video, Richard Hall, Gary Hall Sr.’s son took it upon himself to create a documentary of the training for the Beijing Olympics. Richard Hall, who studied film and editing at UC Berkeley, joined the team at their training center in the Florida Keys and began filming. After one day with a lower quality camera, Richard upgraded to a model that could adequately capture the swimmers underwater. He also recruited Manny Miranda, a professional cinematographer, to help with the rest of the filming.  Although it was a learning process working with the equipment, Hall and Miranda were able to get amazing footage underwater and on dry land, peppering interviews with Mike Bottom with underwater shots of the swimmers in training.

After some initial shooting, Richard Hall returned to New York and began editing and envisioning the music for the documentary. Hall started by placing more popular music into the video to see what worked and what didn’t. He says, “Going underwater with film opens a lot of doors for sound.  Electronic, rock and roll, dub music, etc”. Although Hall did not initially intend to use much music, as he continued to compile the documentary he decided to turn to musician Kyle Pittman, former member of the psychedelic rock group The Illiad, who began to record original music for the project under the alias Honest John Odyssey.

Although this project was a first for The Race Club, Richard Hall has been active in the music business, working with the German-based record label World In Sound where he met Pittman. Hall envisioned that Pittman’s “cool sense of electronics and eye for film” would mirror the “free feeling that doesn’t have deep structure” in underwater film. Inspired by Kraftwerk, Joe Meek, and Brian Eno, Hall and Pittman worked together, experimenting with sounds and editing down tracks to best fit the documentary. Hall says he gave Pittman total freedom, presenting him with suggestions and artists to model, but ultimately allowing the music to be composed organically.

In addition to music, Richard Hall designed all of the sound and recorded all of the audio interviews for the documentary, using a surprising source for most of the sound design.  Hall says he turned to Google to search for both traditional sounds for transitions and also more offbeat noises, such as jungle animals. It was most difficult finding a balance between the music, narrative, and sound design. One of the unique challenges of working with athletes six months before the Olympics was recording and editing the best interview clips from Mike Bottom without interrupting swim practices.

Hall’s recommendation to other aspiring music supervisors or documentarians is to take advantage of technology and our interconnected society to connect with musicians. Halls points out that many artists “would jump at the chance to use a medium they’re not used to,” and that music supervisors should utilize their ability to pick and choose talented musicians to find the best match for their project. Hall also reminds us that documentaries are a growing field with room for experimentation, especially with music. Hall says, “Usually those videos are so mundane and non-musical. I was proud I could do something fun and exciting and different.  On the other hand I had to get to their level of academia.”

Three Styles of Freestyle blends information, education, art and music into a documentary that manages to be entertaining, inspiring, and professional. With this movie completed, however, Richard Hall isn’t treading water. He’s already at work on The Fundamentals of Fast Swimming with Gary Hall Sr., the second DVD for The Race Club – expect another unique merger of sight, sport and sound.