UAB business student Georgia Luch has been in the water as long as she can remember. She started out in competitive swimming but later switched to synchronized swimming in search of a more creative outlet. Her talent earned her a place on UAB’s synchronized swimming team and, ultimately, a dewy debut on the silver screen. Last year, Luch answered a casting call for synchronized swimmers to play mermaids in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
      “They needed people who were comfortable swimming and could move gracefully through the water,” Luch says. She and nine others—an elite group that included two Olympians—did much of the actual swimming, while actresses with speaking roles portrayed the mermaids above the surface. Even underwater, though, the swimmers wore full makeup and hair extensions.
     The group filmed from sundown to sunup for a full month to shoot a scene that lasted only a few minutes in the final film. “We were on set for about 12 hours every day,” Luch says. “It was amazing. I don’t think I realized how much went into just one scene of a movie.”
     Now back on dry land, Luch is set to graduate in May 2012. She’s already begun her next adventure: Eau La La Entertainment, a business offering water-based entertainment for parties, corporate events, hotel openings, or “anywhere there’s a pool,” she says.