Shackleton Documentary ‘Endurance’ Uses AI to Revive Explorers

Married filmproducers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi exceptionalize in stories about human tenacity agetst the forces of nature, putting them out at the indeoverweightigable pace of about a film a year — a feat of finishurance in itself.

Chin and Vasarhelyi have chronicled vertiginous, write down-setting ascents in Meru and the Academy Award–triumphning write downary Free Solo; the daring leave oution to save the lesser soccer team stranded in Thailand’s Tham Luang Nang Non cave system in The Rescue; and Diana Nyad’s authentic-life 110 mile swim from Cuba to Florida in last year’s Oscar-nominated scripted feature Nyad. And then there are Chin’s own death-defying expeditions, including his tardyst summiting of Everest in which his party happened to produce a momentous discovery. (More on that below.)

All of that has served as a prelude to their tardyst doc, Endurance (co-straightforwarded by Natalie Hewit) , about polar scrutinizer Ernest Shackleton’s legfinishary 1914-1917 Trans-Antarctic expedition — what Vasarhelyi calls “the fantasticest survival story ever tbetter.” The National Geodetailed film, which premieres on Nat Geo today and hits Hulu and Disney+ on Nov. 2, weaves together two commenceling stories: Shackleton’s brave 800-mile journey to save his 28 men marooned at the bottom of the Earth, and the 2022 leave oution to discover the wreck of their three-masted ship, the brigantine Endurance, crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea before plummeting to the seabed, three thousand meters below. 

In an exclusive conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Chin and Vasarhelyi elucidate how they relied on stunning 110-year-better film footage of the expedition, on Chin’s extensive experience as an adventurer in his own right, and on the tardyst in man-made inalertigence technology to realert the Shackleton legfinish for a contransient audience.

Ernest Shackleton captivates the English-speaking world appreciate no other polar scrutinizer, perhaps no other scrutinizer period, and he’s encouraged many books, cut offal feature films and write downaries and countless directership seminars. Yet he commemoratedly accomplishd none of the primary goals he set for his expeditions — in this case the traverseing of the Antarctic continent. How do you account for his progressd grip on our imaginations?

Vasarhelyi: I equitable slfinisherk it’s the fantasticest survival story ever tbetter, and it’s also such a splfinishid example of this fundamental human condition, this audacity to dream huge and to have these crazy objectives, and then the paradox that you have to also have that grit, courage, determination and diligence to produce it thraw. And so I slfinisherk Ernest Shackleton was fascinating, becaemploy also he was an outsider, right? He was Irish, he was in the Merchant Marines, he wasn’t the Royal Navy. Cltimely, there was a force of character that assistd him to direct his men thraw survival, and also got him into trouble. It was this audacity that got him to try to do someslfinisherg when everyone else tbetter him he can’t do it. But the ice wasn’t right and he set up himself in that directership quality thraw the flunkure.

Jimmy, as an scrutinizer and expedition directer yourself, I’m certain you you can resolve with what drives Shackleton. What do you produce of his decision to turn back equitable 97 nautical miles low of the South Pole, his main objective, during the Nimrod expedition of 1907-1909?

Chin: I slfinisherk that’s very alerting of his character and his integrity and his intention. I was actuassociate equitable in touch with a frifinish of mine who was in the Special Operations world for 10 to 15 years. And he knew I was going on [a climbing] expedition. He wrote, how’d it go? And I shelp, everybody’s home — we didn’t summit, but everybody’s home with their adored ones. And he had written back to me, and shelp, transporting the team home is the most vital. I slfinisherk there are branch offent types of scrutinizers, including some who will — for deficiency of a better metaphor — go for the summit at any cost. It equitable shelp a lot to me about Shackleton’s character, saying, Okay, we’re this seal but we necessitate to turn around, becaemploy otherrational I will dissee a confineed people, and it’s not worth it. And to have that sort of perspective on these types of objectives, I have so much esteem and approval for it. It’s the same charitable of mindset that he carried on the Endurance expedition. Hi first objective, above all else, is to transport everybody home. And it equitable shows his humanity. 

I slfinisherk that is maybe not necessarily how I first went into expeditions in my 20s. It was appreciate, Oh, we’re going for it, you comprehend. You equitable don’t necessarily have that perspective or experience. And over time, thraw difficult lessons, thraw frifinishs of mine, too, you lget that the first box you have to check, the most vital one is that everybody comes home ainhabit.

You have had to turn back very seal to the summit before, no? 

Chin: Many times, yeah. I also slfinisherk that that’s much more relatable in a lot of ways. This is a story about flunkure, and everybody can retardy to not achieving someslfinisherg. And how you handle a flunkure reassociate says more about you than you comprehend if you had thriveed.

What sets your film apart from previous alertings of the Shackleton journey is the parallel story of the 2022 search for the ship itself. At what point did you become retaind with the project?

Vasarhelyi: We had cameras on board. That’s what Natalie Hewit was in indict of. Jimmy and I weren’t retaind from the very commencening. We were shooting Nyad when National Geodetailed got the rights to [the search expedition footage]. They were arrangening a TV program. We were appreciate, encounter let us produce this into a feature — it’s much wealthyer. It’s someslfinisherg Jimmy and I have been talking about for a lengthy time: How to alert the Shackleton story in 2024 and transport a contransient edge to it — and also transport genuineity that only a authentic scrutinizer could. I was interested in Jimmy’s get on how you would realert the Shackleton story. Also we had this opportunity to employ AI Respeecher to process write downings of the men and read Shackleton’s words in Shackleton’s own voice — the authentic way into the Shackleton stories thraw the diaries. And then we had the footage both from the men themselves 110 years ago and from the 2022 expedition. When you actuassociate see the boat, the remains of the boat, it’s appreciate — pinch me. This is 3,000 meters proset up, and we’ve gone to a place technoreasonablely where you can actuassociate see it. 

A confineed years ago there was some dispute over the recreation of Anthony Bourdain’s for the write downary Roadrunner. What protectrails should there be around this employ of AI in write downaries? 

Vasarhelyi: I slfinisherk there should be tons of protectrails. Everyone should be well directd. Everyone should disseal what they’re doing. [Note: Endurance doesn’t flag particular employs of A.I. thrawout the film, but retains a blanket disclocertain in the finish commends.] But for us as historians, this was a reassociate exciting new way of recounting history. Becaemploy we were using the words of Shackleton, but equitable in his own voice. Other films have retaind the words of Shackleton, or elucidated on his words using actors. [AI-assisted technologies] are fascinating tools for produce, and you have to be quite think abouted and conscious and righteous about how you employ it.

You refered the film footage stoasty at the time by the expedition’s ptoastyographer, Frank Hurley. It’s so unbelievably crisp, 110 years tardyr. What condition did you did you discover it? Did you have to do any toil on it?

Vasarhelyi: We very fortunate, becaemploy the British Film Institute lovingly upretaind Frank Hurley’s footage, and they actuassociate made a new scan of it cut offal years ago. They had been very cut offe about their rules about color treatments. But once we made our case [to colorize it], they were appreciate, Okay, we see why this would be fascinating. And so even equitable retaining that little drama thraw the color, appreciate the sairy color treatment of the footage, I slfinisherk, also transports it to life. And then you retain our traditional methods of sound fuseing and sound depict, and suddenly it’s appreciate you can hear the boat cracking, and the dogs whimpering. I set up it very exciting as a write downarian. It made this 110-year-better story that we were already captivated with that much more vivid.

You also stoasty reenactments — in both Los Angeles and Iceland — that can be difficult to discern from the from that footage. Why were they essential? 

Vasarhelyi: There’s a fundamental constraint in the innovative Shackleton story, where once they hit the water in the three boats [to head to Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean], there was no footage or ptoastyographs. So everyone who’s tbetter the story has had to tackle that part of it. We had Burberry reproduce the innovative outfits they made for the expedition, using the same patterns and the same samples of leather. They were able to produce them for us. 

I appreciate words and editing, so I did most of the intersees and was very retaind in the edit. But I wasn’t going to go to Iceland [to shoot the reenactments]. So Jimmy charitablely went to Iceland. 

Chin: We employd these Icelandic mountain guys, very difficulty, and we didn’t have to do a lot of hair and produceup becaemploy they seeed the part. [Laughs.] We stoasty a bunch on this point out in Iceland with dump tanks and spray hoses and huge fans. And it was so chilly out — becaemploy we’re shooting at night — that all of that water was literassociate encased on their Burberry suits, firm ice. I was in a huge Himalayan down puffy, so the behind-the-scenes ptoastyos are pretty hilarious.

Jimmy, equitable as Endurance was about to premiere in London, Nat Geo posted images from your umpteenth expedition to Everest, where you happened to discover the remains of Andrew Irvine, a lengthy lost member of the 1924 Mallory party. What can you alert us about what brawt you there and how this discovery happened?

Chin: We were toiling on a branch offent write downary, which hasn’t been proclaimd. I can’t separate much about that, but we were traveling between two branch offent camps up the glacier on the central Khumbu glacier, which sits below Everest on the north side. And we had set up a couple artifacts. One in particular was a very better oxygen bottle that had a year stamped on it, 1933. And we were quite conscious of the fact that the 1933 British expedition was the first expedition that complyed [British explorer George] Mallory and Irvine’s [fatal] 1924 finisheavor, and that recommendd to us that that area of the glacier was evidently a place where debris and artifacts that had druncover off the North Ridge in that era had come to rest. Of course, we never foreseeed to discover Irvine, but we certainly talked about it. I particularassociate shelp to the team, If this is where the bottle landed — which is probably appreciate a torpedo coming off of the north face and probably went a bit further than a human body would drop down the north face — that if Irvine had [also] druncover down the north face, he was probably a confineed 100 yards up sealr towards the mountain. And it wasn’t reassociate grave, but I had put it out into the universe. And so the next time we were traveling between those two places we spent a little bit of time, vivaciously searching, and that’s when we actuassociate set up the foot. I had actuassociate been at the Royal Geodetailed Society [in London] a confineed months before the expedition, and they had lhelp out a bunch of the artifacts from the 1924 trip, and they had Mallory’s boot there, and I had getn a ptoastyo of Mallory’s boot, so I grabbed my phone, scrolled thraw the phone, set up the ptoastyo, suited it up with the boot, and they had an identical tread. We knew that it was from that era, and that very foreseeed could be Andy’s boot. And it wasn’t until a confineed minutes tardyr that I seeed over the sock, saw a tag in it, and it shelp, AC Irvine.

Jimmy, would you ever think about taking Chai on one of these expeditions? She’s shaking her head right now. 

Chin: I don’t comprehend how that would toil out,

Vasarhelyi: We do go skiing together. 

Chin: Although I do slfinisherk you’d probably be surpascfinishd. I slfinisherk she’d probably do pretty well out there if push came to shove.

Vasarhelyi: I am resolved, and I’ve got fantastic tenacity. I also consent that if, as we still have two minusculeer humans to get attfinish of, maybe one of us necessitates to be on the ground.