Flat Earth or Round Earth? Interview of Filmmaker Johnathon Mariande

Summary

Highlights

• Mariande opens up about the unique filmmaking challenges in Antarctica—highlighting the extreme cold and expense required for such an expedition. 🥶
• The documentary focuses not just on scientific proofs, but also on the human interactions and discussions sparked by differing beliefs about Earth’s shape. 🎥
• Through advanced filming techniques like time-lapse and hyperlapse, the team captured stunning footage of the 24-hour sun. 🌞
• While the debates among the team members were fierce, the filmmaker maintained a neutral stance, allowing the footage to tell the story. 🎬
• Despite claims of manipulation, the documentary employs a transparent approach ensuring authenticity in capturing real experiences and scenery. 🧐

Key Takeaways

• Filmmaker Johnathon Mariande provides a unique perspective on the flat Earth vs. round Earth debate through his documentary filmed in Antarctica. 🌎
• Mariande utilized a range of equipment, including the Canon 1DX Mark III, DJI Osmo, and various lenses, to capture the phenomenon of the Midnight Sun. 📸
• Despite harsh conditions, the filmmaking process was successful, revealing the challenges and dynamics between flat Earth proponents and round Earth believers. ❄️
• Mariande emphasizes the human interest element of the story, focusing on nine strangers united by an intense journey and debate. 👫
• The expedition challenges preconceived notions, highlighting the complexities and debates surrounding the flat Earth theory versus scientific observations. 🤔

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction to the Documentary The introduction highlights the purpose of the documentary, which aims to address various observations and insights about the world. While the narrator is open to discussing these topics, they prefer to save detailed discussions for the documentary itself. The documentary is depicted as a personal statement on the shape of the world and the lessons learned. The narrator avoids making definitive claims about controversial topics such as the Earth's shape, indicating a preference to share findings in the documentary.
• 01:31 - 05:00: Equipment and Filming Techniques The chapter discusses the discovery of interesting insights from a filming process and the online community's response to it. The equipment used for capturing footage of the Midnight Sun in Antarctica is introduced as a topic of discussion, although specific details about the equipment are not provided in the transcript excerpt.
• 05:01 - 09:00: Challenges in Antarctica This chapter discusses the challenges faced while working in Antarctica, focusing on the equipment used for capturing visual content without running into battery issues. The author used a Canon 1dx Mark III as the main camera and a secondary 5D Mark V for interviews. For time-lapse and hyper-lapse photography, the DJI Osmo was utilized, allowing for effective documentation despite the extreme conditions.
• 09:01 - 15:00: Flat Earth vs Round Earth Debate The chapter titled "Flat Earth vs Round Earth Debate" seems to be an exploration or documentary-style coverage of individuals with varying beliefs. The narrator uses a Canon g7x Mark I camera, chosen for its vlogging capabilities, to document interviews. The focus seems to be on presenting participants as subjects while the narrator takes on the role of filmmaker and documentarian. However, the narrator also wishes to include themselves in the documentation, leading to considerations on how best to integrate their own perspective within the film. This involves a blend of participant interviews and personal commentary, aiming for a cohesive narrative that respects all voices involved.
• 15:01 - 22:00: Experiences in Antarctica The chapter titled 'Experiences in Antarctica' discusses the audio equipment used during the exploration. It highlights the use of advanced recording gear such as the DJI Mike mini system, a sound devices mix pre6, and a Sennheiser 416 boom microphone to capture ambient sounds and conversations in a natural setting. Additionally, a DJI Mike 2 was utilized as a wireless recording system for enhanced audio capture.
• 22:01 - 30:00: Flat Earth Believers' Reactions The chapter titled 'Flat Earth Believers' Reactions' describes the experiences of filming under challenging conditions, specifically in severe cold temperatures of -14 Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit). The narrator was operating alone, in a Dogma 95 Style, ensuring comprehensive coverage without disruptions from environmental factors like the cold or sun. Despite speculations, the extreme weather conditions did not interfere with the filming process as anticipated.
• 30:01 - 40:00: The Trip's Funding and Participants The chapter discusses the logistics behind a trip, particularly focusing on the funding and the participants involved in the venture. The discourse highlights dealing with equipment reliability, especially concerning battery usage and performance. The speaker shares their experience with battery efficiency, stating that although the batteries appeared to discharge somewhat quickly, they maintained a standard processing pace. Furthermore, the chapter touches on scientific validation, emphasizing the importance of ensuring video content is not distorted through editing. The speaker reassures by stating the use of basic nonlinear editing software, implying minimal risk of manipulative alterations.
• 40:01 - 45:00: Future Plans and Documentary Purpose The chapter discusses the future plans for a documentary that focuses more on the human element rather than just observational data. Editing is currently being handled by Sam and Hank, with digital editing tools being utilized. The narrator mentions conducting some preliminary experiments with simple instruments like a compass and an altimeter, but emphasizes the shift in focus towards a personal narrative.

Flat Earth or Round Earth? Interview of Filmmaker Johnathon Mariande Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 yeah the documentary I think is going to serve as a lot of the answers of what we observed I'm happy to talk about it I'm still formulating an official yeah the documentary is going to be this statement on what I think the shape of the world is what I think we learned I can talk about those things but I'd really rather at least prefer to to save some of that stuff so I don't want to say like you know I think the Earth is flat or I think the Earth is round predominantly in any sense but I'll tell you what we learned what I think that
• 00:30 - 01:00 you know we've discovered from some of that now I think there were some interesting points about the process that revealed some things for me um the way the communities responded online way communities responded to some of the people that organized and went on the trip um but we can get all get into all that let's go with your questions and and take it from there okay what equipment did you use to capture the footage of the Midnight Sun in Antarctica um well my equipment was based
• 01:00 - 01:30 um a lot of it was based on what I thought I'd be able to bring with me and not have battery issues run out of power so I used the Canon 1dx Mark III as like my main camera I had um some zoom lenses some prime lenses uh my secondary camera was a 5D markv so for all my interviews I use those two cameras when documenting the 24-hour Sun um for my time lapse and my hyperlapse I use the osmo by DJI the osmo for
• 01:30 - 02:00 camera I also used um a Canon g7x the Mark I I I've been using that as my vlogging camera and I I kind of so I interviewed everyone with this approach that um they were G to be the subjects and that I was going to be the filmmaker and the documentarian but I I wanted to include myself so I didn't do there wasn't a way I thought relevant to really um accentuate everyone's interviews and then also have an interview with myself so I used the g7x
• 02:00 - 02:30 for a lot of that I was using the DJI Mike mini system with a uh sound devices mix pre6 and mix pr6 was my sound recorder I had a Sennheiser 416 boom microphone that I was getting all the ambient and capturing um conversations and things naturally for Nat sound and I had um a DJI Mike 2 which I used for a wireless recording system that I put on
• 02:30 - 03:00 people and not have to monitor the way I was monitoring the recorder so I could have a lot of conversations going it was all happening pretty quickly so as a result I wanted to be able to have um good coverage as the the only person Dogma 95 Style just me with the camera that sort of thing okay did anything get messed up from the cold or from the sun no nothing got messed up um that we anticipated that it would it was -14 Celsius which is like like 10 degre Fahrenheit didn't
• 03:00 - 03:30 have a big issue with batteries didn't have a big issue um they they seem to run a little a little faster but overall I I was pretty standard with the uh the switching of batteries and how quick I could use them so there weren't too many issues I thought everything held up well since this was about proving something scientifically how did you ensure that the video was not misconstrued or manipulated by editing software well the editing software I'm using is is just your basic uh nonlinear
• 03:30 - 04:00 you know digital editing platform I've got an editor working on it Sam right now um Hank's going to be doing some as well um you know we we we did experiments and I say we because I had some simple things my compass an ultimeter for how high we are that sort of thing but as I approached this very short notice I realized I I wanted to make this documentary less about the observations and more about the human
• 04:00 - 04:30 interest journey of nine strangers coming together from all over the world going to one of the harshest climates on the planet being Antarctica and putting there contrasting ideas of a flat Earth versus a round earth into The Crucible uh with intense scrutiny between each other and really seeing where things landed what came out on top what came out on bottom okay um did you uh regarding the did you use time lapse oh hold on a second another question I wanted to ask you first
• 04:30 - 05:00 uh okay sorry can you um how did you uh set up the camera to capture the continuous sunlight well for mine which I haven't released yet I had a tripod with a DJI osmo I had to turn it um about 90 degrees every couple of hours because it'll it has a tracking feature so I can track the Sun the shots that you saw done by Dave McKean in the 24-hour videos seen by will Duffy those were
• 05:00 - 05:30 using a uh 360 X4 camera system so will Duffy recorded 25 hours plus continuous non-stop video and audio the time lapse by Dave McKean was recorded using the same camera uh but his was on intervals as a time lapse that camera basically just records 360 degrees at all times um and uh you crop out and edit later where you want to focus the the video so for
• 05:30 - 06:00 them it was tracking the sun okay so um you mentioned it was kind of a I mean this is a place that's far away and also it's kind of um off limits anara people are generally not allowed to go there without special approval and also of a great expense I think you mentioned it costs like 30 or $40,000 um and you got to go through all you got to go there with special guides that will keep you uh alive and everything so um
• 06:00 - 06:30 anything you want to add to that process so that was the impression I had as well is that Antarctica and the Antarctic treaty really prohibit for a lot of reasons um but I I'm starting to find that's that's less accurate I mean the cruise ships take people to the outer you know Rim where the water meets the ice and and land meets the water and that sort of stuff but prior to our trip the the couple days before we went was the annual Antarctic Ice
• 06:30 - 07:00 marathon and this is the marathon run I think it's a 10K people from all over can come all you do is have to pay admission you're taken by Al which stands for Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions they're a company based out of Salt Lake City and PES Chile they have everything you need to go they maintain the Antarctic treaty uh requirements their guides are with you to ensure that those uh
• 07:00 - 07:30 those requirements are are met there's a lot of uh fear that you know um leaving things behind in an issue where as Al they've got over 20 years um maybe 30 years of of doing this experience and Expedition building the blue ice Runway logistically bringing the planes and building the camp so they really handled a lot of that I think really it comes down to individuals wanting to go on their own accord where it would be more difficult you'd have to have a diplomatic sponsorship and that sort of
• 07:30 - 08:00 thing um if one was going to go so I um I'm not sure really that we're that prohibited as I once thought I think that's a misnomer and I I I think people would find they could go there's just a lot of regulations and uh rules that need to be met like I said packing in and out your waist that's everything from your food your trash your your um you know your waste so that's a little bit harder it's not
• 08:00 - 08:30 like someone can go now I know when you go on the um if you take the herculan route and you're traveling to the South Pole on an expedition a solo Journey there's rules up until the the the N the 90th parallel where um you're not required to take your your direct waste um B movements out but I don't have all the facts on that I just know that there's um there's some wiggle room okay and what did you do with your bowel
• 08:30 - 09:00 movements exactly we didn't do anything with ours we had toilets set up everywhere we went there's a a hard waste and a and a liquid waste they're separate depending what you had to do your showers um you know same sort of thing so uh Al again they handle that so that part of the benefit of going with the logistics company okay so for your 40,000 they take care of your poop for you okay that sounds like a good deal pretty much that's luxury all right all right can you tell me uh so you went
• 09:00 - 09:30 there in uh during the winter for our winter but it was summer there right was it nice and um beautiful balmy with palm trees or was it a thick a mile thick of ice and no rocks land or soil and or trees well there's no life so there's no trees there's no bugs I don't know about bacterial level there's a couple of birds they see seasonally a few times a year I don't know what the birds are I asked the the guy was with didn't know
• 09:30 - 10:00 it wasn't the albatross because because I asked um the Penguins and that sea life is really um quite far from us we were four hours from pun arus which is about a, 1600 mile flight um south of Southwest or southeast of um of Chile boan Chile so it it was it was like this different times a day where the sun was in the sky because it circles us it felt different
• 10:00 - 10:30 so when the when the sun was towards the South Pole te it tend it tended to be a little colder like my hands got really cold I couldn't have them without gloves um where on the contrast the opposite direction and when we took photos like shirtless as we did right when we arrived look there's no wind it's the summer the solstice is the 21st we were there the 14th 15th 16th um maybe 17th we left early um we were supposed to stay till the 18th so
• 10:30 - 11:00 no it's not tropical there's snow but what I learned is in Antarctica it doesn't really snow much there's not a lot of humidity and as a result when the snow really gets moved around it's a result of wind this is ancient Snow they say so we're on a glacier it's it goes below the sea level it's about 500 meters above sea level but it goes about a mile and a half down 2 and a half miles at the at the pole and um you know it just has a um a
• 11:00 - 11:30 very I don't know stagnant feel like when the wind's not blowing you're not cold you've got a lot of layers on for most of the day all the facilities where we could go inside are heated and so you know we we put on these giant polar jackets about a half an hour before landing the pilot turns the AC on or or the heater off so that we start to acclimate inside the plane or landing and you get off it's a
• 11:30 - 12:00 bit of a shock there's a loud engine from the 757 that we flew in on but overall not it wasn't too bad so you said it got down to minus 14 uh how warm did it get you know I wasn't watching a um a thermometer the whole time that's just a reading I saw on the board at the main a camp I'd imagine it probably got a little colder I'd imagine it was probably a little warmer they said it fluctuated um at the coldest at the
• 12:00 - 12:30 poles it's like -30 Celsius don't quote me on this a lot of people try to and and I don't really have accurate information I know that Antarctica it does seem like a large land mass and so you have to be pretty specific when looking at where we were which was Union Glacier the blue ice Runway and the halfway point on the 10K Loop so you said you took your shirts off was it warm or was it freezing cold when you took your shirts off it wasn't bad I mean it it it's colder night in California it's cold I think the
• 12:30 - 13:00 adrenaline was running for all of us we were excited to be there and so I just had this opportunity to take off my jacket and I had on my uh flannel that I'm wearing now and I I had a thermal shirt under that and I was like stuck in this waiting period of orientation and drone check and getting checked into our our tents and getting you know meals that I was like Hey pass my camera I'm gonna sit right here and move to Chair by this ice wall right outside the
• 13:00 - 13:30 cafeteria there's like a little air strip with these small snow cat or or snow utos rather they're they're similar like a sess I think they're a little bit bigger uh dual prop planes like hey this is a cool adventure this is a good start we've got Wi-Fi from starlink let me let's get a picture right now so I can post this online and um I think that inspired will Duffy our leader and some others like hey I want to take my shirt off that's pretty funny so others did all right did you use time time lapse or
• 13:30 - 14:00 other special filming techniques to illustrate the movement of yeah I used time lapse I used hyperlapse I used the Drone I was able to get a mile high we were unlocked by DJI with our perimeters which was pretty cool in the the union Glacier zone so pretty beautiful shot that high it's like 5,000 fet 5,000 meters um yeah pretty incredible um but time lapse a little bit um I did some time lapses in pus Chile of the sunrise the sun sets I
• 14:00 - 14:30 did a couple of time lapses there in um halfway point and back at the camp just to show the sun's movement for transitional shots between scenes documenting it but I was more of an EG camera more of a you know Run and Gun sort of like what you get behind the scenes on anything um the inner workings of the journey how did you address potential Flat Earth arguments about atmospheric phenomenon or effect in your video
• 14:30 - 15:00 documentation well I haven't had to address too many of them people have criticized uh the 24-hour video that Dave McKean shot um all I can say is that you know we put a second camera on those cameras so you can see there was no um Tom Foolery with with that process it was all pre- legitimate um it is a weird 180 degree bubble L that I know people had some issues there and they'll have to wait and see what we have further we had some solar filters that
• 15:00 - 15:30 we were able to put on Dave mcan's 500 millimeter lens my 200 millimeter lens allowed me to zoom in pretty close he got much much better of a shot um we could see some spots and we get the focus but um not too many issues with that people um criticizing I mean people are going to criticize but I wasn't there to argue against flat earthers and I wasn't there to argue against round earthers I was really just trying to document the others having the experience and doing their experiments
• 15:30 - 16:00 and um The Journey as it were what was the reaction of the Flat Earth Believers when they saw the raw footage of the Midnight Sun and how was that reaction captured on video you know we filmed pretty much everything during that time and will Duffy went live at about midnight so 10 about four hours into it he went live um you know uh it's a humbling process we I think we all expect it you can see that it's going to exist before you go I know
• 16:00 - 16:30 there was some issues with some of the pre-recorded time lapses that existed people had issues with like redundancy in clouds and um anomalies in the edit so we kind of expected it we expected to see it and um I think jiren had a you know pretty profound live stream where he said sometimes in life you're wrong referring to the flatter Earth Map which is the gleon AE map um you know that map
• 16:30 - 17:00 doesn't account for a 24-hour son existing and folks on the flat earth side will say well the the heavens and the lights and the sky don't dictate what the Earth is so I'm currently underway trying to interact with more people to figure out what would to depict it they say that you know there's some things that are unresolved and I'm trying to scrutinize those now myself as we put together the story but overall I think um the flat earthers uh you know they expect to see it and for some of them it didn't change
• 17:00 - 17:30 much at all and um in their interviews they spoke a little bit about it and I'll I'll leave that to the to the story to for people to hear themselves what they said um but it's a it's a it's an incredible site and it's hard to make sense of the AE map where it stands I mean um we got a go if Flat Earth is going to going to survive this it has to go back to the drawing board there has to be cartographers to talk about um proximity and and the land masses and
• 17:30 - 18:00 how they relate to each other because as it stands it it doesn't seem that they hold up um to that map I mean the flight time from Sydney Australia to Santiago Chile is a is over um it's 11 or 12 hours the flight from LA to Sydney is about 12 to 14 hours uh the S the Los Angeles to Santiago flight is about 11 hours so um if you're looking at a flat Earth AE gleon map and you draw a
• 18:00 - 18:30 straight line from Sydney to Santiago you go directly over California and so that would equate to a 12ish hour flight from from Sydney to Los Angeles and an 11h hour flight from Los Angeles to Santiago that's over 20 hours um but based on uh critical things flight and the the flight records we know that the Sydney to Santiago flight is about 11 and a half 12 hours so um that's real that's a real um
• 18:30 - 19:00 difficult one to reconcile on the the gleon map like the location of Australia to proximity of South America and the United States so uh that's one people on the Flat Earth often go to this sunspots were another one it's like look we could see the sunspots south of the Equator and all the way down there and when we put out a request for people around the world to send us sunspots with metadata at the same time and days that we were shooting we got in loads of dozens and
• 19:00 - 19:30 dozens of people's pictures of the Sun and you look at a sun from the north of the equator somewhere in Missouri or Washington DC and it's it's pretty much a mirror flipped image to the the sun and the sunspots in the South so so gleon map you mean uh uh the map actually created by flat earther Alexander gon gleon in 1892 where the Arctic the North Pole the north pole rather than the South Pole is at the center and somehow that supports flat Earth how did gleon try to support Flat
• 19:30 - 20:00 Earth with a with a um North Pole map you know he from what I understand he put Antarctica around the outside so if you're looking at that map and it's like a plate a dish a circle um Antarctica is the whole Outer Rim so you know that would mean that a 24hour sun the sun would be according to that model be moving during our Inner Circle North um hemisphere uh during our summer be tight
• 20:00 - 20:30 moving and then wider on the the summer but you're still getting 12-hour days and 12h hour nights in the rest of the the central part of the world the equator while we're having this 24-hour Sun um and then Vice verse so on the when it's towards the Arctic it it has some issues I don't know too much about gleon I'm still learning a bit for the do it only takes two seconds to recognize that having um One pole at the middle and one P at the outer edge
• 20:30 - 21:00 doesn't make any sense since they both should be represented equally cuz they're equal yeah I think Leon's map from what I heard from people like Eric tubay in some of his videos I think what he accounted was that there was no 24-hour son in Antarctica which is where will dve this idea that this is such a significant experiment so the sun was out for 24 hours when you were there the sun was up for 24 hours sorry you were break waking up was the Sun up for 24 hours when you were there it was
• 21:00 - 21:30 up for the whole time so 3 days three and a half days four days that we were there it did not set so no night okay all right so on the um how long uh were so were some of the flaters Mind changed and some not changed from seeing the sun after I haven't checked in with everybody so I couldn't say at this point um I know that there's a
• 21:30 - 22:00 possibility that one may have had some some changes but I I haven't checked in with him personally to hear from him I've been hyper focused on the doc and then going in live streams to try to reconcile myself to AAP with other flat earthers who might be smarter might have some ideas um so I I I hate to say either way right now are you still editing the video yeah we're started today was the first day of week three oh we're on a six week schedule for the picture and then an 8 to 10 week on the overall
• 22:00 - 22:30 project hopefully we can find at some point in this time um a distribution for it in in a home at the point we have it did you conduct any on the spot experiments or demonstrations while filming to disprove the Flat Earth theory such as the Earth's curvature or the sun's apparent path been filming it for 24 hours no I did not um I brought a compass my compass was was pretty accurate I'd say all the way down to the 79th 80th
• 22:30 - 23:00 parallel what have you where we were but again I was hyperfocused on filming everyone else's experiments and I know there were some long range experiments observations um from some of the flatters they were examining the uh that they had a a flare gun to you know get some um heat signals from the Sun to try to measure how hot it was at different times a day I know they'll be releasing that info soon I'm trying to get a hold of it myself so that I can include what I can from them so who funded this
• 23:00 - 23:30 expensive [Music] thing the trip was put on by Will Duffy individuals did fund themselves in some senses instances um will wanted to originally I believe bring 48 people flat earthers and and globers 24 of each but as he started to get towards the trip he was not able to get commitments from a lot of people so um it ended up being uh jiren Campanella Austin witset
• 23:30 - 24:00 Elizabeth aosta and myself from the flat earthers and will Duffy Mike tun Dave McKean and critical think and Mark Herman from the round earthers okay did Elizabeth take her shirt off also no she did not okay that would have been inappropriate all right what um what motivated you to participate so there was about 10 people there and um so you were the main documentarian person with the video
• 24:00 - 24:30 right right now um let me see I've had a fascination with flat Earth myself since about 2015 my friend Mark was going on the journey and so I had originally thought man I'd love to go um maybe I can go with them with who he was going with it wasn't possible I said if the organizer or anyone is looking for someone a filmmaker a documentary filmmaker I sent him some of my work I said use this the reference I think I would do a great job and it was right
• 24:30 - 25:00 before Thanksgiving I got a call very early in the morning and it was Mark and he said that the organizer will Duffy was interested to speak to me if I was still interested to go and and what I could provide and what that would mean so the the rest was history all right do you uh besides editing this are you planning on doing any more Flat Earth round earth or other Earth um studies it'll be hard to say I think where this all ends up will have a big
• 25:00 - 25:30 impact I'm enjoying the community of both flat and round earth I've got on a lot of live streams people have been very kind a lot of people don't believe we went I find a lot of their um claims a little bit absurd at times a little funny at times um so yeah I it's hard to say I think this will be pretty definitive when I'm done on at least what I've been able to focus I don't know that I'll have another opportunity to be full-time on these Concepts again in my life and so um as it is now this is hopefully I'm
• 25:30 - 26:00 going to have all the information to present both sides of this this uh story both sides of this this argument and uh you know hopefully enough information from the trip for a good story that'll leave people with a non-biased visual that will allow them to uh make their own decisions which I think is what a good documentary ultimately does okay so the main thing I've learned from this whole Excursion was that um you believe that it's okay for men to take all their shirts off and inappropriate for women
• 26:00 - 26:30 is that right no that's not what I said that's I don't believe that's correct I don't believe you want correct the record no I think we leave that part out all right women can do what they want I am not encourag now if a trans manwoman um wanted to take their shirt off there at that time would that be appropriate or not
• 26:30 - 27:00 no comment on what the individual free people of the world decide to do with their free time I did it I thought it was a hoot um I had fun um it was fun in nature it you know Place supposed to be that cold so people are people