AI Brings Century-Old Antarctic Expedition to Life in 'Endurance' Documentary

AI Gives Voice to Century-Old Diaries of Ernest Shackleton's Endurance Crew

Member of the board, UCLA Daily Bruin Alumni Network; advisory board, Center for Ethical Leadership in the Media Academy Award-winning filmmaker Chai Vasarhelyi knows how to tell a good story. The films she helped bring to life about American climber Alex Honnold conquering El Capitan without safety gear (Free Solo) and the struggles faced by elite swimmer Diana Nyad to swim over 100 miles nonstop from Cuba to Florida (Nyad) are award-winning explorations of the human spirit. Each celebrates people who face seemingly impossible challenges and defy seemingly impossible odds to succeed. Which is why she and her husband, award-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin, were drawn to the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his awe-inspiring 1914-1917 expedition to Antarctica with the crew of the Endurance. The ask was to tell Shackleton's story as well as the story of a contemporary crew, funded by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, that set out in an icebreaker in early 2022 to locate the final resting place of Shackleton's ship, below the ice. Vasarhelyi says she and Chin knew they needed to think creatively about how to tell the stories of both grand adventures. "I have long been fascinated by the Shackleton story, it is one of the great survival stories," Vasarhelyi said in an interview. But "there have been so many great films, how would we make it in 2024?" Their answer: use cutting-edge generative AI tools to give voice to the personal diaries, letters and other writings of Shackleton and members of the 27-man crew he kept alive for over 750 days after the Endurance was trapped and then sank in the frigid, ice-packed Weddell Sea thousands of miles from civilization. His greatest failure turned into a success, and a lesson in leadership, as he worked to ensure his entire crew survived the brutal conditions (minus the expedition dogs and a cat named Mrs. Chippy). "The way into the Shackleton story is through the diaries," Vasarhelyi said. "These are primary accounts from multiple points of view of the same events, that are revealing of great character." In the new National Geographic documentary film Endurance, which airs on Disney Plus starting Nov. 2, Vasarhelyi, Chin and filmmaker Natalie Hewit used AI to have Shackleton and six members of his crew "read" aloud their writings decades after their deaths. The filmmakers decided to use AI voice-overs only of crew members for whom they had archived audio interviews from long-ago recordings -- something they said had never been done with audio that old. Created with AI software from Ukrainian software developer Respeecher, the voice-overs were set against re-creations of the journey, as well as the original film footage and photographs rescued from the ship by the Endurance's official photographer, Frank Hurley. Their goal was to make viewers feel as though they're actually on site with Shackleton and his crew as they abandon the ship, set up camp on the ice, trek across the frozen surface and then survive an arduous journey across storm-ravaged seas. After watching it, I can attest to their success in taking you along on the journey. The re-creations were staged in California and Iceland, on glaciers and re-created boats in actual ice and freezing temperatures. And they included having Burberry, which made the suits Shackleton's men wore, sew new outfits from the original pattern and material for the re-creations, Vasarhelyi said. The filmmakers were also able to add some color to Hurley's original images and match the color of the original suits -- after getting permission from archivists at the British Film Institute, who preserved Hurley's film and don't generally allow filmmakers to manipulate historical records, she said. Like many other filmmakers, Vasarhelyi is concerned about how AI might be misused in the creative process, but she also knows firsthand that there are ways it can be used responsibly to advance storytelling. "I very much believe that we need to regulate and educate ourselves on these tools, and that our guilds are doing the right thing by trying to protect our creative rights," Vasarhelyi said, referring to contracts negotiated during the past year between creatives and Hollywood studios over AI use. "This is a good example of how one of those AI tools could be used [in a way] that augments my ability to make a documentary," she said. "This film ... when I watched it in its final form, with the sound design and the color treatment of the archival footage and the voices, I was like: 'That's crazy. We're watching real footage that was taken 110 years ago in the most remote place on Earth.'"

'The stakes are so different': Endurance filmmaker on finding Ernest Shackleton's iconic lost ship in a new documentary on Disney Plus

You can soon stream the world's first documentary on Disney Plus in a new movie that uses AI to bring parts of the silent film to life. (Image credit: Disney) During the pandemic, when we were all stuck indoors distracting ourselves with Wordle and baking endless sourdough loaves, a new discovery was made that took the whole world by storm: Sir Ernest Shackleton's three-masted sailing ship 'Endurance' was finally found where it sank in 1915 underneath the ice of Antarctica. Nicknamed 'the Titanic of polar exploration vessels', the wreckage caught the attention of a lot of people, including the adventure filmmaking duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin from behind some of the best Disney Plus movies like Free Solo, Meru, and The Rescue, who immediately set out to start capturing the epic discovery. With the help of Natalie Hewit, who was onboard the Endurance 22 Expedition to document the locating of the wreckage of the HMS Endurance in March 2022, the duo have made a new film called Endurance with National Geographic that tells the story of both the historical and modern-day expeditions. The new National Geographic documentary mixes restored archival clips with present-day footage filmed from aboard the 2022 expedition as well as interviews with the likes of the present-day expedition leader Dr John Sears and reenactments of Shackleton and his crew to bring all the elements of the historical piece together. Like all their previous films that cover daring feats, whether it's climbing without ropes up a mountain or rescuing 12 boys and their soccer coach from being trapped inside a flooded cave, Vasarhelyi and Chin seem to be endlessly fascinated with the human condition of survival. "Having the audacity to have these crazy dreams and then having the chutzpah, the courage, the ingenuity to see it through," is what connects each of their stories. It's the running theme throughout their projects and The Endurance is no different. "I think it fits in [to our filmography] well," Vasarhelyi tells TechRadar on reflection. "It's different in terms of the craft that was required, and that's kind of the fun part about being a filmmaker: you get to try different things." For those unfamiliar with Shackleton, he was an Irish adventurer who made three expeditions to the southern continent during what's known as the 'Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration', the last of which was the titular 'Endurance' journey that set out to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. Shackleton recruited an eclectic crew of 27 men, 69 sled dogs, and one cat for the 1,800-mile-long journey across Antarctica, but unfortunately, the ship never reached its destination after getting trapped in the pack ice and eventually sinking. Left, stranded on the ice, Shackleton and his crew managed to reach Elephant Island but the barren castaway land wouldn't let them survive for long. In a heroic last-ditch effort, Shackleton took five men and sailed a lifeboat 800 miles across some of the most treacherous waters to the island of South Georgia to find help, and even though it took him several attempts to get back to the marooned crew, he persevered, saving all 27 crew mates that had been aboard the Endurance. It's a thrilling story and one that has been turned into movies and documentaries before (Liam Neeson narrates the 2000 film The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition), but Endurance is the only one to capture the full tale, from the start of the original expedition to its rediscovery in 2022. Vasarhelyi says she and her husband Chin have always been fascinated by the Shackleton story. "It's one of the great survival stories, and [while] we both had different reasons why it spoke to us, the question always was, how to justify a contemporary retelling." As soon as the vessel was found, it was clear to them. "It solves a mystery that has never been solved before. It's also an amazing historical artifact," giving them more than enough reason to make this incredible new documentary. One of the crew onboard the first Endurance was a shipmate named Frank Hurley, who documented the journey with pictures and video using one of the first motion-picture cameras available in 1914 to make what is considered to be the world's first documentary South. The silent film was painstakingly restored by the BFI for the documentary Endurance and is stunning to see as it brings the story to life. "It wouldn't be as amazing without Frank Hurley's photographs of life aboard the ship. The details of it, for me as a documentarian, were really exciting: how the past can speak to the present and how together they articulate something about our exploration is exciting," Vasarhelyi says. When it came to narrating these parts of the footage, instead of casting voice actors to read from the found diaries of the crew Vasarhelyi and Chin decided to work with a speech synthesis software company called Respeecher to recreate their voices using AI. With fragments of the crew's voices, the algorithm was able to recreate what they would have sounded like and the end result is truly impactful. Vasarhelyi - like many of us I'm sure - is moved by the epic journey. "This story really speaks to what makes us human, which is an audacity to believe in the possible and the grit and courage to see it through. To imagine how these men survived for over two years in the most inaccessible place in the world for over two years is incredible. It speaks to what's amazing about being human. I'm excited for audiences to see it. I think it'll be a great film to watch over the holidays."