“We’re Doing It Bigger; We’re Doing It Better!” – ‘Endurance’ Crew About The Latest Documentary And The Legacy Of Ernest Shackleton

Between 1914 and 1917, the Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton set off with 27 crew members on board his Endurance to cross the Antarctic from one side to the other. The goal was to sail from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, but sadly, in 1915, the ship got stuck in the ice and sank. While Shackleton and his crew escaped, they got stranded on the ice for many years but miraculously survived. His story of survival, Endurance, determination and the love for exploration hasn’t only been the inspiration for Endurance22, an expedition happening in 2022 on the lookout for the ship’s wreck, but also for Endurance, the latest documentary by Jimmy Chin (Nyad, Free Solo), Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo, Nyad) and Natalie Hewit (Horzion, The Met: Policing London)

Geek Vibes Nation chatted with producer Ruth Johnson (Nova, Anonymous Sister), director of exploration Mensun Bound, historian Dan Snow, who were all part of this incredibly collaborative project, about the importance of Shackleton’s story, the advantages and disadvantages of modern technology, and the life lessons we can all learn from the explorer himself.

Geek Vibes Nation (Liselotte Vanophem): Congratulations to all of you on Endurance. Why was it important for you to bring Ernest Shackleton’s story back to life again?

Ruth Johnson (producer): Well, I was born in Ireland, like Shackleton, so I knew the story from a young age. It’s just the most incredible survival story, with so many pieces to it. The footage remains from 1914, which the BFI has preserved and protected for all these years. An incredible expedition team went out on Endurance22 and found the shipwreck, which has this 4K footage, like never seen before, of a shipwreck under the sea. So there’s just a lot, and then that story of teamwork, survival, and perseverance made me want to jump in and make a film.

Dan Snow (historian): I agree with that. She said it better than I could; it is just one of the greatest stories ever told. He’s a famous explorer in Britain, we grew up with him. so the idea that I could go and look for the shipwreck with these legends here was just a dream come true.

Mensun Bound (director of exploration): We were all anxious to retell the whole Shackleton story for the next generation. There’s so much inspirational stuff within the Shackleton story, but it was already told repeatedly. However, we’re doing it bigger; we’re doing it better. We just want to inspire the next generation.

GVN: You have indeed the bigger and better technology. Was it an advantage or an disadvantage? Were there any problems you had to overcome?

DS: We had to overcome a lot of things. It’s a good point; the more sophisticated things get, the more can break. So we were pushing things to the very edge, beyond the design envelope, and our team was doing things that had never been done before.

MB: There were lots of very risky and new technology. New technology is always fragile. God, did we learn that the hard way?

RJ: Nico and his incredible subsea engineer team, having watched 150 plus hours of the footage, constantly had to work together to solve problems through the nights in the freezing, freezing temperatures at the back of the ship. They did that with the perseverance that you see in the Shackleton story.

They just kept going and kept going and didn’t give up. It was incredible watching how that team worked together and with humour. They know each other well, and that came across in the film and the footage too.

MB: We were in the abyssal depths of the Weddell Sea, which Shackleton called the worst portion of the world’s worst sea. And he wasn’t exaggerating; it was. The conditions are brutal and we had several days of blizzard there. We’re getting down to near minus 50 degrees centigrade, and that’s hazardous stuff. One of Dan’s colleagues got his eyelids frozen closed. One team was looking after the other so they didn’t get frostbite.

GVN: Like the Shackleton expedition, creating a documentary is also very collaborative. How and when did you all come on board of this project?

DS: Menson was working on it for 10 years at least, and I came on the year before the operation, and the minute we knew it was happening, we brought Ruth on, who’s one of the best producers in the world, and we knew she would do an amazing job of creating an astonishing documentary that could match the ambition of the people searching for the shipwreck.

MB: At every level, everybody was an expert at something. You bring together a group of highly trained specialists in every area with one focus. We all worked together to produce this amazing result.

RJ: There’s the incredible expedition team, the Endurance22 team, and then there’s the filmmaking team, and it’s such a privilege for me to work with such amazing filmmakers as Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarely. They are just experts at their craft, but then there are all these organisations who’ve worked on Shackleton’s story in many different ways over these hundred years, because this is a story that has been told for over a hundred years.

The British Film Institute, who looked after, protect and preserve the footage from that time, the Royal Geographical Society, and there are a lot of other trusts and organisations around the UK, and actually in other places, who have looked after these older materials and have been able to tell the story, as well as the descendants who have kept telling the story and kept it alive for these generations.

There were so many interesting partnerships for me as a producer. I’ve made a lot of new friends. I’m now a polar fanatic, which I wasn’t before I started making this film. There’s the team on the ship, there’s the filmmaking team, and then there’s just this huge group of people who all supported us, so it’s been a pleasure and quite a unique experience as a producer.

GVN: There is so much footage created about Shackleton, whether videos, diary entries, or voice recordings, so how do you choose what to use and what to leave out?

RJ: I am sad about what’s on the cutting room floor. There are a lot of parts of the 1922 and the 1914 stories that couldn’t be fit into a 103-minute film. We knew that we had to use the audio because we wanted to tell the tale in authentic voices, so we used AI to recreate the voices of certain men from the expedition. And that did, in some way, they had to have exciting writing to tell the whole story, and we had to have their voice, their actual voice, and not all of those gentlemen’s voices still exist today. So, certain things were decided for us, and then we had to determine who were the right characters for the 1914 story.

GVN: Endurance isn’t only about Shackleton’s story and the Endurance22, but also about immense courage, passion and determination. If there would be something that you would take away from this for your personal self, for example, his courage or the passion, what would it be?

DS: It’s a very good one for me because failure is not final, and you keep enduring and keep getting up and trying again. You see that true greatness can come from failure, and it’s when you fail that you pick yourself up, don’t lose heart, and keep going.

Shackleton failed. He went to Antarctica four times, failed four times, and today, he’s one of the most famous and admired explorers of all time because of how he behaved in failure. He cared for his men because he led, was compassionate, never gave up, and was tenacious and tough. That’s inspiring because stories about people are just unique.

GVN: Why do you think that people should watch this film, apart from the fact that it’s your fantastic work?

DS: We want the team’s hard work at the back of the ship to be broadcast worldwide. But also, I think, because the wreck is so beautiful, the story is so amazing, the storytelling is so great, I hope it does what all art should do, which is lift people’s eyes from the daily grind and lift people’s hearts and remind them of what is beautiful and exciting out there in the world. And also what people can do when they work together.

RJ: It’s a fantastic bit of story that is at the bottom of the world where people are near death, or it can be something that’s uplifting and inspiring. It really, really can. There’s something for every audience member, from young to old, in this story because there are a lot of themes that are relevant for us today in 2024. Different people come away with different parts of the story, have different favourite moments, and take out a different little message. So this fail, fail, fail to succeed is appropriate for nearly everybody. There are different people, science and tech. There are so many stories within this story that I hope it resonates with a global, demographically diverse audience.

GVN: That was my last question. Thank you so much for this interview, and good luck with the release.

Read our review of Endurance here. Check out our interview with co-director/co-producer Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi here.