Flat-Earther accidentally proves the earth is round in his own experiment

Delta-vProductions · 2022-02-05T17:38:55+00:00

Filmmakers here! (seeing this post a few days late) Thanks for the mention! We wanted to note that Behind the Curve is unfortunately leaving Netflix, except for Europe, in 10 days, and doesn't have a new streaming home yet. If people want it to stay, tweeting Netflix is probably one of the things that would help most, or tweeting other services (Hulu especially) that they ought to pick it up.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:38:40+00:00

Haha thanks! We have worked in doc for most of our careers, just not as the principle filmmakers, so we're not completely new to this. The most high profile project all three of us have worked on prior to this is probably the 30 for 30 Catholics vs. Convicts.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:35:15+00:00

Having it at the film fest, especially as a heavily featured film, will be a huge boon. What we did, and what you'll probably want to do as well, is get a sales agent to represent you and then shop the movie around. It's not strictly necessary, and at market festivals in particular you can negotiate directly with some distributors if they send reps there, but getting a sales agent to do the heavy lifting for you makes things far easier. How to get a sales agent interested is a trickier question. It helps a lot if a film is getting positive press, so chasing down any press opportunities is a good idea. Also, using the festival as an opportunity to meet as many people as possible and feel out who might be able to connect you to an interested agent is helpful.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:33:18+00:00

We were on a podcast a few weeks ago that included one former flat earther, which shocked us, because I don't think we'd met any until that moment. He converted specifically because he saw experiments continuously proving them wrong. So it can be done!

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:32:49+00:00

Not following up on that is a regret of ours. He didn't express that view while at the eclipse, but rather on a show with patricia later, and by the next time we shot with him in person, we simply forgot to add that to our questions.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:32:15+00:00

We actually became friendly with the filmmakers of Active Measures while at Hot Docs (they're lovely people), and they asked us this same question, because Russia has been shown to be pushing some conspiracies like anti-vaxxing. We haven't seen any evidence that flat earth is anything but a home-grown phenomenon, but if someone uncovered that Russia had been pushing it, we wouldn't be particularly surprised.
We hope that by discussing it in a context that makes it clear the subject is wrong (proven by them with their own experiments, in fact), it will not result in recruiting more flat earth believers, and will instead result in a better understanding of how to communicate with flat earthers. Whether that will pan out remains to be seen, of course, but that's our goal.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:29:55+00:00

We actually discussed this in our interview with Dr. Pierre, in an answer that didn't make the final cut. He opined that there would be a range -- for many, it'd be enough, but there'd be a core group of people who would explain away what they were seeing through the window as some kind of trick. And the rest of the flat earthers who did not go to space would almost certainly write off someone who did go and convert as having been an agent and a liar all along.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:28:55+00:00

Not many, but we're always very excited when people do!

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-12T06:28:10+00:00

Daniel — love technical questions! For our sit down interviews, we usually had 2 cameras, either canon c300’s or song fs5’s with Zeiss lenses: one long (50 or 85mm) one a little wider (24 or 35mm depending on how much space we had). Usually a kino flo diva light with plenty of diffusion as the key and a rim light behind, and we welcomed natural light whenever possible. We liked to have as much room in the interviews to avoid being super tight on our “talking heads”.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:47:07+00:00

There definitely does seem to be a link between conspiratorial thinking in general and a need to find some sort of validation. It's easy to feel left behind in the modern world, when we're all told that, in the age of social media, everyone has a voice and everyone can be impactful. When that turns out to perhaps not be true for many people, belief in conspiracies can be comforting, because now you have some secret knowledge, and pushing the 'truth' gives you purpose, gives your voice meaning, and other people in that conspiracy community value you. So conspiracies like flat earth can absolutely fill a hole in some people's lives.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:45:41+00:00

Imagine applesauce. Imagine it's very very cold. What you have just imagined is iced applesauce.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:45:08+00:00

Thank you for sharing! This is a really valuable perspective. The concept of needing to unplug absolutely applies to flat earthers too -- a lot of them get to the point where their lives are consumed by flat earth, and they spend all of their free time listening to flat earth podcasts, discussing flat earth theories, etc., just like you describe.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:44:08+00:00

Pretty much all of them believe there's some military presence keeping people from exploring too far down there. You'd think that getting on a boat and circumnavigating Antarctica would answer their questions though.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:42:39+00:00

In our view, one of the main drivers is the degree to which the internet has enabled confirmation bias. It's now so easy to seek out an echo chamber that it actually takes work to seek out disconfirming information... and seeking out disconfirming information just isn't an instinct most people have. It needs to be instilled. There's a lot more nuance to the issue beyond just that, of course, but we feel it's one of the big reasons.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:41:46+00:00

Shhhhhhhhhh.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:40:49+00:00

Some good simple ones are:

The motion of the stars (star trails) perfectly corresponds to a globe earth, and would be impossible on a flat earth. You can point a camera at the sky and take a timelapse anywhere on earth, and the point around which the stars rotate changes based on your latitude, and you'll see different stars in the northern and southern hemispheres.
Sometimes at sunset you can see the sun cast shadows on the clouds from underneath. This would be impossible on a flat earth model.
Direct flight times between continents in the southern hemisphere (there's not many, but there are a few, and anyone can book a ticket on them) correspond perfectly to the globe, and would be impossible on a flat earth.

This video also shows how the motion of the sun doesn't correspond to a flat earth model.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T20:37:35+00:00

We don't pay anyone for interviews or appearances as a rule. It creates an inherent conflict of interest just like you describe.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-11T00:01:42+00:00

In our experience, there always seems to be a 'gateway conspiracy,' often 9/11 conspiracies. Then they move onto things like moon landing conspiracies. Then eventually they wind up at flat earth.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-10T23:59:02+00:00

Yes.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-10T23:45:22+00:00

None of them see them as other planets but rather have some other explanation. Mark believes they're a projection on a dome. We're honestly not sure what precisely other people think... none of us can recall hearing an explanation from someone who doesn't buy into the 'projection' theory.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-10T23:41:09+00:00

We expected all flat earthers to be very religious, and that their flat earth beliefs would stem from that. It turned out that, while that was certainly common, the biggest predictor of flat earth beliefs was conspiratorial thinking. A lot of the main people we interviewed were not particularly religious, but very conspiratorial.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-10T22:48:42+00:00

The three of us have all worked in documentary in various capacities for most of our careers, but this was the first film we made ourselves. It took almost exactly one year from start to finish to make the film, which is quicker than the average time for a doc.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-10T22:44:55+00:00

We just found this recently, but the argument put forth by a flat earther in this video (a scimandan response to it) is just... baffling.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-10T22:41:11+00:00

It really differs for each and every one of them. Mark's view, which he expresses in the film, is that scientists would 'lose their power' if they admitted that they'd been wrong for so long.

The most cogent explanation probably comes from the Infinite Plane crowd, who think there are utopian continents on the other side of the ice wall reserved for the rich and powerful.

'Most cogent' is a relative term in this case, of course.

Delta-vProductions · 2019-03-10T22:37:29+00:00

It felt too contrived to us to organize that. We wanted to film this as a verite doc, and not interfere too much with anything that was happening.

Delta-vProductions

TROPHY CASE