Watch the Trailer for a Weird New Documentary on the Vinland Map

3/8/2015

Today I need to spend some extra time working on finalizing the entry on Chariots of the Gods that I’m writing for Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore, so in lieu of a lengthy blog entry allow me to present the following trailer for a forthcoming documentary on the Vinland Map produced by David Bradbury called The Vinland Map: Hoaxes within Hoaxes. The documentary is set to be released on October 10, and Bradbury personally emailed me the YouTube link to make sure all of my readers saw it. I have to say that I have no idea what to make of it. The production values leave much to be desired, and the accompanying website is primitive to the point of uselessness.

If I follow correctly, Bradbury seems to think that the part of the map identified as Vinland was hoaxed from an early modern map’s depiction of Japan rather than a modern map of the Canadian coast, as many have long believed. But the presentation leaves a lot to be desired. Bradbury told me that the hour-long final product “will, inevitably, be slower-paced than the trailer, and it may even make sense.”

40 Comments

Sacqueboutier

3/8/2015 03:20:03 am

OMG!!!! This is bazaar! The music is laughably bad, but that's nothing compared to the weird graphics.

Thanks for the laugh of the day.

Richard Neimeyer

3/8/2015 12:24:47 pm

I liked the music. Can't say the same for the video.

Shane Sullivan

3/8/2015 04:09:25 pm

Yeah, I didn't mind the music. Without a good sound font, you can only do so much with MIDI.

3/8/2015 03:39:05 am

Instant Classic. Would watch again. 10/10

Matt Mc

3/8/2015 04:06:38 am

I am with you EP, classic, almost touching on the Church of the Subgenious ARISE video. Scotty Roberts should learn from this, if you are going to do a bad video, make it interesting.

3/8/2015 10:07:48 am

Scotty would have found a way to include some sparkly Nazi symbols and a steamy makeout session of two anthropomorphized rabbits dressed like Indiana Jones :)

Matt Mc

3/8/2015 03:13:58 pm

That would of made his video interesting at least.

spookyparadigm

3/8/2015 05:05:21 am

Fantastic. An 8-bit Viking Mockup Over Mu snippet.

spookyparadigm

3/8/2015 04:40:05 pm

Excuse me, Mockup on Mu

https://www.fandor.com/films/mock_up_on_mu

David Bradbury link

3/10/2015 02:30:06 am

Thanks for that- the link wa region-blocked but I found another. See my second response to Matt Mc below for my thoughts on the problem of being associated with this style, and the consequent need for caution in my final product.

Bob Jase

3/8/2015 05:33:02 am

That was the most confusing thing I've seen in a long time. I got the impression that the point might be that the Vinland map being declared a forergy was a hoax while the Beineke knows it is real - maybe.

I'll have to take another look at my copy.

will

3/8/2015 06:27:21 am

How weird.

Uncle Ron

3/8/2015 07:04:26 am

"the hour-long final product 'will, inevitably, be slower-paced than the trailer, and it may even make sense.'"

One can only hope.

mhe

3/8/2015 07:09:09 am

Wouldn't October 9th instead of the 10th be more appropriate for the release? October 9th is Leif Leif Erikson day.

And why after watching this do I have this urge to buy some Mountain Dew and Cheetos?

Only Me

3/8/2015 10:38:17 am

Um...

Was...was I supposed to pause in certain places to read what was being presented? This was a very bad montage.

3/8/2015 11:14:33 am

Btw, Jason, since I'm not on twitter let me thank you here for drawing our attention to Theresa Morris. Or should I say "Commander T. Morris"?

http://ufodigest.com/article/notice-0929

It's like L. Ron Hubbard and Gene Ray had a retarded baby...

Only Me

3/8/2015 11:21:23 am

You know it's bad when the first commenter is asking for a translation. :)

Matt Mc

3/8/2015 03:18:11 pm

I like the response to the request for translation,

"if you don't understand it than it does pertain to you"

I hope to never reach the point that things like that ever have meaning to me than laughing at the absurdity of it

Shane Sullivan

3/8/2015 04:05:44 pm

I...

What...

Did somebody put acid in my coffee?

Andy White

3/8/2015 05:23:12 pm

I liked it.

David Bradbury link

3/9/2015 03:06:50 am

Hi everybody. A quick word about my trailer (and the website). The problem with the Vinland Map story is that, as my documentary title suggests, it's not one hoax, but several, not all of them by the same person (not to mention all the bits which weren't hoaxes, but were wastes of time). For example, the Japan thing which Jason spotted is not actually directly connected with the Map's depiction of Vinland, but it is one of several tricks built into the Map.

One of the themes of the trailer is simple DIY illusions, such as the "icing funnel" animation (done very crudely with table-top photography and a three-inch nail). Scholars have spent astonishing amounts of time speculating on the complexities of the Vinland Map, but, sticking with that example, if you can obtain a suitable beetle larva, then it's not at all difficult to make genuine bookworm holes exactly where you want them. Similarly, you'll note from the "Hoaxes within hoaxes" title sequence that my writing is not at all neat- but I was still able, in just a few minutes, to draw over all the pale-coloured lettering with a second layer of dark lettering, matching to within a fraction of a millimetre except in one place where I had to draw a bulge (a feature which also appears on the original Vinland Map). The two-layer theory of the Vinland Map ink should not be dismissed lightly!

The website will probably become more comprehensive a few days before the documentary is released; at the moment it is, like the trailer, just a sampler of the o m g tale.

Note to mhe: releasing anything to do with the Vinland Map on Leif Erickson Day would just be logical and boring. Yale didn't do it in 1965, and the day before Columbus Day worked out fine for them. So I'm going for the day before Vinland Map 50th Anniversary Day.

Only Me- pausing (and maybe turning the sound down too) is definitely encouraged on the second viewing. Pausing is one of the joys of modern video viewing.

In case anybody hadn't figured out the soundtrack- hoaxes, plus unhelpful scientific and academic contributions, got aggressive and weird or downright discordant sounds, the good guys got more soothing sounds.

Shane- I'll confess that an acid-in-the-coffee vibe was quite close to what I intended. Make the most of it, because the finished product will probably be much more respectable.

Matt Mc

3/9/2015 04:43:19 am

for what it is worth I was not joking in liking the video, it was just out there and wacky enough that I am interested in seeing more.

Some wacky theories need to be presented and explored in this manner. I think the presentation completely represents that topic.

If you have not seen the aforementioned ARISE video I highly recommend doing so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QROEzCEd_Kg

or the bit more cohesive movie WAX (which was the first movie ever streamed)

https://vimeo.com/52306393

Only because both movies really are excellent example of the vibe you are going for

3/9/2015 07:18:58 am

I kept watching ARISE even though it frankly wasn't particularly interesting. In part because I kept marvelling at the amount of work that must have gone itno it - a lot more than one would expect from what it is!

Matt Mc

3/9/2015 07:28:46 am

I can honestly say that I have never watched ARISE in one sitting, it is great in small five minute doses. I think was impressed me the most with the movie is it really is the the video equivalent of the Subgenius books.

I also cannot think of any better true satire of conspiracy theories and theorist (that said I do have not acknowledge the influence of Robert Anton Wilson and the Illuminatus Trilogy).

The whole concept of BOB is a perfect example of the mockery of some of these multi-laticed theories.

David Bradbury link

3/9/2015 09:38:55 am

Cheers Matt. I'd say my actual influences were people like Monty Python, stop-motion specialists Smallfilms
(e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGH1z-f2YFc ) and Mike Jittlov's "Wizard of Speed and Time"
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoLhLn9hVkE ).

Matt Mc

3/9/2015 11:04:12 am

Wizard of Speed and Time is a fantastic film. When I was in school in LA I had the pleasure or meeting him and he is was a great to spend time with and hear his stories from his film or his work with Night Flight.

If you have not watched WAX I highly recommend it

David Bradbury link

3/10/2015 02:25:57 am

Hmmmm. I've now sampled both "Arise" and "Wax", and I'd have to say they have both given me some good ideas on what not to do! My problem is that I'm telling a story which seems far-fetched, but is in reality the most probable explanation of the available evidence (including the damning discoveries by John Paul Floyd, which made me completely revise my original theory on the motivation for the forgery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland_map#Source_identifications.2C_2013 ). Therefore, in the final documentary I need to make little-read academic and scientific texts meaningful and interesting, without appearing too "fringe". And that, sadly, means avoiding obvious resemblances to "Arise" etc.

3/9/2015 07:16:57 am

For what it's worth, I think that the final product is going to be either really awesome or really terrible.

Bu as long as you make some fringe wackos mad, it's all worth it.

Good luck, man!

Only Me

3/9/2015 11:50:40 am

Well, I watched again, pausing at certain places, and it was more enjoyable this time.

Of course, that means Fenrisúlfr has failed twice to devour me for watching all the way to the end. :)

Hypatia

3/9/2015 03:45:50 am

I like it too, except my pc keeps playing it in fast motion -- must be that browser update, -- and now I need chamomile tea. I hope it will show videos of real bookworms feasting, not reenactments.

David Bradbury link

3/9/2015 09:29:29 am

The fast motion may be a result of failure to convert from UK to US frames-per-second. I'll work on the real bookworms, but they're a lot less common up here in the North than down in Spain or Italy where the Vinland Map was probably created.

Hypatia

3/9/2015 07:10:06 am

But I really don't see Japan in there, except for the vague banana shape when squinting.

3/9/2015 07:21:19 am

All the best things in the world are vaguely banana-shaped. (You know... Japan... Bananas...)

Get your minds out of the gutter, everybody! :P

David Bradbury link

3/9/2015 09:50:18 am

In the original 1965 official book, R.A. Skelton of the British Museum suspected that he saw Japan right where you'd expect; the three big islands in the top-right section of the Map:
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vinland_Map_HiRes.jpg )
"We have the choice between supposing them a figment of the cartographer's mind or admitting the possibility that he drew them from more precise information about islands to the east- perhaps Korea, perhaps the larger Japanese islands, whose outline indeed the delineation in the Vinland Map strongly recalls."

If so, then "Honshu" was based on something like a modern Mollweide projection, which would be odd for a medieval map.
Skelton ultimately decided that the resemblance was a figment of his imagination- but in reality his imagination had a lot of help.

Hypatia

3/10/2015 05:23:50 am

Now you have me conspiratorially energized.
We must consider that maps were subject of international intrigue and spying. This map looks like it was hurriedly copied from an original which is now lost, probably in Italy. Whoever drew it did not bother about many details, either had no time or copied it from a sketch of a cartographer.

It pales in comparison to the Arabic al-Adrisi map of 1154, which has detailed rivers and highways, even lake Victoria and Hainan, but no Japan. The al-Adrisi map contains three big blobby islands which seem to be Sri-Lanka, Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula.
In style, The Vinland map resembles the circular Bianco map, which also contains the three blobs, plus Cape of Good Hope and better details of Europe; but the Vinland map was stretched into a rectangular frame, which might explain why the three blobs were stretched into the Northeast.

If genuine, The Vinland map was copied from a well-guarded perhaps Venetian or Roman map combining up-to-date details, and it made sense to bind it into an up-to-date volume about Tartaria for private consumption.
As to the Vinlandia banana being represented on it, one must recall that in 1477 Columbus while plotting his expedition supposedly visited northern Europe and Iceland, and that the long arm of the Church of Rome was there too, must have known about Vinland, and could have possessed maps of it from way back. It looks exactly like the post-Columbian maps representing Vinland, but could have been drawn before Columbus. It is not obvious at all that it is a forgery.
The bookworms have backed my opinion.
What really puzzles me about it is that big flat island between England and France.

David Bradbury link

3/10/2015 07:14:20 am

You're thinking pretty much exactly the way the forger wanted you to think! Psychologically, it's a truly awesomely great fake.

Hypatia

3/10/2015 07:41:43 am

If a forgery, these three easternmost islands could be South America, North America and Sredinnyy/Alaska.
But then again, the Chinese 'Vinland' map of 1763, claimed to be copied from a 1418 original (when that monk visited Tartaria,) shows the whole continent of America in every detail...:)

Dora

3/10/2015 10:31:00 am

Interesting subject, but video i not too good...Could profit from more economy: better selection of information, slower, as with the music it makes all rather chaotic and choppy impression. Too much crammed in short time.But those are ills of many documentaries now, too baroque when less is often more.Some subjects are exciting anyway, no need to add too much "adornments" to try to make it even more exciting by over-using certain effects..

Too much good and you can have a trembling jello in speed, it is important to strike the right balance for the sake of presentation of information. But I hope I don't sound too rude when I am trying to give a constructive critique. Best of luck with the 1 hour version :)

David Bradbury link

3/10/2015 10:48:18 am

Thanks Dora,
The high-speed presentation was partly just "trailer style" but also partly an attempt to see if, given the ease of pausing with online video, people would re-watch the trailer bit by bit, and find the hints of narrative (and silly jokes) which become apparent on closer study.
For example, scientists could probably do something useful with those tables of figures from 1985, which may or may not turn out to be the most startling and unpleasant revelation of the final documentary (I'm actually hoping to find a scientist, anywhere, who can make legitimate sense of them- enquiries by a Smithsonian friend have so far produced no result).

3/14/2015 02:39:45 am

Don't be fooled by the home-made look of the video. David Bradbury has a very keen mind and knows the ins and outs of the Vinland Map controversy like few others. He is also very generous in his references to my own recent discoveries. I've deliberately been trying to keep my distance from those on both sides of the controversy until I get my own book finalised (I had no idea it would take so long... it's been like wading through treacle). Once the wretched thing is done you'll be getting a signed copy, David!

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Watch the Trailer for a Weird New Documentary on the Vinland Map

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