Joe Rogan Experience #1698 - Neill Blomkamp

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NBNeill Blomkamp0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Nice to meet you, man.

   4. NBNeill Blomkamp0:13

      Nice to meet you.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      It's a pleasure. I've enjoyed your movies immensely.

   6. NBNeill Blomkamp0:16

      Thank you.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      So, it's very cool to meet you in person.

   8. NBNeill Blomkamp0:18

      Yeah. Thank you for inviting me down. It's, uh, it's awesome to be here.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      Uh, it's awesome to have you. And we were talking, just before we started, about this T-shirt, which is a design ... It's Bob Lazar's sketch of what he allegedly saw-

   10. NBNeill Blomkamp0:31

       Yes.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       ... inside a hangar at Area S4.

   12. NBNeill Blomkamp0:34

       Yeah. So, and what I was asking you is whether you think what he is saying is in fact true or not. Do you believe what he is saying?

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       The problem is, I want to believe it.

   14. NBNeill Blomkamp0:47

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       That's always a problem.

   16. NBNeill Blomkamp0:48

       It's causing a bias.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       Yes. For sure.

   18. NBNeill Blomkamp0:50

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:50

       Whenever it c- anything comes with UFOs, I wanna believe far too much.

   20. NBNeill Blomkamp0:55

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:55

       Not, not far too much, 'cause I've had people on here where in the middle of talking to them, I'm like, "This sounds like horse shit."

   22. NBNeill Blomkamp1:03

       It's so strange, because I watched that whole interview, and I read a bunch of, I read a whole bunch of articles around Bob Lazar as well, and I want it to be true incredibly badly.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       (laughs)

   24. NBNeill Blomkamp1:14

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       It's so hard.

   26. NBNeill Blomkamp1:15

       I need it to be true. But-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Yeah, right?

   28. NBNeill Blomkamp1:16

       But I also, um ... Some, if I have any rationality, some, some rational element of my brain is saying it is not possible.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   30. NBNeill Blomkamp1:25

       And, uh, which is, which is strange. I mean, you know, I don't know why I'm just not believing it, but I, I believe him, but I don't know if there is an aircraft from another galaxy in a hangar in the United States somewhere.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. NBNeill Blomkamp15:00

      budget-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      Right.

   3. NBNeill Blomkamp15:00

      ... of hundreds of billions of dollars.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:02

      It's very, and it's a very different scenario.

   5. NBNeill Blomkamp15:03

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      Where, you know, you have these super genius billionaire characters who are e- essentially living out a sci-fi movie.

   7. NBNeill Blomkamp15:10

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:11

      Right? They're living out Contact, right? It's really what they're doing. I mean-

   9. NBNeill Blomkamp15:15

      I wonder if they built two, like in Contact.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:17

       (laughs) Right, they have a k- in case some-

   11. NBNeill Blomkamp15:19

       Yeah, it's a, it's a separate-

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:19

       ... religious nut blows one of them up, yeah.

   13. NBNeill Blomkamp15:21

       It's a separate launch site.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:22

       Yeah. W- I, you know, I, I am so obsessed with this concept of, of life from somewhere else that, like, as I said before, with the Bob Lazar story, it's really hard, because I want it to b- I want it to be real. The thing that gets me more than anything is not just Bob Lazar, but people like Commander David Fravor, that had-

   15. NBNeill Blomkamp15:42

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:42

       ... that encounter with the Tic Tac-

   17. NANarrator15:44

       I think it's this. I think so.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       Yeah. Like, those guys-

   19. NBNeill Blomkamp15:46

       No, I, I agree with you. I mean, it's completely, completely inexplainable.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:51

       Right.

   21. NBNeill Blomkamp15:51

       It, it's just, it just defies logic, so, I mean, the, I guess the next thing you could move to is it's built by humans, it's just super advanced.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       Right. And that-

   23. NBNeill Blomkamp15:59

       Which is the most plausible.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:01

       The most plausible, because we know humans, and we know humans... There, there was some sort of technology that they were trying to get patents for. What, what was that thing that we, Jamie, the, the, it was, was it the CIA who had UFO technology that they were trying to patent?

   25. NBNeill Blomkamp16:18

       Hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       There's some sort of gravitational... Here it is.

   27. NANarrator16:22

       I think it's this. I think-

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:22

       The Navy.

   29. NBNeill Blomkamp16:22

       I think so.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       What is behind the US Navy's UFO fusion energy patent? So, this, this thing was, we were, we were reading it going, "What the fuck does this mean?" And so, the idea behind it... Where are you going?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      and choosing the angles-

   2. NBNeill Blomkamp30:01

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      ... is you're visualizing this creation and you're putting it together and then ultimately you get a final product. And-

   4. NBNeill Blomkamp30:08

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:08

      ... that's what people go to see.

   6. NBNeill Blomkamp30:09

      It's si- it's similar to people's lives, I mean, you could say, right? It, it, the choices that you're making, 'cause there's infinite possible, there's infinite possible outcomes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      Right.

   8. NBNeill Blomkamp30:17

      And you're collapsing it down. You're collapsing the wave, the wave function into one outcome.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:22

      Mm-hmm.

   10. NBNeill Blomkamp30:22

       And so that's what I think is happening. I think that we are given infinite numbers of options and we have the ability to act on, on those. We choose a path. And in, in the action of choosing, we collapse all possibility to one outcome, and the tree is crushed down.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:39

       One of the things that I've always thought of when it comes to UFOs, this is like a side pondering, is that the preposterous nature of them, the, the things like what Commander David Fravor saw, the things like what Bob Lazar saw, it's almost like the universe is trying to let you know that you don't know shit.

   12. NBNeill Blomkamp31:00

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:00

       Like that this, this weird little possibility that i- is not it's, it's not outside of the realm of what's potentially available. If you think about the idea that there's hundreds of billions of stars just in this galaxy, and there's hundreds of billions of galaxies-

   14. NBNeill Blomkamp31:21

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:21

       ... in the known universe, and right here on this planet where we walk-

   16. NBNeill Blomkamp31:25

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:25

       ... there's two super billionaires that are currently shooting rockets into space.

   18. NBNeill Blomkamp31:29

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:29

       NASA has a rover right now on Mars that's roaming around-

   20. NBNeill Blomkamp31:33

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:33

       ... taking photos, sending them back to us-

   22. NBNeill Blomkamp31:35

       Yeah, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       ... high resolute. We know that all that's possible. Why wouldn't it be possible-

   24. NBNeill Blomkamp31:40

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:40

       ... for something from some other place to come and visit us? But yet-

   26. NBNeill Blomkamp31:45

       I mean, the-

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:46

       ... the fact that it does, it seems so crazy.

   28. NBNeill Blomkamp31:49

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       It seems so fake. It, it, in, in many ways, it makes me really ponder simulation theory, because, uh, it, it seems so weird that this, this thing can go from 60,000 plus feet above sea level to 50 feet in less than a second and then take off to-

   30. NBNeill Blomkamp32:07

       Like a video game.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      off at what they believe is thousands of miles an hour.

   2. NBNeill Blomkamp45:02

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      And you're like, "Okay, what's that?"

   4. NBNeill Blomkamp45:05

      Yeah. How do you explain that?

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:06

      Yeah. What is that?

   6. NBNeill Blomkamp45:07

      Yeah, I don't know. It's, it's incredibly ... I mean, yeah. I- I- I was so interested to, to go through everything to do with Bob Lazar because it seemed like the most, the most ... It f- it felt like a goldmine of all of the information that I was kind of-

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:21

      Yeah.

   8. NBNeill Blomkamp45:21

      ... curious about, you know? And everything he says is just more gold in the goldmine. It's all awesome.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:27

      The thing about it is there's nothing about what he says that makes you go, "Get the fuck out of here." Everything, uh, is-

   10. NBNeill Blomkamp45:36

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:36

       ... at least-

   12. NBNeill Blomkamp45:37

       Including how it's not good for him, necessarily.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:39

       Y- yeah. He makes no money off of it, and the, the man's a legitimate scientist. He runs a, um, some sort of a research lab that, and he, and he sells some research chemicals and things. And he was raided by the FBI.

   14. NBNeill Blomkamp45:54

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:55

       You ever see that?

   16. NBNeill Blomkamp45:56

       Yeah, I did see that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:56

       His whole footage... Well, he believes they were looking for Element 115. He thinks that they think that he still has it-

   18. NBNeill Blomkamp46:01

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       ... somewhere, and he may very well.

   20. NBNeill Blomkamp46:04

       Crazy.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:04

       Yeah. But that's a real problem, 'cause if that guy goes to his grave and he doesn't tell everybody and show everybody that this shit is real ...

   22. NBNeill Blomkamp46:13

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       They did some sort of an experiment with it that's on video, but it's like, the video was so weird. It's like from 1990 and, you know, it's, it's, it doesn't mean anything. You're looking at, like, that this is, it's supposed to be able to bend light. But you're looking at it like, "What am I looking at?" I don't know what the...

   24. NBNeill Blomkamp46:31

       I haven't seen that.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:32

       It's ... We tried to look-

   26. NBNeill Blomkamp46:34

       But I mean-

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:34

       ... at it before, right, Jamey? But George Knapp has a copy of it, and he-

   28. NBNeill Blomkamp46:41

       It's the same concept, right? It's, that it's ba-

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:43

       Yes.

   30. NBNeill Blomkamp46:44

       It's- it's- it's a synthetic gravitational field.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:14:02

   Yeah, 'cause a bear…

   1. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:00

      It, it was inspired by the fact that I was living out there.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

      Yeah, 'cause a bear is kinda like a demon.

   3. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:07

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:07

      Like, if a bear's chasing you in the woods-

   5. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:09

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      I mean, that's a...

   7. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:11

      I mean, if you could create the same sense of fear, that would be good-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

      Yeah.

   9. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:14

      ... if there was a way to, you know, to capture that. But yeah, no, the, that film was a, it was a, uh, uh, Demonic was incredibly unique in how it came about. It was like all of these different disparate elements that, that I sort of put into a blender to try to make something that felt, that felt scary.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:32

       And when... There was something I read about the sound. Like, you, you did something different with the sound in this film that was revolutionary or very unique.

   11. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:42

       No, not sound. I mean, we did, we did really weird imagery. We did volumetric capture as imagery, which is unusual.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       Oh, okay. So volumetric cap... That's, maybe I'm s- thinking that that was sound.

   13. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:52

       No, it's, it's, it's the imagery of the VR sequences, when she goes into her mother's mind.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:57

       Oh.

   15. NBNeill Blomkamp1:00:57

       So the way, the way that that was captured was just very... It's an unusual process to be used in that way in a film. So like there's, there's a process in computer graphics called photogrammetry, where if you take 100 photos of like an object like this, hundreds of different angles, and you give it to a computer, it can extrapolate a three-dimensional object, kinda like a CAD file.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       Mm-hmm.

   17. NBNeill Blomkamp1:01:18

       And but the cool thing with photogrammetry is it also brings all of the, the image data with it as well. So you'd get the different colors and the surfaces and stuff. Um, so volumetric capture is the idea of doing that 24 times a second. So if you were to capture an actress 24 times a second, she would be fully three-dimensional in the way that this is. So it's like 3D video.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

       Mm.

   19. NBNeill Blomkamp1:01:42

       And then, um, and then once you have, you know, the performances from the actors, you can put them in, in synthetic, computer-generated environments, and then begin to light them and, and select your cameras.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       So that's what the sequence when she's lying there and she goes into her mother's mind.

   21. NBNeill Blomkamp1:01:58

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:59

       That's, uh, that's how you did that.

   23. NBNeill Blomkamp1:02:01

       Exactly, yeah. That, that was, I mean, that was part of the reverse engineering of how the movie came about, was, oh, ev- if everything is paused for now, and, uh, we, you know, let's use this time to make something else, um, what are the things I wanna do? And one of the ideas was I wanna use volumetric capture at some point. It's not clear how to use that in a movie, but I wanna use it somehow. And then another idea was this idea of the Vatican kind of buying up corporations with all of the capital that they have, and, and playing on the, the, the trope of exorcist priests, you know, but acting a slightly more 21st century way. And I sort of combined those two, and that, that was the basis for what, what the movie became.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:39

       It's a trippy concept, and it's one that has existed forever, the idea of demonic possession.

   25. NBNeill Blomkamp1:02:45

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:46

       And that there could be a thing that comes from some other realm, some other dimension, that can get into a person.

   27. NBNeill Blomkamp1:02:55

       Yeah, something immaterial-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:56

       Yeah.

   29. NBNeill Blomkamp1:02:56

       ... that, that takes over your body. It would be... I mean, you know, the, the Vatican, the Catholic Ch- the Catholic Church does do exorcism seminars for priests. So it is... I mean, I found that when I was looking into it, that it's... There's a, there's a level of perceived reality to it that is quite, you know...

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:14

       What are your thoughts on that? Like, when you think of the idea of people spending time-

Episode duration: 2:49:35