Make your own science videos and share your knowledge with the world
Category Archives: Reviews of Science Videos
I analyze my own and others’ science videos in order to better understand what makes a good (and bad) science video. We improve by constantly assessing our work and that of other practitioners. By identifying key criteria in science videos, I develop protocols that, if followed, will improve your science videography.
In a previous post, I identified ten features that characterized an inspiring science video and pointed out four that I considered to be key to success. I thought I would elaborate a bit on those four key points.
In this post, I’ll talk a bit more about #1: The video is short, less than three and a half minutes in length.
The average video viewer’s attention span is short. People want their information in brief, entertaining packets. Unless they are really, really interested in you or your topic (e.g., your mother), they are not going to sit still for more than five minutes to watch your video. I know that you will be tempted to try to cram a lot of information into your video, thinking it is important to instruct the viewer about all the various aspects of the science topic you are discussing.
I’ve made this mistake and so I know how hard it is to edit out all the footage you shot (of yourself or other scientists) talking about research or whatever the topic was. This difficulty is not unlike editing a scientific paper: we must be ruthless and cut out all the extraneous verbiage and data that do not contribute to the main conclusions. We must be even more ruthless with editing our videos.
Most of the science videos I’ve done so far have been around ten minutes in length, which is probably way too long for all but the most interested viewers. However, I did strive to include a variety of ways to impart information: talking heads, footage of people engaged in some activity, aerial and ground footage of landscapes, animations, historical images, and text explanations. Such tactics help to keep the viewer’s attention, but it’s better to strive for brevity with your message.
Here is an example of a video that successfully imparts its message in 2:49 minutes:
In the last post, I showed you a video that would be difficult for the average person to create due to the advanced animation techniques involved. However, I tried to use it to get across some basic points about what makes a video not only watchable but fascinating to a wide audience. I did not want to leave you hanging and thinking that you have to create a complicated video with advanced animation to be successful in getting your science idea across. Here is a very simple video that contains no fancy graphics or animation as well as no voice-over or written explanations, yet makes its point very effectively. It uses the concept of “perspective” to make this point about the relative energies of earthquakes in history and is appropriately titled, “Perspective”. Take a look:
Now, how many of the features I listed for the other video, “Nature by Numbers”, did you see in this much simpler video? Let’s review:
1. The video is short, less than three and a half minutes in length. Yes
2. The information is all visual and understandable by any culture. Yes (assuming they can read English).
3. The video keeps adding information at a steady, relatively rapid pace (but feels like the information is being leisurely unveiled). Yes.
4. There is constant motion going on throughout the video. Yes.
5. Colors are intense and dramatic. Yes (especially contrasting colors).
6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding the mathematical relationships. Yes.
7. There is a dream-like quality about the video. No.
8. The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer, largely driven by the music, which is compelling and carefully keyed to the visual shifts. No.
9. All visual and audio components are rendered to the highest quality possible. Yes.
10. There is no traditional beginning, middle, and end. Yes.
By my count, eight of the ten features seen in Nature by Numbers are found in the second video (note that I selected Perspective to analyze on this blog before I had analyzed Nature by Numbers). I was somewhat surprised to see so many qualities in common, but it makes sense. A big difference between the two videos, however, is the music/emotional factor. Perspective lacks music, which was probably a conscious choice by the creator who clearly wanted to keep the message simple and uncomplicated. However, I can’t help but wonder how it would play if accompanied by music appropriate to the visual elements? Just out of curiosity, I played Perspective while playing the music from Nature by Numbers (Often a Bird). Even though the music was not keyed to the video, it matched surprisingly well and would have added an emotional component that likely would have grabbed more viewers and kept their attention through the entire video. But as I said, I understand the creator’s choice not to have music.
Anyway, my main point in this post is to show how an effective video can be created that meets most of the criteria necessary to capture and hold a viewer’s attention without using fancy animation or professional film crews or anything that would be out of reach for the average scientist. Now, I’m guessing that it did take an animation program to create the smooth transitions from earthquake to earthquake throughout the video. However, you could recreate a similar sequence using a program you already have and are familiar with: PowerPoint (although the transitions would not be as smooth). In upcoming tutorials, I will show how to create animations using PowerPoint and export them as a movie file, which you can post as a standalone film (like Perspective) or insert into a larger video.
For now, be thinking about the key criteria we’ve been discovering and how you might incorporate them into your video projects.
I’m constantly amazed at some of the videos I come across that are made by non-scientists about scientific topics but are head and shoulders above the typical “science communication” video in terms of quality and attractiveness to the general public.
In this post, I’d like to point you to one of these inspirational videos…partly to show you what’s possible to accomplish with a video that’s only 3:44 minutes long. The video was done by Cristóbal Vila, a 3D illustrator and animator. It’s about mathematical relationships in nature. There is no voice-over explaining anything, but the concepts are crystal clear. It’s been viewed 2,356,483 times, which gives some idea of the impact it has had.
You should be curious about it by now, so take a look:
As I said, pretty amazing. Now, I don’t expect us (scientists) to be able to create something this technically challenging by ourselves. Vila is a professional animator with years of training and experience. However, we can learn something from his video that we can apply to our videos to make them more appealing to viewers. What are the key features that set this video apart?
1. The video is short, less than three and a half minutes in length.
2. The information is all visual and understandable by any culture.
3. The video keeps adding information at a steady, relatively rapid pace (but feels like the information is being leisurely unveiled).
4. There is constant motion going on throughout the video; numbers appearing and disappearing; lines being drawn that are also glowing; objects rotating and spiraling around; things transforming from lines to become organisms; sunflowers and dragonflies waving in the breeze.
5. Colors are intense and dramatic.
6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding the mathematical relationships.
7. There is a dream-like quality about the video.
8. The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer, largely driven by the music, which is compelling and carefully keyed to the visual shifts.
9. All visual and audio components are rendered to the highest quality possible.
10. There is no traditional beginning, middle, and end, although there are three main components represented by the nautilus, the sunflower, and the dragonfly animations.
These are the ones that seem most obvious to me. You may see some others. The characteristics that I think are the most critical, that determine the viewer’s satisfaction are #1, 3, 4, and 8.
In the next posts, I’ll take a closer look at these characteristics and offer some other examples of how to incorporate these features into your videos.
I’ve been describing my experience “field testing” my iPad and the iMovie app to make videos. I attended a scientific conference last week and conducted a few interviews. I found shooting video with the iPad to be somewhat awkward–not at all as easy as with a camcorder. However, it was possible to get decent footage, which could be directly recorded into an iMovie project.
The awkwardness was partly due to having to hold the iPad with both hands to keep the image steady. But the main problem I had was in conducting interviews and holding the iPad in such a way that my subject could look at me while talking. I should explain here that it’s best to have the person being interviewed not look at the camera, but at you. This approach produces a more natural conversational aspect. Also, the interviewee is often intimidated when asked to speak to the camera. This is particularly problematic with the iPad because it’s difficult to see the camera lens, which is very small. I had subjects nervously ask me where they should look and seem very relieved to be told to look at me and basically talk to me in giving their answers to the questions. So it’s a good idea to prep your subject before filming to encourage a more relaxed, conversational setting.
In case you are wondering how my field test worked out, here is the finished video:
In the last post, I started talking about some of the challenges in using an iPad to shoot video and audio. I mentioned some of the issues with audio in particular. Some of these points are relevant to any device you may be using to capture audio.
For example, during interviews should you record your voice (as the interviewer) along with the response of your subject? The answer is yes. It will make things much easier when you sit down to edit your movie project later, especially if you are not going to be able to edit soon after shooting. Although it may be clear from the interviewee’s answer what you asked, it’s not always apparent, especially if your subject tends to ramble and does not answer your questions directly. Another consideration is that although I plan my questions ahead of time, I always think of something extra to ask during the interview (these unplanned questions often yield some of my best footage). You can remove your voice during the editing process so easily that there is no reason not to record it. Also, depending on your desired interview format, you may wish to record both interviewer and interviewee and retain both in your finished product.
So overall, the iPad did pretty well in recording audio, even in situations with a lot of background noise. I did find, however, that I needed to get pretty close to my subject in order to have their voice record well enough to be distinguishable from the background. That tended to interfere with framing the shot I wanted. Because what my subjects were saying was more important (in this situation), I compromised on the visual aspect.
I did not try using a lavalier (lapel mic) with the iPad during this field test. However, a lavalier would definitely enhance the audio of any movie project and avoid the problem mentioned above. In the future, I will look into appropriate adapters for connecting a lavalier microphone to an iPad and give it a test run.
