Category Archives: Science Video Tutorials

I produce tutorials showing how to make science videos, for example with an iPad. Other tutorials include how to do animations for your science video project, how to use the rule of thirds in video composition, and many other aspects of videography.

How to Create a Science Video with your iPhone

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Scientists and students:  How much time would you invest to learn how to produce an informative and effective science video, requiring only an iPhone or other Smartphone that shoots video? In this new 15 minute tutorial, you can learn how to plan, shoot, edit, and share a professional-looking video that describes a research project, an important science topic or research finding, or a new method.

Such videos can then be used to meet the Broader Impacts criterion of the National Science Foundation or other funding agency, as supplemental online information for your journal publications, or just to enhance your website and show off your work.

All you need is an iPhone or other Smartphone that shoots video and supports the necessary software to edit the footage. Note that this tutorial is different from the one I previously posted, which used the Videolicious app. In this tutorial, I use the iMovie app for the iPhone (download from the App Store) and briefly show how to navigate the program to create a movie project.

Check it out:

There are other movie-editing apps and, of course, professional editing software that provide more bells and whistles, but these take more time to learn and are more expensive. The iMovie app for the iPhone is designed to use video shot with the iPhone, but you can also import media shot with a camcorder or digital camera (I use iTunes to transfer files from iPhoto to my iPhone camera roll). You will also notice that I included some animations that I created with PowerPoint and Photoshop, exported as movies, and uploaded to my iPhone. See previous tutorials for more information about doing animations in Powerpoint here and here.

Even though most of my videos are shot with a camcorder and edited on my computer with professional software, I increasingly find it easy and convenient to use my iPhone to capture video on the go and to quickly edit the footage and upload to a video-sharing site. As the cameras on these smartphones have improved, the quality of the images has gotten better and better. There has even been a full-length movie shot with a Smartphone (Nokia): go here to see the trailer and behind-the-scenes footage.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful and inspires you to use your iPhone or Smartphone to produce videos about your science projects.

Using iPhone Panorama Images in Your Science Videos

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I’m constantly amazed at how useful the iPhone is for capturing video and still images. I’ve been playing around recently with the panorama option on my iPhone 4 camera. If you’ve not discovered this yet, it’s worth checking out. Instead of taking a series of shots and later trying to stitch them together, the iPhone (and some digital cameras) has a panorama option that automatically does this for you.

To activate on the iPhone, you need to tap the camera icon, and then tap “options” at the top of the screen. Then select the panorama option, which is at the bottom of the list.  The “lens” then opens and you are presented with a box with an arrow pointing to the right. Position the iPhone to start at the far left of the landscape you wish to capture and then pan the camera smoothly from left to right, keeping the arrow aligned with the line inside the box (you can reverse the direction of the pan by tapping the arrow). You should continue your sweep until the image reaches the end of the box (you can cut the pan short by suddenly switching direction).

It takes a bit of practice, but once you get the hang of it, you can capture some spectacular images (see below; note that these embedded images are about 20% of the original size; to view them full screen, click on the image).

Cable Bay, New Zealand

Kaiteriteri Beach, New Zealand

Kuto Bay, New Caledonia

Coeur de Voh mangroves, New Caledonia

The iPhone panorama option works best with landscapes such as the ones shown above. But you can see that they produce something close to what the eye actually sees when looking at a landscape. My husband has a camera that also takes panorama images (he took the the fourth image of the mangrove forest with his Sony Cyber Shot), but we found that the iPhone panoramas (top three images) were much easier to capture and often looked better.

I then began to wonder if these panoramic images might be useful in a video. I imported one and discovered that this turns out to be an easy way to get a smooth pan of a landscape, something that would otherwise take a tripod and a steady hand to sweep the camera. See the video below to show how I “edited” a panorama image in iMovie to create a pseudo-pan.

Where Should I Publish My Science Video?

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You’ve finished producing your science video and are ready to publish it.  Where is the best place?  YouTube? Your own website? In the following tutorial, I discuss some points to consider in making your decision because, in the end, it will depend on your particular situation and your objectives.

Be sure to select the HD version and full-screen options (on the lower right of the player window) for best viewing:

Download the script for the video here:

Download (PDF, 31KB)

How to Create and Use an Electronic White Board in a Science Video

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In the last post, I described how useful virtual white/black boards can be in creating content for a science video.  In this post, I offer a video tutorial to show how to create a virtual white board and instructions for using it to create content for your videos.  I provide a step-by-step description of how to create a background image to use as a virtual drawing pad, what applications and equipment you will need, and how to record your screen and voice.

See the tutorial here (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window)):

You can download the transcript here:

Download (PDF, 36KB)

How to Use NASA Multimedia in Your Science Videos

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The US space agency, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is a great resource for a variety of images and footage of the earth and its atmosphere, as well as various processes affecting them.  For example, their multimedia gallery of videos contains footage showing ocean currents, hurricanes, solar flares, temperature anomalies, time-lapse images shot from the space station, phytoplankton blooms, and much more.

Here are a few examples of videos in the NASA multimedia gallery that the scientist videographer might find useful for a video project:

Perpetual Ocean:

Solar Flare:

Hurricane Isaac transiting the Gulf of Mexico:

South America Fire Observations:

You can download these videos and because they are in the public domain can take segments from them for your video projects. For example, you might want to talk about the Gulf Stream and how this relates to something you are studying. You can easily download the video “Perpetual Ocean” (above) from the NASA video gallery and using a movie editing program, you can extract the footage that includes the Gulf Stream. Or you might want to talk about impacts of hurricanes on coastal habitats. There are several animations of hurricanes and cyclones as well as footage shot by NASA’s hurricane hunters that can be downloaded and used. Once in your movie editing program, you can then add voiceover and/or text to connect it to your topic.

Below is an example from one of my video projects in which I used two NASA animations together with my own images, footage, and voiceover to introduce a video on sea-level rise and wetlands.