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.