As I’ve been trying to emphasize in past posts, visual story-telling using a good dramatic question can be a powerful way to spread sound science ideas to a diverse audience.  Here’s a video that is highly effective in getting across the concept of the “domino effect in nature”.  It was made by graduate student, Megan Callahan, who used simple props (dominoes) to create a compelling video:

The video was made during a workshop held by Randy Olson, scientist turned filmmaker (more about the workshop here).  Let’s apply my features of a good video and see how this one does:

1. The video is short.  Imagine a scientist getting across an abstract concept….by talking.  This video does it in one minute, with minimal talking.

2. The information is presented visually as well as verbally.  Yes.  Even without the beginning dialog between the two women, the point of the video is clear.

3. The video keeps adding information at a steady but rapid pace.  Yes.  In this case, the video uses falling dominoes in different habitats to move the story forward.

4. There is constant motion going on throughout the video. Yes, the falling dominoes and cuts from one scene to the next create the impression of constant motion.

5. Colors are intense and dramatic.  Not so obvious because the colors are those of nature.  The video could have used a few close-ups of the images on the dominoes with dramatic colors (of a butterfly or flower, for example).

6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding the message.  Yes, a brief text segment at the end poses the key questions.

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.  The music (mostly bongos) adds to the feeling of movement or motion, which along with the sounds of the falling dominoes, creates a mood.

9. All visual and audio components are rendered to the highest quality possible.  Yes.

10. The video has people, animals, or cartoon characters that are doing something interesting, unusual, or surprising.  In this case, the falling dominoes with attached images representing species are a surprising element.

11. There is an element of suspense.  Yes.  Where will the dominoes end up?

12. There is no traditional beginning, middle, and end.  In this case, there is:  the opening scene with the two women, the falling dominoes, the ending text sequence.  However, it’s not really that obvious.

So this video clearly adheres to most of the elements I’ve identified as being important to creating an effective message.  Let me hasten to add that these are not the only features that characterize an effective video.  There may be some that break the rules (and these, I’m guessing, will be highly effective).  The point is that there are some common attributes that the scientist videographer can keep in mind when planning a video project.

Use your imagination, as Megan did, and create something memorable.  In this case, she took the name of the scientific idea (domino effect) and used it to develop a visual aid that reinforced the concept.  She went a step further and attached pictures of organisms to the dominoes, which drove home the point that each domino represented a species.  By putting the questioning woman’s picture on the last domino, Megan emphasized that humans are part of nature’s interconnectedness.

Many other scientific concepts lend themselves to such visual storytelling.  We just have to be creative in finding ways to tell those stories.

A final point about Megan’s video:  it did not require an expensive film crew, elaborate stage settings, exotic shooting locations, or a huge budget to create.  The students had NO prior experience with film making.  I’m not sure what equipment they used to capture the footage, but it would have been possible to shoot it with a smartphone.  The students did their own acting.  The only prop was a package of dominoes.  Their “shooting locations” for nature scenes were different habitats in their region, apparently close by and easily accessible.  This is a great example of how someone using minimal equipment and visual aids can create a compelling audiovisual message.