Filming with a cellphone is easy…if you know the basics. You might think everyone knows those basics by now—for example, that video shot in portrait mode (phone held upright) will not play back properly on 16:9 aspect monitors (phones, computers, TVs). Apparently not everyone got the memo, judging by all the wrongly-oriented, amateur videos shown on news outlets. And there are several other simple, but often overlooked, ways to shoot better video with a phone.
So I’ve created a brief video to cover all the essentials (plus a few extras), which will improve the quality of videos filmed with an iPhone (direct link to video):
Are you like a lot of scientists who are struggling to fund your research or find collaborators to share ideas and costs? If you are, then you might be interested in new platforms that bring researchers together with fellow scientists, science enthusiasts, and potential sponsors.
One such platform is Thinkable, where people can learn, track, and fund science topics that are specifically interesting to them. Scientists create a profile on Thinkable and then upload a brief video (3 minutes max) describing a new idea for a study, a recent paper, a conference presentation, or just a tour of their laboratory. The idea is to have an online meeting place where scientists can interact directly with other people who are interested in their area of research.
I was contacted recently by Ben McNeil, one of the founders of Thinkable, who is a proponent of video as a means of science communication. He had seen my blog and some of my videos and decided to get in touch. We had a great Skype conversation about Thinkable and about the use of video by scientists to connect with other researchers and especially as a means to solicit crowdfunding. Ben wrote a complimentary blog post about me and my efforts in teaching videography to scientists. I’m hoping to meet up with him and colleagues next year when I visit Australia to share ideas.
How Does It Work? Visitors to the Thinkable site can follow a scientist or a specific project by becoming a fan. A prospective student interested in a particular field, for example, might follow an established researcher and learn more about the projects they are currently working on. Through the video snapshots, potential collaborators can see where their respective research areas overlap and perhaps embark on a joint project. Or a nature lover may want to support research on deserts, rainforests, or coral reefs—wherever their specific interest lies. Fans receive updates from the research they have chosen to follow.
Someone can become a sponsor with a donation of as little as $1. Sponsors receive in return more in-depth information and updates about the specific research project they support. They can learn first-hand about an exciting area of research—how it is conducted or how the findings will benefit society. They can follow the progress of the researcher as s/he conducts experiments and interprets the results.
I set up a profile on Thinkable to test it out and uploaded a couple of videos to see how that worked. Setting up a profile is very easy and fast, as is uploading videos. You just list a few facts about yourself, a brief bio, and contact information. There are then three areas for interaction. In “my ideas”, a researcher uploads a video (or image) to introduce a campaign, a poster, a paper, or a talk. You can add as many “ideas” as you like, but are restricted in terms of how much you can say or show about each one. A campaign is specifically used to solicit support for a research project. Here, a researcher provides a brief text description of the proposed project and explains why it is innovative, as well as a short video “pitch”. In “my sponsorships”, you have the option of allowing people to donate or sponsor your research through Thinkable; you may also choose to decline this option and only showcase your research. In “my thinkers”, you select other Thinkable researchers to follow. It took me about 20 minutes to set up a profile and upload a couple of videos. The interface was easy to navigate, and the finished feed is visually attractive.
There are several examples of campaigns on the Thinkable landing page where you can get a better idea of how other researchers are using video to pitch their ideas.
Why Video? Thinkable founders have focused on video as an effective medium for sharing science information. Researchers are encouraged to use video snapshots to connect with fellow scientists, students, and science enthusiasts. Of course, I’m all in favor of video as a medium to share science information and also think that this approach lends itself well to crowdfunding efforts. Video snapshots force a scientist to pare their message down to the core idea behind their proposed project and to make their case concisely and convincingly. I find that many proposals fail because the PI gets bogged down in too much detail and neglects to state a single, clear goal and anticipated outcome. I think that making a three-minute video can help a proposer find and articulate that message. Potential supporters, especially the general public, will likely appreciate the video approach, as opposed to a lot of text.
In addition to raising funds, a scientist can showcase their research publications with brief videos on Thinkable, which are then discoverable by search engines. A video on a sharing platform such as Thinkable is freely accessible, in contrast to a journal article, which is likely behind a paywall. So someone without a journal subscription can still learn about your work by watching a video. But such visual snapshots are more than just a way to make one’s work more visible online. As I’ve explained in previous posts, videos allow authors to explain their work in ways they cannot with the journal article. Video can enrich a technical article and encourage the reader/viewer to explore the topic further.
The video format also does not violate copyright restrictions typically imposed by science journal publishers but instead allows the scientist to visually share important insights from their work. Quite a few authors infringe copyright law by posting the journal-formatted pdf on their websites or on other repositories. Some are unaware that they are violating copyright, whereas others do it knowingly and assume they won’t be challenged. A better approach is to produce a separate information product that simply displays the essence of the work in an easily accessible and understandable format—such as video. When posted online, these visual products serve as pointers to the original publication hosted on a journal’s website. You own the copyright to the video since you’ve created it using your own media and data from your publication (as author you retain intellectual property rights to your data and any contents of a publication).
Filling a Need. Although other video-sharing platforms such as YouTube are currently where many scientists are posting their videos, there is a need for dedicated platforms where researchers can share information and interact with science information consumers and potential sponsors. I think there will be more platforms like Thinkable in the future, and many will be designed around video to solicit funding or to display scientific information. Science information consumers and sponsors will increasingly expect media-rich content on such sites, and scientists must be prepared to provide it.
If you would like to take your videography/photography with the iPhone to the next level, you might be interested in the Ōlloclip, a 3-in-1 lens (fisheye, wide angle, macro) combination that clips onto the phone. It’s small, lightweight, and easy to use. My husband gave it to me as a gift, and I finally got around to testing it out on a recent trip. The version I have is the original Ōlloclip with three lenses for the iPhone 5/5s. The company has newer versions with four lenses (fisheye, wide angle, 10x and 15x macro). They also sell a telephoto and a few accessories (see www.olloclip.com). There is also an app for the Ōlloclip in the App Store, which helps to compose your shots during filming.
I’m still exploring ways to use the Ōlloclip, but thought I would do a quick video review/tutorial about it:
I was impressed with the design and quality of the device. Basically, there are three lenses fashioned into a double-sided clip that can be easily flipped around to access either the fisheye lens (one side) or the wide angle-macro lenses (other side). The fisheye provides a 180 degree view of a scene, and the wide angle approximately doubles the field of view from the normal iPhone camera. To access the macro (10x on my version), you unscrew the wide angle lens. You have to get within about an inch (10-15 mm) of the subject to focus the macro properly (the app contains a loupe that helps to ensure a good focus with the macro).
The clip slips onto the top edge of the iPhone so that the desired lens is covering the rear-facing camera. The clip fits over a screen protector, but is too snug to work with a standard phone cover (other than one that Ōlloclip sells). The clip also covers the power switch on the top of the phone, but this is not a problem as a slot in the clip prevents it from pressing on the switch. You can still access the phone menu through the “Home” button.
All in all, I found the Ōlloclip to be well-made and easy to use. It seems to be pretty rugged, although it probably would not survive a drop to concrete. Due to its small size, the Ōlloclip is convenient to carry in a pocket or purse; however, the Ōlloclip’s small size also makes it easy to lose–so be careful. I carry it inside the provided bag but then store that in a larger bag along with some other iPhone accessories.
I especially like the macro, which works quite well to get close-ups of objects. See the next series of photos (of a dried rose) for a comparison. I snapped all of them without the aid of a tripod to see how much blurring might occur with minor hand shake (normally with macrophotography, you would want to use a tripod and also a remote shutter to eliminate movements that would blur the image).
The first one was taken with the regular phone camera–as close as I could get and stay in focus. If you zoom in, you see that the image is blurred, which I could not see when I took the photo.
The second one was also taken with the regular phone camera, but I used the pinch-zoom gesture to get a bit closer. The image is better but still out of focus.
The third one was taken with the Ōlloclip macro lens attached to the phone. I got the image in focus, and you can begin to see the individual cells of the rose petals; however, it was difficult to see if I had the focus just right while I was shooting (I was aiming for the crack in the center of the image).
The final image was taken with the macro lens plus the aid of the Ōlloclip app. I set the loupe in the app for 3x, which let me better see how well I was focused on the rose petal (this does not affect the view of the final photo). Although the point I selected (crack in the image center) was in focus, you notice that surfaces in other planes of view are not in focus. The iPhone is limited in controlling depth of field, but The Ōlloclip app allows you to select which part of the image you want to be in focus (AF) as well as the point of reference for exposure (AE), just by sliding two targets around on the screen. This dual setting provides a lot of flexibility in composing a shot. The native iPhone camera app, by comparison, only allows you to set the AE/AF together by tapping on a point on the screen.
The app also works without the Ōlloclip, allowing you to independently set the AF and AE for filming through the native iPhone lens. Conversely, you can use the Ōlloclip with other photography apps, but I’ve not tested those sufficiently to say how well they work with the Ōlloclip lenses.
Scientists are often reluctant, if not downright obstinate, about using storytelling in science communication. I think we feel this way because we somehow believe that science information should not need any ‘dressing up’ to make it palatable to an audience. I felt this way at one time but changed my mind when I saw the power of storytelling. As I explained in the last post, a story can overcome extreme distaste about a particular topic and even change the viewer’s overall perception of the subject.
But there is more that stories can do for those of us in science.
We can use stories to not only make our science more palatable to others, we can change stereotypes about science and scientists by telling our unique stories—especially through video. I’ve been pondering stereotypes in science for some time now, especially as it relates to women in science. Despite much effort by many organizations, negative stereotypes persist in the public’s mind, which can dissuade students from going into science. The old-fashioned image of an old, white male with frizzy white hair in a wrinkled lab coat is what the average person thinks of, even though there are exceptions on TV and the Internet (Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox). Women in particular suffer from negative stereotyping, which has prompted numerous reports about why so few women choose science as a career (there are many reports, but here’s one and here is a series of articles in Nature); recognition of the problem has led to various efforts to attract more girls to science fields (here’s an example).
I think the efforts to attract girls and minorities to science are laudable but that they will not be effective unless we can overturn those negative stereotypes that dissuade students from considering a career in science in the first place. Those of us in science, particularly women and other minorities, can help overturn stereotypes by telling our stories and showing those outside (and inside) science fields that scientists are a diverse group, that science is an exciting and rewarding career, and that anyone can do science.
I connected the two topics, stereotypes in science and storytelling, when I watched a video: The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She describes how we develop inaccurate and narrow views about other people or countries when we hear only a single story about them. Essentially, she’s describing how stereotypes arise and persist. Take a look and then we’ll discuss these ideas in relation to stereotypes in science:
Ms. Adichie describes how her perceptions of the world were molded by the literature she read—literature that she found fascinating and memorable. She describes how as a budding writer, she began writing stories that were about the characters she had read about—white, living in temperate climates, and preferring ginger beer—even though she was Nigerian and had quite different experiences. Even after she realized how that narrow view had delayed discovery of her authentic cultural voice, she found herself succumbing to other stereotypes.
I thought about the examples Ms. Adichie used in her TED talk, which reminded me of the mad scientist stereotype that persists probably because of a single memorable story—told over and over again—which can be traced back to Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein (1818). One could argue that there were precursors to the ‘mad scientist’ in Shelley’s novel; however, the average person on the street likely only knows the story of Frankenstein, which has been repeated in multiple movies since the original 1931 version. Moreover, the ‘mad scientist’ stereotype crops up repeatedly in popular film—from Dr. Strangelove to Dr. Curt Connors (The Lizard) in The Amazing Spiderman. Stories about mad scientists apparently resonate with people and have created an indelible image in the public’s mind. The average person, who has never met a scientist, has only such stereotypes to guide their perceptions about what type of people become scientists or what it is like to be a scientist. Even students who are interested in science may be unclear about what life in a scientific field is like.
A few educators are recognizing the need for storytelling—that is, telling stories that fire up students’ imaginations—to attract more students to STEM fields, especially girls. We scientists can also help by showing what it’s like to do science. And using video is a very effective means for showing what scientists look like and how they go about doing science (however, see this post for how not to do it). Used correctly, video can be an effective recruitment tool by showing real scientists at work:
This video is ostensibly about an expedition to study the Agulhas Current, but it really is about how women can be successful in a field like oceanography. The video makes it clear that women are not only capable of being oceanographers, they find it exciting and fulfilling. This message is driven home by not only showing a female in the chief scientist role leading the research cruise but by featuring numerous other women working in various positions such as graduate students, data analysts, oceanographic technologists, and ship’s mates and technicians. The interview with the captain reiterated the key role that female scientists and crew play in the success of the cruise and that their presence is now commonplace on such research cruises. The video also makes an important point about female role models who are needed to show younger women that it is possible to make it in a field that may be dominated by men or that involves intimidating work. The video’s message is summed up by the chief scientist who says, “Why should men have all the fun?”
I can’t imagine a girl watching this video and not being impressed with the idea of a career in oceanography. In fact, a video very much like this one that I saw in high school motivated me to want to study marine science. Even though I was discouraged from going into science by almost everyone (this was the 1950-60s), the vision I got of a life in science from that film kept me going. Any scientist, especially if you are a female or other minority, can make a difference by creating videos that show what real scientists look like and how someone can have an amazing career in science.
Perhaps if enough of us tell our stories, the public’s image of the mad (white, male) scientist will fade and be replaced with a more accurate one.
I am totally uninterested in sports and would rather poke a stick in my eye than watch any type of game—basketball, football, or baseball. The only thing worse for me than watching team sports is listening to people talk about team sports (and sports fans certainly like to talk about it). So it may be somewhat surprising to hear that two of my favorite movies in recent years have sports themes: Moneyball and Silver Linings Playbook (for a synopsis of these films, click boxes). I’ve watched both of these movies several times and enjoyed each viewing more than the previous one. They are now on my list of all-time favorite movies, along with Fargo, Alien, and Gone with the Wind (think true heroines, a rarity in Hollywood).
My disinterest in sports is not unlike the attitude of the average person on the street towards science. I can’t name popular sports figures (LeBron who?) and know next to nothing about sports statistics—and don’t want to. Similarly, most people do not recognize the names of well-known scientists (other than Einstein), and many exhibit little understanding of general scientific inquiry (how to conduct an experiment, for example). Moreover, certain science topics, such as climate change or stem cell research, have been imbued with controversy and doubt. To counteract such strong negative reactions to scientific topics, there needs to be something powerful to hold the viewer’s attention. Mere facts and figures won’t do it.
Of course, my two movie examples (and the books they are based upon) are not just about baseball or football. They each tell a compelling, yet familiar story. The stories are so compelling that they totally overcome my dislike of anything that is about sports statistics or that features sports fanatics. The stories even made me sympathetic to sports fans’ fascination with their teams and statistics.
That’s the power of storytelling.
There has been a lot of emphasis recently on storytelling in science— how it is important to tell a story when delivering a science message (see Randy Olson post). Stories help us connect with an audience and also make our science information more memorable. However, most of us—scientists, that is—have trouble with the concept of storytelling. We are suspicious of this whole storytelling business. It sounds too much like…well, exaggeration or misdirection. We prefer facts and figures and logic and think that everyone else should as well. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), the rest of the world does not think like us. Facts and data fall on deaf ears, but a story grabs and holds the otherwise disinterested viewer.
Scientists also have trouble with the mechanics of storytelling, which seems so alien to how we normally talk about science. In our rush to inform and educate the viewer, we forget that not everyone is as fascinated with the data or our topic as we are. So to reach others with our science videos, we must learn to present our information in a way that resonates with the viewer. And telling a story is an effective means of making people pay attention and remember our message.
In this post, I thought I would turn to an expert storyteller for some insights. Kurt Vonnegut was not only a great American writer but thought a great deal about the mechanics of storytelling. He developed a series of graphs that show the distinct patterns of some of the more popular storylines. These graphs plot the shape of stories, about which Vonnegut stated, “There’s no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers.” In other words, stories can be analyzed and categorized, which helps us better understand how to construct a story and how we can apply these shapes to tell our science stories.
The video below shows an excerpt from a lecture Vonnegut gave in which he explains the graphs for three popular storylines.
Vonnegut’s graphs tell us that many seemingly dissimilar stories repeat familiar patterns—patterns that we recognize, if not consciously, at least on a subconscious level. How does this help us with telling science stories? Well, if we do try to use stories in our science messages, we might be more successful if their shape matches one of the patterns deeply ingrained in our audience’s psyche. For example, often our research experiences resemble the ‘Man in a Hole’ pattern. We embark on a study only to run into problems with a faulty instrument….or while on a field trip, our boat breaks down and we fail to collect our samples. We find ourselves in a deep, deep hole, perhaps running out of grant money and time. In the process of dealing with these setbacks, however, we make an observation that ultimately leads to an important discovery. We end up with a paper in Science or Nature and a healthy grant that will fund us for the next five years. Everyone can relate to that story. And, of course, we would need to give the scientific details of that discovery, so that the viewer could fully understand what had happened—not unlike the way Moneyball explained baseball statistics and how sabermetrics revolutionized the sport.
Most scientific investigations have a backstory that is never told. In fact, we strive to hide those details when we prepare our manuscripts. We leave out the missteps, the failed experiments, and the negative results. We don’t report the preliminary trials that were not properly replicated or that were terminated prematurely due to equipment failure. We don’t describe the heat, rain, biting insects, or other environmental conditions we endured to collect our samples. We also usually don’t tell how we figured out a particularly vexing problem or fabricated an inexpensive but effective device to collect our samples. We don’t express in scholarly works the exhilaration we feel when we discover a new species or explain what motivated us to seek a cure for cancer. However, the stories of how we face and overcome multiple obstacles or what passions drive us are not only interesting, they reveal something about the nature of scientific investigation and of scientists. Moreover, people really pay attention to such stories and remember them.
In designing science videos, especially for a general audience, we can learn something from Kurt Vonnegut and other master storytellers. The next time you watch a movie, see if you can identify the story pattern. For more shapes of stories from Vonnegut, here’s an infographic.
