Tag Archives: video footage

Domino Theory

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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.

How to Make Your Science Video Memorable

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You want to make sure the information in your science video (or other science communication product) is remembered. This video describes several ways to ensure that the content of your video is remembered (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

View or download the transcript of the video here (just select the arrow to see it full screen).                                                                                                                                           

Download (PDF, 24KB)

One of the biggest obstacles for scientists is explaining our work in everyday language. How do you know if you are succeeding?  In the next post, I describe a tool that will allow you to quantify the readability/understandability of your language.

How to Capture Your Video Audience’s Attention

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When designing your video and developing your storyboard, you want to ensure that it will ultimately attract attention.  Here are a number of ways to capture and keep your viewer’s attention, starting with the one I described in the previous post (be sure to select the HD version and the full screen option for best viewing):

View or download the transcript for this video:

Download (PDF, 23KB)

How to Make Your Science Video Appeal to a Diverse Audience: Find the Core Idea and Express It Simply

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Science videos, especially those created by scientists, often suffer from what I call “Too Many Ideas”.  Come to think of it, many proposals I get to review also suffer from this malady.  The problem is that the videographer or scientist doesn’t identify or focus on a central question or core idea. Instead, they ramble all over the place, introducing several competing ideas within a broad topic (and usually don’t address any of them very well).

It’s much better to select a primary question that can be clearly answered. Secondary information can be introduced, but it should relate to the core idea of your project. Let’s take a specific example. Perhaps you are a scientist and would like to create a short video about your research on coral bleaching.  Your body of work perhaps entails several lines of inquiry, including spatial and temporal patterns of bleaching in relation to ocean warming, coral species susceptibility, anthropogenic factors, effects on reef-dependent fishes, and other topics.  What is the core question that the average person is most likely to want answered?  They most likely want to know what coral bleaching is and what causes it.  A good video for a broad audience would focus on this main question and clearly answer it. Here is one that does just that and additionally includes suggestions as to how the viewer might help prevent coral bleaching.

Or perhaps you conduct research on leaf pigments such as chlorophyll, anthocyanins, or carotenoids.What might be a good core idea or question that would appeal to a diverse audience?  How about: Why do leaves change color in the fall?  Here’s an excellent educational video that answers this question:

So, the first tip for making a science video appeal to a diverse audience is to focus on a core idea or key question and express it simply.

Video Review: What Is A Flame?

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Some of you may have heard about the “Flame Challenge” proposed by Alan Alda, the actor, and sponsored by the Center for Communicating Science.  In an effort to promote clear communication of science, Alda challenged scientists and engineers to explain what a flame is, using everyday language that an 11-year old could understand.

There were over 800 entries, which were judged by 6,000 11-year olds around the world.  The medium used to create the explanation was entirely open.  Some entries were written text; others were graphical; and a few were videos.  It was no surprise to me that the winning entry was a video.  Here’s the winning entry by Ben Ames, a Ph.D. student in quantum optics:

What was a surprise to me was how few of the finalists submitted videos.  I was really curious to know how many of the 800 or so entries used video, but could not find that information.  So I could only judge by the proportion of videos in the list of finalists (5) and honorable mentions (8).  Of these (total of 13), only five were video entries, and many were just written text (7 of 13 = 54%).

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that so many scientists and engineers submitted written text to explain what a flame is.  That’s the medium they are accustomed to using.  They clearly did NOT have their audience (11-year olds) in mind when coming up with the medium to convey their explanation of a flame.  I can’t imagine why anyone would think an 11-year old would be impressed with a text explanation.  Before I go any further, here are a couple of the text entries so you’ll get the idea:

Honorable Mention (electrical engineer):  “A flame is like you (a human) and needs oxygen to breathe and must eat to live, except a flame will eat almost anything (wax, wood, paper, etc.).  After a flame eats its dinner, it “poops” out part of what it ate in the form of ashes or melted wax.”

Finalist (engineer): “What is a flame? A flame is an object, a “thing,” something you can see, something you can touch (but don’t do that because it is hot). It is not like other objects, such as a rock, because it “happens” and then goes away.  It “happens” when something (a “combustible”) is heated to a high enough temperature and then starts to burn. This might be wood, or paper, or gas, or oil, or dry leaves, just to name a few. It takes different amounts of heat to get them to burn, but they all do. The big name for things burning is “combustion.” You get the heat by burning something else or — if you have a magnifying glass and focus sunlight on a single spot — you will be able to burn paper and some other things.

There are other ways to make a flame by mixing chemicals, but heating is easiest to understand. When something burns, it changes into ash and/or a gas (“residue”), and light. This light is what is called “a flame.”  So a flame is what you see when something burns.”

Now, I’m not picking on engineers or these two specific examples.  These were two of the shortest entries that made it into the final selections.  Short is good.  Other written entries were quite a bit longer.  These descriptions are simple and clear enough for an 11-year old to understand.  The problem is that for visual learners, verbal explanations are not going to work well.  All of this makes me wonder about the other 780 or so entries that did not make it into the final group.

It’s also clear why the winning entry was the one that the 11-year old judges selected:  It was fun to watch.  I can imagine after reading a bunch of written entries that this video was a welcome relief.  It also contained many of the elements I’ve listed previously for what makes a science video effective:

1. The video is relatively short (7 1/2 min).

2. The information is presented visually (as well as verbally).

3. The video continually adds information at a steady but rapid pace.

4.  There is constant motion going on throughout the video.

5. Colors are intense and dramatic.

6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding.

7.  The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer (amazement, amusement, curiosity).

8.  The video has people, animals, or cartoon characters that are doing something interesting, unusual, or surprising (a cartoon man chained in what appears to be Hell).

9.  There is an element of suspense (what will happen to the guy who’s chained up?).

So overall, I thought the winning entry was particularly good from the standpoint of creativity and meeting audience expectations.  One possible criticism, which I came across at another blog by Marc Kuchner, is that the video perpetuates the stereotype of the nerdy, cold-hearted scientist.  I see his point, although I don’t think this video is the worst example of scientist stereotypes (see this post for a really bad video with stereotypes).  Nonetheless, it’s something to keep in mind when designing science communication products.

On the other hand, I was disappointed that so few scientists and engineers bothered to do more than just write a text explanation.  A few of the graphical or video entries were submitted by scientists/engineers who partnered with someone who helped them develop the visual components.  At least they realized that there needed to be a visual explanation to help get across the information to an 11-year old, and they sought out someone who had those skills.

In summary, I think this contest highlighted the enormous gap between what the general public needs and expects in the way of science information and how scientists and engineers are trained to communicate their science.  The fact that a few of the contestants were able to create reasonably good videos is encouraging.  But we can do better.

Message to you scientists and engineers out there who are planning to submit an entry to the next science communication challenge:  Kids who’ve grown up with YouTube are not going to be satisfied with text explanations.