Lights, camera, action: science on film

What’s the best way to get kids interested in science? Make a film about it. Katie Walsh lets us into some of the secrets of SciCast, an annual film competition aimed at getting kids to understand and communicate science

“Eugh! That’s revolting! What are those, has he killed his mother or something?”  Just letting you into the sort of weird conversation I have with Jonathan Sanderson looking at our SciCast film entries. We were viewing ‘A Punctured Lung’ by Team Isaac and Daniel.

They forgot to mention in their film where the lungs they were ballooning up (yep, through the attached wind pipe) were from. “No," said Jonathan rather witheringly,  Skyping me from his office in Tynemouth, “They are sheep lungs". I knew that. What a great film though, you can see it by putting ‘lung’ into the search on the SciCast site and it was duly nominated for our Best Biology Film Award this year.

Let’s backtrack. Jonathan is a TV and online producer, who made family science programmes like How2 and The RiI Christmas Lectures. In 2005 he saw the writing on the wall for that kind of show, and wanted to explore an alternative approach for families and others to entertain themselves with science films. He came to me at NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) where I working at the time as editor of the science education resource site www.planet-science.com. His idea was to create a website full of films about science, made by anyone, and with a competitive edge. NESTA agreed that such a site could help increase creativity in and out of the classroom whilst boosting science engagement and in 2006 the Planet SciCast project was born.

We have very few rules: your film must be short, two and a half minutes maximum, be about any aspect of STEM, and, crucially, it must be ‘Not Boring’. That was our shorthand phrase for ‘well, you know, don’t simply point a camera at someone heating something up with a Bunsen burner’; it just won’t do. You must engage with your chosen subject matter in a wholly creative way. Mostly teams understood what we meant by not boring – which led to some truly great short films. And some completely mad ones as well.

We also expect the films to be either all your own work, or to use appropriately licencedlicensed work, i.e. not to use music from your favourite CD or rip off film footage from the internet. We hope a part of the SciCast experience is to learn a little about intellectual property and develop some respect for it.

Meanwhile back on Skype: “Wow, look at that!" I said, "That’s genius,” Jonathan replied, "That’s why we do this project’.

The thing we hoped would happen had happened. We were watching the Leidenfrost Effect by the HotBuds from Dublin. (http://www.planet-scicast.com/view_clip.cfm?cit_id=2929). So far, a very good film about drops of water floating, insulated by their own steam above hot plates, nicely done. But then the drop wobbled in situ, then wobbled itself into a perfect flower of a standing wave. As far as we know this hadn’t been observed before and The HotBuds had noticed it,  and captured it and shared it with the SciCast audience. Maximum creative thinking, maximum science. This won our ‘Institute of Physics Best SciCast Physics Film’ award.

Most of the films we receive are from school teams, which reflects the audience of Planet Science’s weekly free e-newsletter – our principle means of spreading the word about SciCast. The learning for teams isn’t just about science. Of course, having to explain your science to others is a great way of cementing science knowledge, but if you’ve never used a camera or editing software then you learn all that too. You are also on a steep curve to developing your critical thinking skills, and learning to communicate with your group effectively if you’re in a team or get motivated alone.

You also have to share your work, contributing to a growing resource of short films about science that anyone – including science teachers – can use in the school lab, or just be entertained by.  Or not:

“That song is absolute sh*ite. Our physics teacher plays it every lesson and made us transcribe it for homework. Don't rely on my answer too much as I did it from ear and it is a fast song but here is what I came up with:
(Writes out all 60 highly educational lines about radiation, concludes with chorus:)
Alpha, beta, gamma, Tappa, tappa, tappa. Were counting on our Geiger-Müller tube. Alpha, beta, gamma, Tappa, tappa, tappa. When we shake it all together we get the Geiger-Müller groove.” A comment found online by ‘Chris’, an anonymous school student, in answer to a question about the full lyrics of the song. 

Chris’s teacher seems to have gone a bit crazy for our multiple award winner from 2009, the glorious rap song, ear-worm and video, The Geiger-Müller Groove. (http://www.planet-scicast.com/view_clip.cfm?cit_id=2810).  Oh, but it’s so catchy. I don’t believe Chris, I think he or she secretly loves it!

Now there’s a thing, music and science. SciCast is an incredible excuse to allow science to infiltrate other school subjects. We’ve had costumed films, pastiches of various film genres, and animations of all sorts.

Which This brings me to the winner of the Best Biology Film (Secondary School) this year; Animated Rat Dissection. Yes, ‘A Punctured Lung’ was pipped to the post by a cute Plasticine rat and its surprisingly cute Plasticine innards – great idea; clever film; worthy winner (http://www.planet-scicast.com/view_clip.cfm?cit_id=2898) .
By this point, I hope you are getting curious about whether you too can make a film for SciCast – we would love you to. Imagine a 12- year- old school student; they have made a short film about something sciencey and are quite proud of it. They submit it to SciCast and it ends up on the site right next door on the site to a cracking film from a real-life scientist from a lab or company or university about their work.

This is our dream for the site – that we reach out to working scientists and infect them with SciCastitis, so that the site can become a place where a 12-year-old feels accepted into the world of science, into their own science career, and not even notice, because they are having so much fun.

Since we started the project in 2005 the technology to make a film has moved on considerably. Now you can get a camera that will do all you need it to do for about £125; heck, your phone probably can too, soon your fridge will too I expect. If you want the full low down on how to make a SciCast film see the ‘Film School’ section on the site, but really the best thing to do is grab a camera and get stuck in with something simple. Once you have made one film, and examined what you feel you could improve on, your next efforts will be better and better.

If you’re thinking bigger and feel moved to run a SciCast project of your own in your sector, workplace, or with local schools please do. It has been done very successfully in the London Borough of Richmond by the National Physical Laboratory, feeding in some fantastic films and award winners to the national competition. 

Make a film yourself and who knows, you might get invited to our glitzy awards ceremony, held this year at the Royal Institution. There, you could walk the red carpet and rub shoulders with amazing talents like Oliver Madgwick, the winner of our Best Film award for 2010.

Our ceremony is the culmination of the yearly SciCast competition and we do unashamedly rather go to town, but as a teacher so wisely said of the ceremony last year, “This is great, usually it’s only the arty kids who get this kind of thing”.

Oliver’s film, Gravity, Mass and Weight (http://www.planet-scicast.com/view_clip.cfm?cit_id=2926) is a Lego animation of breath-taking detail, explaining its subject matter with a trip to Lego Moon. Auteur style, you’ll see from the credits that Oliver likes to work alone. You’ll have to watch the film a couple of times to take in all the detail. Check out, for example, the Lego footprint on the moon.

Oliver’s Mum, said: “We’re really pleased for him, though it was a little odd having a great big 17-year-old son still lying on the floor playing with Lego!” That made me smile.

I’ve only scratched the surface of all the films that have come into us over the last 3 three years. Have a trawl round the site, www.planet-scicast.com where new films are still going up from 2010.

It’s been hard work getting the project off the ground, but thanks to NESTA, the IOP and all our other supporters – and thanks to the work of the films’ makers – we feel now it’s really being watched.

While you’re thinking what you’d like to film yourself, and how you can give it that SciCast twist, please revel in the enthusiasm, the talent, the imagination and the craft of our winners this year and all the films that have made SciCast the highly entertaining science resource it has become.