Skin

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLMDbU17MaI&hd=1&w=512&h=288]

A little film I put together to give people a flavour of the latest exhibition at Wellcome Collection – Skin. I’ve decided that even though a video like this is primarily about marketing something, and doesn’t have a story or any real substance, it’s still a good thing for me to be doing on occasion. Because it’s relatively straightforward just filming objects and then cutting images to music, it gives me a chance to try out new things in Final Cut that I wouldn’t ordinarily have the time or inclination to play with, in this case ramped speed effects. These I have just (pretty crudely) keyframed in in the Viewer. Hadn’t really tried this before, and it works alright, I think.

Strangely, one of the things I am most pleased about this with is actually totally invisible. I found the music on Audio Network and it’s a remix of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker suite. I managed to loop it just before it gets recognisable and therefore a bit distracting, in a way which (hopefully) nobody will ever notice. In fact, thinking about it, generally when people don’t notice an edit, that’s when you know it was successful. Or is that just the self-justification of the uninspiring editor? Hmmm…

Exchanges at the Frontier: “Krauss is king”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ4Ofvh7FL4&hd=1&w=512&h=288]

I was fortunate enough to interview some of the people working in the most exciting areas of science last year as part of Wellcome Collection’s Exchanges at the Frontier series. The video above features Professor Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist, perhaps best known for his “Physics of Star Trek” book and work on the origins of the universe. It’s been the most popular video so far, with some unusually nice comments from YouTubers (including “Krauss is king”, from a fan). You can also see interviews with neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland, Tejinder Virdee of CERN and Seth Shostak of SETI on the website or YouTube channel.

I only got about 10 minutes with each of these people, but they were all such pros that’s all I needed to get these little clips. The BBC broadcast the events themselves as radio shows as well though, for a bit more insight and detail into their work.