Still trying to marshall lots of thoughts about games, museums and the like following High Tea and a great Museums and the Web conference. Hope to put up a presentation about the latter after I give it next week. In the meantime, the films below are the result of a new approach we’ve decided to take at Wellcome Collection to using video with our events, and I’m pleased with how they’ve turned out.
In the past, when we had big events with lots of activities on a theme, I used to just film everything, add some interviews and cram it all into a highlights package (e.g . here) Increasingly, especially given the low numbers of views for these videos, I began to suspect there might be a better way. So with Elements, we decided to do something in advance that would be more focussed, stand alone after the event, and perhaps act as marketing too.
Fortunately, one of the curators was Andrea Sella, an inorganic chemist as well as a brilliant and enthusiastic presenter. In just one hour he gave me a whistestop tour of three of the elements that would form part of the event and I did my best to capture everything. We tried a few things more than once, but this is mostly the product of one take and Andrea’s ability to ad lib a really great explanation.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGSSn6Oh40Y&hd=1&w=512&h=288]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_S96C1dwk8&hd=1&w=512&h=288]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SPimevGEg4&hd=1&w=512&h=288]
They are pretty rough and ready, but I think it’s fine as the pace and presentation more than make up for it. Of course it’s not everyday you can work with someone who’s such a natural in front of the camera, but I think it makes such a difference if you can. Shows what a rare art it is.
On another note, if you start building something like atomic structures in Motion (a tool not entirely suited to the job) perhaps it would be best to first consider the most complicated structure you are likely to have to build before committing yourself to the idea. Lesson learnt.