"Nurturing the Emerging Language of Video: A Video-Making Workshop" is proposed to take place during the 2010 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon in February, 2010. Randy Olson, a PhD Marine Biologist turned professional filmmaker will lead the workshop by delivering an opening presentation on filmmaking and using film to inform public audiences about scientific topics. A number of short videos (approximately 5 to 10) submitted by participants will then be viewed and discussed with constructive criticism offered on how to make them more compelling and interesting to a non-scientific audience. The workshop is being advertised to attract both those with short videos for discussion and a larger audience to view and discuss them. Since a few marine scientists are already beginning to use short videos for public outreach, the intended outcome of this workshop is to assist them in making more interesting and compelling videos. Also, the workshop will encourage more individuals to become involved with short videos for outreach related to their scientific research.
This grant to The Oceanography Society supported a three-hour workshop titled "Nurturing the Emerging Language of Video: A Video-Making Workshop" which was held during the 2010 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Jonathan Sharp (University of Delaware) served as the moderator and the workshop leader was Dr. Randy Olson, a PhD marine biologist who is now a professional filmmaker. Dr. Olson began the workshop by delivering an opening presentation on filmmaking and the importance of storytelling when attempting to convey research to the non-scientific public. He conveyed that the scientific community does not always communicate very effectively because members are not familiar with using approaches that capture the interest of the general public. He emphasized that through use of short videos and storytelling it should be possible to present information that is scientifically sound, yet interesting to the public.The audience then viewed ten short videos submitted by participants. After each submission was screened, Dr. Olson provided constructive criticism to each video submitter on how to make the videos more compelling and interesting to a non-scientific audience. Members of the audience also provided more useful feedback by offering their impressions of each video. The intended outcome of this workshop was to assist scientists in making more interesting and compelling scientific videos, and participants gained valuable knowledge to guide their future outreach efforts.
