Photography | Short Videos | Documentary Series
Documentary Films | Major Motion Pictures | Computer Animations
I consider short videos (or ‘video shorts’ or simply just ‘shorts’) as any video typically lasting less than 30 minutes. However, the videos discussed below tend to be less than 20 minutes in length. Most short videos typically don’t have the production value and/or budgets of short films, but as always there are exceptions. In any event, here are some good sites to visit if/when you are interested in watching some short videos about science and other science-related subjects.
YOUTUBE
Nearly everyone knows YouTube, an Internet site with one of the most extensive collections of short–often homemade–videos on the planet. Although the quality of these videos is highly variable, there are some excellent short videos about science and other science-related topics housed there.
Here are just a few of Dr. M’s favorites:
- YouTube’s Vsauce
- YouTube’s Veritasium
- YouTube’s Minute Physics
- YouTube’s Minute Earth
Plus, don’t forget, there’s a SCIENCEsEDiment YouTube channel!
TED TALKS
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to a simple concept: “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It began in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three different professional sectors: Technology, Entertainment, Design. However, since then TED has expanded their topics well beyond these three initial categories. Go there and explore their many interesting ‘TED talks‘…you will rarely find yourself disappointed that you did.
THE STORY OF STUFF PROJECT
Do YOU want to try and help build a more healthy and just planet? Well, that’s what the founders of The Story of Stuff Project set out to do by making a 20-minute video about “the way we make, use and throw away all the Stuff in our lives.” Since that first video, they’ve created a number of other interesting short films. The Story of Stuff Project is now a more of a fully developed social and ecological ‘movement,’ complete with a website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and Podcast.
DOG & RABBIT’S NOBEL PRIZE WINING SCIENTISTS
Dog & Rabbit is a creative animation group who, in 2015 and then again in 2016, animated 2-3 minute videos of a few Nobel Prize wining scientists. In total, they have created no less than eight video shorts on cutting-edge work done in science. Although the videos were first created for Nature magazine, Dog & Rabbit has generously shared them with us on their Vimeo channel. You can watch them yourself by following the links below:
2015
Elizabeth Blackburn – All Creatures Great and Small
Saul Perlmutter – One Photon’s Journey
Stefan Hell – Fluorescence is a State of Mind
Robert Wilson – The Pigeon, the Antennae and Me
2016
Serge Haroche – Big Box, Small Box, Light-Filled Box
Dan Shechtman – No Such Animal
Art McDonald – Aint No Stopping Them Now
Bill Phillips – Tick Tock Cold Cold Clock (but also below!)
TO SCALE: THE SOLAR SYSTEM
On a dry lakebed in Nevada, friends Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh built a scale model of our solar system with complete planetary orbits. This is 7-minute science filmmaking at its finest!
Do you have a favorite site that houses short videos in which science plays a starring role? If so, then please tell Dr. M about it through the comment feature below!