Tag Archives: production

Demo: the Movie – production blog 1

That screenplay we mentioned a couple of posts back? We’re filming it.

We’d hoped to post regular updates, but we’ll have to run them as retrospectives over the next few weeks. The script is fairly straightforward, so we’ve been making our lives harder by trying to film classic demonstrations in fabulous locations. Which means we’ve been up early, filming in morning and evening light, and trying to find weird places to shoot. Several of those locations have been above 10,000 feet, which does wonderful things for bicarb and vinegar but is less pleasant for brains and lungs.

The above is perhaps my favourite shot so far, though we’ve several contenders. I hope you like lens flares.

update: There are a bunch of posts in this series:
[1] [1a] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [Post]

Quiet / Busy

We appear to have been quiet here primarily because we’ve been busy. It’s one of those weird zen tricks, and it looks like this:

Alom Shaha on camera for Get Set Demonstrate Demo films
Alom Shaha on camera for Get Set Demonstrate Demo films

Yes, we’ve been filming again. Aficionados of the Physics Demonstration Films will recognise Alom’s lab at Camden School for Girls, and it was good to be back there after a couple of years. However, you may also notice the lab glassware. A beaker, in a physics film?

Nope.

Chemistry specialist Andrew Hunt looks on as presenter and NQT Laura Grant rehearses.
Chemistry specialist Andrew Hunt looks on as presenter and NQT Laura Grant rehearses.

We filmed some chemistry too. And not all of it was with Alom. Though Laura did wear a purple shirt to fit the house style.

Oh, and if you wonder how much effort goes into these films – we slave over the scripts, but the first time we’re all in the same room with the props and the camera is when we’re set to shoot them, so this happens:

A chemistry script is revised on set during filming for Get Set Demonstrate demo films.
A chemistry script is revised on set during filming for Get Set Demonstrate demo films.

So, yes: science demo films, coming soon to a website near you. Yay! Oh, and: Biologists, don’t despair! We’re featuring squishy things too (rather than merely things that blow up or don’t work, obviously), we just haven’t shot those films yet. We’ve another surprise to reveal before then.