What makes a good science video?
If you work in a comms team of pretty much any university, museum or science organisation, the chances are you’re involved with making or commissioning science videos in some capacity. But for all the videos being churned out and shared online, the quality isn’t always that high. Of course, not all videos are trying to do the same thing: they might be trying to teach a complex concept, ‘go viral’, change people’s perspectives on a topic, or sell something. But I asked the people behind some of the internet’s finest science videos what the key ingredients of a ‘good’ science video are. A few things came up again and again:
Is it visual?
Deceptively simple, but so frequently overlooked. This is the first thing to think about when making a video. If there isn’t an obvious visual hook, why is it a video at all? If the footage doesn’t enhance understanding or explanation, or achieve something specific, why go to the extra effort of making a video? This is the very first point in Vox’s internal guide for producers working on their explainer films. Identify whether your subject and story is best suited for video right at the start, and when you write your script, plan the visuals at the same time, rather than one then the other.
Then make sure you’re using the visuals to their full potential! Simple annotations go a long way, and remember to guide the viewer’s’ eye. Walk them through what they’re seeing — Vox are the masters of this, stripping back detail and directing your attention precisely where they want it. This is a particularly nice example (which also serves to prove you don’t need impressive animation skills to do this), but you can see it in any video they produce:
The element of surprise
This was mentioned by dozens of people, relating to everything from a tweet to an in-depth video. Are you telling your viewers something new? Will it catch their attention, hook their curiosity? If the story doesn’t have something surprising, it will probably struggle.
A clear focus and specific angle
A common mistake is failing to find your angle or point. Don’t make a ‘video about climate change’. Answer a particular question, find your unique angle. Start out with a clear, simple headline. If you don’t have one, you probably need to do a bit of work refining your idea. Adam Cole from NPR’s Skunk Bear channel said they’ve found that videos that make a clear statement do better.
You do you
This is a good guiding principle for all your social media posts. Always try to think of what you and your organisation can uniquely offer. What are you better than anyone else at? Joy Ng, a video producer for NASA, really stressed the importance of this in guiding both the topics you choose, and the precise way you tackle them.
Plan the journey
‘Storytelling’ came up in pretty much every conversation I had — I try to pick apart what it means in practice for online science communicators here. But in a more practical way, just make sure there’s a logical flow to your ideas. Plan the sequence of questions you’re answering in your video. At Sci-Vi, Katherine Knack from scientific animation powerhouse XVIVO said that when dealing with microscopic subjects, they make sure they always move from ‘macro to micro’, and avoid jumping between magnifications. This is a good guiding principle: establish the context, then dive into the details.
What a ‘successful video’ looks like is vastly different for different people and organisations. But regardless what your aims, keep these factors in mind before you set out, and I’m confident you’ll see the benefits in your final product.
What do you think? Are there other aspects you think are particularly useful to keep in mind when making science content? Add your thoughts in the comments section below.
This post forms part of the publication, ‘Communicating Science with Social Media’, which is the product of a 2017 Winston Churchill Fellowship. Read more about the project here, and for more about me, including examples of my own work, visit anthony-lewis.com.
