I’ve been chomping at the bit for months to see The Imitation Game. It arrived in larger cities well before it appeared here in central Illinois, even being postponed further because the theaters bumped it to show The Interview. Theaters disappoint me with their skewed priorities!
You may have heard the buzz around this movie about British mathematician Alan Turing as played superbly by Benedict Cumberbatch, which is based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film “The Imitation Game”. As a piece of filmmaking, this movie is absolutely spectacular. The elements of the movie– the filming, directing, editing, acting, clothing, the music– all worked together to create a seamless film that engages you from start to finish. I highly recommend going to watch it! Sure, it has mathematicians and computers and no gratuitous sex or violence, but it won’t leave you bored, I promise. It is certain to win some of the awards at upcoming ceremonies.
My super short synopsis: a group of mathematicians are recruited to break a code that the Germans were producing in World War II using their Enigma machine. The code would change daily which made figuring it out each day an impossible chore. Alan Turing wanted to build a machine that would be able to break the code faster, which he and his team ultimately did, resulting in the war shortening by about two years. The movie isn’t perfect, as I doubt very many historically base ones are. One of my favorite places to check up on movies is History vs. Hollywood, which does a level-headed analysis of comparing movies with the historical facts. They have analyzed the facts in The Imitation Game, so I won’t spend time nitpicking the movie in that regards here. There are also numerous articles about the perceived shortcomings of the film on the internet if that interests you, too.
Since I watch movies through my science worldview filter, let’s take a look at my very subjective sense of the film. I made a handy flask rating system for a quick tl;dr.
The latest in the series, Deep Look, takes a close up peek at the fur of sea otters and why it is so good at keeping them warm in cold water.
“Sea otters aren’t just cute — they’re a vivid example of life on the edge. Unlike whales and other ocean mammals, sea otters have no blubber. Yet their body temperatures are twice as warm as the water they swim in. The secret to their survival? A fur coat like none other.”
I wrote about this new series a few months back at Scientific American.
Visit theperfect46.com, and it looks like any business web page. The Perfect 46 purports to be a company that uses the power of genomics, the information stored in the entirety of your DNA–your genome–to determine if you are with “the one” for you. This is not about your perfect romantic match, but rather the perfect genetic match that ensures your offspring will be free from known genetically heritable diseases.
Many times I wondered this myself, and while I had the attention of the youtube infamous Hank Green of SciShow, I asked him in correspondence last year:
“One last thing, while I have your attention. Have you noticed that there are so few women represented on youtube talking about science? It’s one thing that TV can’t bring themselves to feature women as science hosts and experts on a regular basis (they might be stuck in the 50s, I think), but the fact that a female sharing science (STEM) is rarely found (Vihart an exception) on youtube is downright disgraceful. Where are they?Do you know some? Simply, if young ladies don’t see other women articulating science, the impression will be that women don’t do science, and vicious cycle ensues. Other than just loving science, that’s why I bother to make videos despite the travail.”
(Of course, I’ve taken a break from regular video production, and this post will address why further along. I have two youtube channels, for those unaware of that,Joannelovesscience and joannema7 and I’m a member of youtube.edu)
Hank’s reply:
“Re: Women: The thing with YouTube is…it’s not like there are people saying “Woah now! I’m not sure if we can have a lady talking about science.” It’s open to everyone, and I have done a lot of thinking about why there aren’t more women on YouTube generally, and talking about science specifically. YouTube is largely male in general, I think, for a few reasons. One, it can be pretty abusive, which I’m sure you’ve seen. Two, the first round, at least, are the attention-seekers who don’t care what they’re doing as long as people watch, and that seems to be a more male trait (we’re scientists, we can agree that there are psychological trends in the sexes.)”
Emilie Grasile (whose style of delivery is quite like Hank Green’s, I expect because that is a successful youtube formula), who is supported in her video production by Chicago’s Field Museum, put out a video today about the first reason Hank mentioned: abusiveness in the comments.
As we know, this type of harassment is all over the internet, and especially on YouTube. I find it annoying, but not so much a hinderance to creating content in my opinion. HOWEVER, even though I might be able to personally brush off the inappropriate comments, I would like to see it diminish because it saddens me that potential viewers of my videos, especially if they are young, would be subjected to reading low quality comments and I’d not want them to think I approve of this kind of interaction with me, or any human being for that matter. I’d like to set the example that I don’t condone people treating others in that manner, so curating comments would be of utmost importance, but that takes TIME. A lot of time.
Which brings me to why I don’t make as many videos any more. It is TIME (Henry of Minute Physics and ViHart both have spoken in the past of numerous hours required just for one minute of video!). I like creating content and I have lots of ideas, especially ideas to reach young women about STEM, using products they use everyday, and to share about the great popular science book choices available. I have the skills to create a decent video now, after a learning curve, but pre-and post-production is incredibly time consuming. It would even be a relaxing and contemplative process if I did not have to attend to my career as a full time faculty lecturer and raise my four children as well, in addition to the in-person (and quite rewarding) physical science outreach I do. If video production were my livelihood or had the support of an institution or business to create videos, I could see this being a great way to channel my natural teaching abilities and telegenicity, but that is not a current option, though I am open to it.
With good production assistance, I might still be producing videos, but this costs money, and quite a bit of it. Sporadic grants for $500- $2,000 are not sufficient to maintain a strong presence online with high quality videos. To have animations or editing done by someone else, it adds up.
Compounding the issue is the demand for increased production values. I’ve been watching the progression of science as portrayed on Youtube, from the organic “guy in his garage” (ie NurdRage) to slicker productions (ie Steve Spangler and SciShow) as talented people who were in TV are moving over to create videos on YouTube, leaving the audience to come to expect increasingly better production values. Personality and content can only go so far without the bells and whistles expected these days. I agree, equipment for filming is becoming more sophisticated and it is easier to make good looking videos if you can light and frame and storyboard appropriately and if you have the time.
I’ll add one more observation. Youtube, in general, is the place for the the young (and young looking, as in TV). Most everyone creating videos, especially the science ones, have made this their overarching focus, as a career. For a woman who is already established in (or establishing) her career as a scientist and raising a family, which is the one of the best inspirations for young women considering a science career out there, adding YouTube video production to their plate might be asking a bit too much, especially if enduring inappropriate comments is the “reward”.
As an encouragement for women creating STEM content on YouTube, I’ll reiterate what I said earlier on in the post. If young people do not see women articulating science, the impression will be that women don’t do science, and it will not be considered a viable career option. Think of it. Women find it easier to become doctors and lawyers versus scientists because they understand those professions, either from real life interactions or from TV. We need women scientists to interact with young people and to be visible in the medium that young people consume, but how do you juggle career and family and outreach as such with video production and subsequent comment curation? That is the challenge, and I wish everyone all the best of luck.
Today, the 44th anniversary of the first moon landing with Neil Armstrong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s first steps on the moon, I present to you some great books to read about space travel, each with their own video, whether it is a trailer for a movie made based on the book or a proper book trailer, a more recent phenomenon.
This enthusiastic movie line, lifted from the kids film, “Despicable Me“, about an evil villian whose heart is warmed by a trio of young girls who come into his life, is a very appropriate introduction to a movie that animal lovers simply must take time out to see . If you are along the west coast, the informative and stirring movie “Otter 501″ is debuting in theaters tomorrow! A list of screenings can be seen here.
I was recently in Alaska as an invitee of GoPro cameras in support of a pretty cool science experiment by Project Aether. Briefly, I was there to assist as they launched weather balloons with GoPro cameras attached in order to collect intra-auroral images. After the weather balloons dropped, the GPS tagged cameras were then retrieved, by several means and with several people. As I receive footage and information, I will be sharing more about this here on this blog.
Soon, Carin and I will be attending Science Online 2012 in Raleigh, NC. We will both be running workshops with co-hosts on creating videos. We will also be your emcees for the Science Online Film Festival featuring some amazing pieces. Keep your eyes pealed here for entrants and winners!
Today’s Monday Music Video is not a music video per se, but instead features three songs from a soundtrack to an excellent movie about the Apollo missions.
My Thoughts on The Imitation Game
I’ve been chomping at the bit for months to see The Imitation Game. It arrived in larger cities well before it appeared here in central Illinois, even being postponed further because the theaters bumped it to show The Interview. Theaters disappoint me with their skewed priorities!
You may have heard the buzz around this movie about British mathematician Alan Turing as played superbly by Benedict Cumberbatch, which is based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film “The Imitation Game”
. As a piece of filmmaking, this movie is absolutely spectacular. The elements of the movie– the filming, directing, editing, acting, clothing, the music– all worked together to create a seamless film that engages you from start to finish. I highly recommend going to watch it! Sure, it has mathematicians and computers and no gratuitous sex or violence, but it won’t leave you bored, I promise. It is certain to win some of the awards at upcoming ceremonies.
My super short synopsis: a group of mathematicians are recruited to break a code that the Germans were producing in World War II using their Enigma machine. The code would change daily which made figuring it out each day an impossible chore. Alan Turing wanted to build a machine that would be able to break the code faster, which he and his team ultimately did, resulting in the war shortening by about two years. The movie isn’t perfect, as I doubt very many historically base ones are. One of my favorite places to check up on movies is History vs. Hollywood, which does a level-headed analysis of comparing movies with the historical facts. They have analyzed the facts in The Imitation Game, so I won’t spend time nitpicking the movie in that regards here. There are also numerous articles about the perceived shortcomings of the film on the internet if that interests you, too.
Since I watch movies through my science worldview filter, let’s take a look at my very subjective sense of the film. I made a handy flask rating system for a quick tl;dr.
10 years ago Books, Engineering, psivid, Science, STEM • Tags: Academy Awards, Alan Turing, Benedict Cumberbatch, Enigma, Film, flasks, Golden Globes, Kiera Knightly, mathematician, mathematics, movie, Oscars, The Imitation Game, The Innovators, Turing Machine, Walter Isaacson