Volcanic Islands
A cool experiment showing how volcanic islands are made, using simple laboratory equipment.
Helston Science
Duration: 2:14
Views: 383
Writes teacher Mr. McMinn:
This is a great little earth science experiment. The students wanted to use chroma screen technology and spent a whole day one weekend filming and editing. It was a massive effort and has resulted in a fun little film, we hope you enjoy!
Chroma-key (cutting people out of a plain-colour background and pasting a different background in) is hard. It’s particularly hard when you start compositing shots from multiple layers, as here. There’s lots of planning involved, and then editing your film afterwards always ends up more complex than you’d hoped.
Credit to this team, then, for planning in enough detail for the whole thing to come together. It’s also a very brisk film — there’s lots in it, but it doesn’t feel rushed, which is good.
One danger of chroma-key is that it’s easy to become a slave to it — the effects become the point of the film, rather than secondary to it. This film avoids that by keeping the effects jokey, but also making sure they have a point. The heat source for the wax is terrific, for example.
Personally, I’d have liked to have seen more of the wax doing its thing. It’s a rather lovely experiment, and I could happily have taken longer to admire it. But that’s a minor quibble, really.
So: well judged, well made, and well paced. Great work!
— Jonathan.
Well made film.
Excellent special effects!
Nice combination of demonstrations and dialogue here.
Good luck in the awards.
Jane, 27 Mar 2009
Another absoloutely amazing film by Helston Science. Will, It's not tacky, a jumper that's falling apart that you still wear is tacky. I think the girl inside the center of the earth was...umm...confident (it was me, and I'm not like that anymore...)but the whole video came together so well, it was amazing! I can not believe how amazing it was...and, as always, humour and information are a great combination for teaching other students with and I'm so proud to have been a part of it. BTW, watch out for more videos next year by the Helston Science team, I hope to be a part of them again. (oh, search perfect poo on the website and watch another brilliant, educational video by helston science)
Caitlin, 10 Mar 2009
It's easy to get carried away with enthusiasm for some well executed special effects.... and I was! Loved it!
Keith, 11 Feb 2009
TACKY?!?!?! ... TACKY?!?!?!
ID LIKE TO SEE YOU MAKE A FILM WITH GREEN SCREEN KEYING AND TRYING TO ORGANISE A GROUP OF 5 KIDS ..NOT EASY I TELL THI NOT EASY AT ALL.
and the jokes were awsome!
not being bias at all
Adam (the little guy on the right), 02 Feb 2009
hmm... a bit tacky but ok i suppose. Some quite nice jokes :)
Will, 29 Jan 2009
Its immense.
Gemma, 29 Jan 2009