SciCast Notes:

This is great!

At first, I thought, “Oh dear, a dull explanation.” However, the opening speech is delivered extremely well — a good, clear, measured pace. Then, in what’s rapidly becoming SciCast tradition, it all goes a bit silly, with other students somehow roped in to run around on the field and pretend to be electrons.

Unexpectedly, this turns out to be a rather good way of explaining how a Van de Graaff generator works.

The film’s very well-constructed, too, with a good clear progression of ideas, well-illustrated with appropriate visuals. As with the Warp Drives film, this is pushing the format of SciCast films beyond the often stagey presentations we saw in the first year of the competition. Commendable thought and care all round.

It’s technically good, too — well shot, with good clear sound. It’s rather dark, but that’s what you get for filming in the winter when it’s… er… dark. In fact, my only real gripe is that they’ve over-run a bit, and had to speed up the closing speech to come within the time limit. But hey, I’ve had to do that for ITV in the past, so I’m hardly complaining.

— Jonathan