1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,430 The following content is provided under a Creative 2 00:00:02,430 --> 00:00:03,820 Commons license. 3 00:00:03,820 --> 00:00:06,050 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 4 00:00:06,050 --> 00:00:10,150 continue to offer high quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,150 --> 00:00:12,690 To make a donation or to view additional materials 6 00:00:12,690 --> 00:00:16,590 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:16,590 --> 00:00:17,255 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:26,250 --> 00:00:28,410 PROFESSOR: So this is Josh and John. 9 00:00:28,410 --> 00:00:29,830 They're both from Planet Nutshell. 10 00:00:29,830 --> 00:00:33,260 Josh is the founder and John is an animator? 11 00:00:33,260 --> 00:00:34,140 JOHN MCGOWAN: Yes. 12 00:00:34,140 --> 00:00:35,889 PROFESSOR: And they're going to talk today 13 00:00:35,889 --> 00:00:38,950 about storyboarding and continuing our discussion 14 00:00:38,950 --> 00:00:40,640 on visual storytelling. 15 00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:42,380 I'm super excited about today's session. 16 00:00:42,380 --> 00:00:44,770 It's going to be a lot of not only lecture, 17 00:00:44,770 --> 00:00:46,950 but workshopping some of the scripts and ideas 18 00:00:46,950 --> 00:00:50,920 that you guys have been thinking about so far. 19 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:51,871 Anything else? 20 00:00:51,871 --> 00:00:52,370 Oh! 21 00:00:52,370 --> 00:00:54,080 Josh's background is in creative writing. 22 00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:58,320 So you can also get feedback from him on your scripts. 23 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:00,960 And they make short explainer videos 24 00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:04,790 that engage people, not only in diseminating information, 25 00:01:04,790 --> 00:01:06,890 but entertaining them as well. 26 00:01:06,890 --> 00:01:07,640 JOSHUA GUNN: Yeah. 27 00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:12,040 So we in lot of ways do many of the things that, I mean, 28 00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:14,370 I guess directly that you guys are working on. 29 00:01:14,370 --> 00:01:20,500 So this is a good fit for us to be talking to you. 30 00:01:20,500 --> 00:01:21,030 So, yeah. 31 00:01:21,030 --> 00:01:27,090 So my job is to sort of rally all 32 00:01:27,090 --> 00:01:30,270 of the people who work at Planet Nutshell 33 00:01:30,270 --> 00:01:33,380 in interesting, creative directions. 34 00:01:33,380 --> 00:01:39,520 And John is a really talented illustrator and animator. 35 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:44,500 And he also does our storyboard artwork. 36 00:01:44,500 --> 00:01:50,430 So today, after I give a brief little talk about animation 37 00:01:50,430 --> 00:01:54,090 and storyboarding, we'd like to just 38 00:01:54,090 --> 00:01:57,430 open things up and share with you a script 39 00:01:57,430 --> 00:02:00,260 that we produced a while ago. 40 00:02:00,260 --> 00:02:02,070 And we'll all storyboard it together. 41 00:02:02,070 --> 00:02:06,480 And I would love to see what we come up with. 42 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:08,610 We've produced this script, but what's 43 00:02:08,610 --> 00:02:10,560 really great about what we do is there's 44 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:12,900 no one right way to do it. 45 00:02:12,900 --> 00:02:16,060 So what will be interesting is to see what we 46 00:02:16,060 --> 00:02:18,960 come up with collectively here. 47 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:22,272 As opposed to what we produced. 48 00:02:22,272 --> 00:02:24,202 And I have looked at your scripts, the things 49 00:02:24,202 --> 00:02:25,160 that you're working on. 50 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:27,970 They're all really interesting. 51 00:02:27,970 --> 00:02:30,950 So I would like to open things up 52 00:02:30,950 --> 00:02:33,370 to any questions you have about what you're 53 00:02:33,370 --> 00:02:35,220 working on a little later. 54 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:40,290 And yeah, I write a lot of scripts. 55 00:02:40,290 --> 00:02:44,320 So if you need help with that, I'm 56 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:48,421 very willing to give you any guidance I can. 57 00:02:48,421 --> 00:02:51,095 So I'll get started with this short lecture portion. 58 00:02:55,380 --> 00:02:58,060 Somebody made this spinning thing for you guys today. 59 00:02:58,060 --> 00:03:00,060 We thought that would be a nice touch. 60 00:03:00,060 --> 00:03:01,530 Ding! 61 00:03:01,530 --> 00:03:02,030 All right. 62 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:06,480 Let's see. 63 00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:07,820 Yeah, so we're going to talk about animation 64 00:03:07,820 --> 00:03:08,570 and storyboarding. 65 00:03:11,670 --> 00:03:14,630 And specifically, animation in the context of what you guys 66 00:03:14,630 --> 00:03:15,150 are doing. 67 00:03:15,150 --> 00:03:18,100 I mean, animation is a huge topic. 68 00:03:18,100 --> 00:03:22,380 I'm not going to talk about techniques or theory or any 69 00:03:22,380 --> 00:03:25,070 of that kind of stuff. 70 00:03:25,070 --> 00:03:30,760 But I do want to talk about when it's a good idea to use it 71 00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:33,280 maybe in your own work. 72 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:36,600 And there may be more reasons why it might be good. 73 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:40,050 But these are the ones that I came up with for today. 74 00:03:43,420 --> 00:03:47,900 So animation is good when synthesizing, reinforcing, 75 00:03:47,900 --> 00:03:51,400 or recapping information in a simple, visual way. 76 00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:53,720 Cows plus farts equals global warming. 77 00:03:53,720 --> 00:04:00,050 So taking abstract ideas or summarizing information 78 00:04:00,050 --> 00:04:02,210 and presenting it very simply is something 79 00:04:02,210 --> 00:04:04,910 that animation is really good at. 80 00:04:04,910 --> 00:04:08,120 So when thinking about developing your own scripts, 81 00:04:08,120 --> 00:04:13,520 you can think about moments where the visual story could 82 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:17,200 be augmented with some sort of encapsulation or summary 83 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:22,820 that is worthy of animation. 84 00:04:22,820 --> 00:04:24,940 And here's one that's pretty obvious. 85 00:04:24,940 --> 00:04:28,820 The subject cannot be seen, it's microscopic, cosmic, 86 00:04:28,820 --> 00:04:31,140 or theoretical and abstract. 87 00:04:31,140 --> 00:04:36,562 So those are often good times to think about animation. 88 00:04:36,562 --> 00:04:38,770 And we have some examples of where this sort of thing 89 00:04:38,770 --> 00:04:42,070 is employed later. 90 00:04:42,070 --> 00:04:44,079 John came up with this one. 91 00:04:44,079 --> 00:04:45,620 Actually, John helped with all these. 92 00:04:45,620 --> 00:04:47,990 Because I was really busy this week. 93 00:04:47,990 --> 00:04:49,850 So I really appreciate it. 94 00:04:49,850 --> 00:04:51,305 Footage is not easily attainable. 95 00:04:53,820 --> 00:04:58,300 So say you want to do a video about-- well, in your case, 96 00:04:58,300 --> 00:05:01,720 you know you're doing navel engineering. 97 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:04,340 Maybe you want to shoot something about, like, 98 00:05:04,340 --> 00:05:05,760 the bottom of the ship. 99 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:10,240 Or something, you're going to have 100 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,510 to hire a team of scuba divers to get down there 101 00:05:12,510 --> 00:05:14,690 and shoot the hull of the ship. 102 00:05:14,690 --> 00:05:21,450 So that might be a nice opportunity for visualization 103 00:05:21,450 --> 00:05:25,280 that can't be attained through live action. 104 00:05:25,280 --> 00:05:27,480 And kind of the catch-all category 105 00:05:27,480 --> 00:05:30,990 is that animation adds visual engagement. 106 00:05:30,990 --> 00:05:34,860 The story is somehow made better by using it. 107 00:05:34,860 --> 00:05:38,440 And that's sort of an abstract, subjective thing to say. 108 00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:40,150 But I think the best way to demonstrate 109 00:05:40,150 --> 00:05:41,460 that is just to show examples. 110 00:05:44,090 --> 00:05:47,000 Which I'll do in a bit. 111 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:52,980 So animation is sort of silly or not a great choice-- 112 00:05:52,980 --> 00:05:54,040 we use this term a lot. 113 00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:57,000 Like, is this eye candy, or is this really 114 00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:58,875 a functional part of the story? 115 00:06:03,290 --> 00:06:09,220 Again, is it eye candy or is the story made better? 116 00:06:09,220 --> 00:06:13,420 So just using animation because it's cool or it's neat 117 00:06:13,420 --> 00:06:17,500 can actually distance the viewer and disengage them 118 00:06:17,500 --> 00:06:19,010 from the experience. 119 00:06:19,010 --> 00:06:21,370 Because, I don't know if you guys watch-- you know, 120 00:06:21,370 --> 00:06:23,580 you've seen a movie like Transformers. 121 00:06:23,580 --> 00:06:27,780 Or, god, what are some of these ridiculously visually 122 00:06:27,780 --> 00:06:30,010 opulent movies, you know? 123 00:06:30,010 --> 00:06:33,620 And a lot of times when I watch those sorts of things, 124 00:06:33,620 --> 00:06:37,130 I begin to emotionally disengaged from them. 125 00:06:37,130 --> 00:06:38,930 Because all I'm doing is being bombarded 126 00:06:38,930 --> 00:06:40,120 by visual information. 127 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:44,362 There's no story that's really compelling or engaging me. 128 00:06:44,362 --> 00:06:45,820 So that's something to think about. 129 00:06:48,420 --> 00:06:51,750 Live action is really great that at a number of things. 130 00:06:51,750 --> 00:06:53,750 And these are some of the things I came up with. 131 00:06:56,370 --> 00:06:59,470 The notion of personality, the human face, 132 00:06:59,470 --> 00:07:01,360 the human experience. 133 00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:06,670 The host, is Elizabeth talked about on Monday. 134 00:07:06,670 --> 00:07:11,880 Location, creating-- animation can create 135 00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:14,860 a lot of interesting locations. 136 00:07:14,860 --> 00:07:19,870 But why would you draw the MIT campus 137 00:07:19,870 --> 00:07:25,110 when you have it right in front of you, for instance? 138 00:07:25,110 --> 00:07:29,390 And again, the notion of human interaction. 139 00:07:29,390 --> 00:07:35,640 Humans talking to each other and engaging with each other 140 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:40,550 is something that live action is really good at. 141 00:07:40,550 --> 00:07:42,230 And the final, catch-all category 142 00:07:42,230 --> 00:07:44,500 is you just can't think of anything better to do. 143 00:07:44,500 --> 00:07:46,677 So, oh, I'm just going to animate that part. 144 00:07:46,677 --> 00:07:48,260 I don't really want to think about how 145 00:07:48,260 --> 00:07:49,800 I'm going to present this. 146 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:53,720 So I'm just going to do some animation. 147 00:07:53,720 --> 00:07:55,240 And that's not the best choice. 148 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:57,560 You should be making choices based 149 00:07:57,560 --> 00:07:59,300 on what the strengths of animation are 150 00:07:59,300 --> 00:08:02,452 and the strength of live action. 151 00:08:02,452 --> 00:08:03,910 PROFESSOR: And just to add to that, 152 00:08:03,910 --> 00:08:05,970 that's also the easiest choice to make. 153 00:08:05,970 --> 00:08:07,907 And the one that happens most often. 154 00:08:07,907 --> 00:08:09,365 Or the one that happened most often 155 00:08:09,365 --> 00:08:12,140 when we were making seasons one and two is that we'd 156 00:08:12,140 --> 00:08:14,310 hit a point in the script that looks a little bit 157 00:08:14,310 --> 00:08:17,227 complex in terms of visual execution. 158 00:08:17,227 --> 00:08:19,310 And we'd say, well, what are you going to do here? 159 00:08:19,310 --> 00:08:22,770 And the host or the cast would say, oh, well, 160 00:08:22,770 --> 00:08:25,177 we're just going to animate it. 161 00:08:25,177 --> 00:08:27,510 As if, like, that was going to solve all their problems. 162 00:08:27,510 --> 00:08:32,559 And I think that these points may sound 163 00:08:32,559 --> 00:08:34,520 pretty reasonable and obvious. 164 00:08:34,520 --> 00:08:38,789 But it's very, very hard to thoughtfully integrate that 165 00:08:38,789 --> 00:08:40,169 into your visual script. 166 00:08:40,169 --> 00:08:43,000 So I really encourage you guys to think about especially 167 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:45,330 the third point, not defaulting to animation 168 00:08:45,330 --> 00:08:49,520 because you don't want to figure out how to visually integrate 169 00:08:49,520 --> 00:08:51,400 your script into the video. 170 00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:52,150 JOSHUA GUNN: Yeah. 171 00:08:54,670 --> 00:09:00,540 OK, so here are some examples of videos that integrate 172 00:09:00,540 --> 00:09:04,410 both live action and animation. 173 00:09:04,410 --> 00:09:05,430 There are many examples. 174 00:09:05,430 --> 00:09:07,470 I thought these were especially strong ones. 175 00:09:11,560 --> 00:09:13,310 I don't know what you guys-- you're 176 00:09:13,310 --> 00:09:15,570 going to talk more about how you made this one. 177 00:09:15,570 --> 00:09:18,190 But the composition of this one works. 178 00:09:18,190 --> 00:09:23,450 It was obviously designed around position 179 00:09:23,450 --> 00:09:26,960 of the live action character and the animated elements. 180 00:09:26,960 --> 00:09:30,307 Who has seen this Story of Stuff series? 181 00:09:30,307 --> 00:09:31,265 It's quite interesting. 182 00:09:31,265 --> 00:09:32,710 PROFESSOR: Do you want to play just a little of it? 183 00:09:32,710 --> 00:09:34,709 JOSHUA GUNN: Yeah, I'll play a little bit of it. 184 00:09:38,131 --> 00:09:39,380 FEMALE SPEAKER: So next, the-- 185 00:10:00,326 --> 00:10:02,754 Do you have one of these? 186 00:10:02,754 --> 00:10:04,170 I got a little obsessed with mine. 187 00:10:04,170 --> 00:10:06,839 In fact, I got a little obsessed with all my stuff. 188 00:10:06,839 --> 00:10:09,380 Have you ever wondered where all the stuff we buy comes from? 189 00:10:09,380 --> 00:10:11,230 And where it goes when we throw it out? 190 00:10:11,230 --> 00:10:13,430 I couldn't stop wondering about that. 191 00:10:13,430 --> 00:10:14,570 So I looked it up. 192 00:10:14,570 --> 00:10:16,860 And what the textbook said is that stuff 193 00:10:16,860 --> 00:10:18,240 moves through a system. 194 00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:21,400 From extraction, to production, to distribution, 195 00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:23,650 to consumption, to disposal. 196 00:10:23,650 --> 00:10:26,582 All together, it's called the materials economy. 197 00:10:26,582 --> 00:10:28,290 Well, I looked into it a little bit more. 198 00:10:28,290 --> 00:10:31,310 In fact, I spent 10 years traveling the world, 199 00:10:31,310 --> 00:10:34,360 tracking where our stuff comes from and where it goes 200 00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:36,210 And you know what I found out? 201 00:10:36,210 --> 00:10:38,160 That is not the whole story. 202 00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:40,820 There is a lot missing from this explanation. 203 00:10:40,820 --> 00:10:43,640 For one thing, this system looks like it's fine. 204 00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:44,950 No problem! 205 00:10:44,950 --> 00:10:47,820 But the truth is it's a system in crisis. 206 00:10:47,820 --> 00:10:49,820 JOSHUA GUNN: Just a storytelling component there 207 00:10:49,820 --> 00:10:53,160 that I really like is you may already sort of know-- 208 00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:54,520 we talked it about on Monday. 209 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:57,770 Here's a paradigm or here's a situation that you probably 210 00:10:57,770 --> 00:11:00,380 already understand, but hang on. 211 00:11:00,380 --> 00:11:01,330 There's a problem. 212 00:11:01,330 --> 00:11:03,130 There's more complexity here than you ever 213 00:11:03,130 --> 00:11:04,380 could have imagined. 214 00:11:04,380 --> 00:11:06,020 And I'm going to tell you about it. 215 00:11:06,020 --> 00:11:09,740 And that is a really cool storytelling component 216 00:11:09,740 --> 00:11:12,582 on top of the integration of animation and live action. 217 00:11:12,582 --> 00:11:14,790 FEMALE SPEAKER: An the reason it's a system in crisis 218 00:11:14,790 --> 00:11:16,560 is it's a linear system. 219 00:11:16,560 --> 00:11:18,150 And we live on a finite planet. 220 00:11:18,150 --> 00:11:21,580 And you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet 221 00:11:21,580 --> 00:11:23,190 indefinitely. 222 00:11:23,190 --> 00:11:25,230 Every step along the way, this system 223 00:11:25,230 --> 00:11:27,150 is interacting with the real world. 224 00:11:27,150 --> 00:11:30,050 In real life, it's not happening on a blank white page. 225 00:11:30,050 --> 00:11:32,890 It's interacting with societies, cultures, economies, 226 00:11:32,890 --> 00:11:34,010 the environment. 227 00:11:34,010 --> 00:11:37,030 And all along the way, it's bumping up against limits. 228 00:11:37,030 --> 00:11:40,599 Limits we don't see here because the diagram is incomplete. 229 00:11:40,599 --> 00:11:41,640 So let's go back through. 230 00:11:41,640 --> 00:11:44,677 Let's fill in some of the blanks and see what's missing. 231 00:11:44,677 --> 00:11:47,260 Well, one of the most important things it's missing is people. 232 00:11:47,260 --> 00:11:48,450 Yes, people! 233 00:11:48,450 --> 00:11:51,840 People live and work all along this system. 234 00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:54,200 And some people in this system matter a little more 235 00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:54,790 than others. 236 00:11:54,790 --> 00:11:56,740 Some have a little more say. 237 00:11:56,740 --> 00:11:58,410 JOSHUA GUNN: OK, so you get the idea. 238 00:11:58,410 --> 00:11:59,610 I mean, it's a long video. 239 00:11:59,610 --> 00:12:02,720 But I think it retains engagement because 240 00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:05,910 of the quality of the writing. 241 00:12:05,910 --> 00:12:08,100 And because of the interest that's 242 00:12:08,100 --> 00:12:10,089 created from the art work. 243 00:12:10,089 --> 00:12:11,755 I encourage you to watch the whole thing 244 00:12:11,755 --> 00:12:12,650 if you get a chance. 245 00:12:15,970 --> 00:12:16,650 Let's see-- 246 00:12:16,650 --> 00:12:18,733 PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE] all of the videos that Josh 247 00:12:18,733 --> 00:12:20,602 is going to play today are on the syllabus. 248 00:12:20,602 --> 00:12:21,800 JOSHUA GUNN: Oh, OK. 249 00:12:21,800 --> 00:12:22,300 Cool. 250 00:12:25,147 --> 00:12:26,480 You mind if I play some of this? 251 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:28,556 Or have you guys already seen this video? 252 00:12:28,556 --> 00:12:30,555 PROFESSOR: I've got a little clip of the portion 253 00:12:30,555 --> 00:12:32,638 that I'm going to talk about, but you can play it. 254 00:12:32,638 --> 00:12:35,581 JOSHUA GUNN: OK, I'll just play the beginning. 255 00:12:35,581 --> 00:12:37,830 This has George in it, who I assume you saw yesterday. 256 00:12:40,277 --> 00:12:42,110 MALE SPEAKER: You know what's more like life 257 00:12:42,110 --> 00:12:43,840 than a box of chocolates? 258 00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:44,770 Farts. 259 00:12:44,770 --> 00:12:48,062 You really never know what you're going to get. 260 00:12:48,062 --> 00:12:50,760 Skunk, rotten eggs, garbage dumpster? 261 00:12:50,760 --> 00:12:53,670 The possibilities are, unfortunately, endless. 262 00:12:53,670 --> 00:12:54,700 But why do we fart? 263 00:12:54,700 --> 00:12:57,330 And how does your body make so many different smells? 264 00:12:57,330 --> 00:12:59,510 The answer is fermentation. 265 00:12:59,510 --> 00:13:01,112 This is a giant bioreactor. 266 00:13:01,112 --> 00:13:02,320 It's also called a fermenter. 267 00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:05,530 And in here, a fungus known as brewer's yeast 268 00:13:05,530 --> 00:13:08,590 is transforming water and dead plants to beer. 269 00:13:15,182 --> 00:13:17,390 So you know that thing where you eat food and breathe 270 00:13:17,390 --> 00:13:19,060 in oxygen to get your energy? 271 00:13:19,060 --> 00:13:20,530 That's called respiration. 272 00:13:20,530 --> 00:13:22,280 Yeast also need to get energy from food, 273 00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:25,120 but there's no oxygen in those tanks. 274 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:28,140 So they have to use a different process called fermentation. 275 00:13:28,140 --> 00:13:30,190 Now, both your cells and yeast cells 276 00:13:30,190 --> 00:13:31,990 break food down to get energy. 277 00:13:31,990 --> 00:13:35,640 But your main byproducts are carbon dioxide and water. 278 00:13:35,640 --> 00:13:38,940 And yeasts main byproducts are carbon dioxide and alcohol. 279 00:13:38,940 --> 00:13:42,290 That's how this stuff gets to be beer. 280 00:13:42,290 --> 00:13:45,045 JOSHUA GUNN: OK, I think that-- similar concept, 281 00:13:45,045 --> 00:13:47,720 the integration of animation and live action. 282 00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:51,614 And the way that the animation somehow augments or improves 283 00:13:51,614 --> 00:13:53,530 your understanding of what he's talking about. 284 00:13:57,085 --> 00:13:58,485 So let's see. 285 00:13:58,485 --> 00:13:59,940 So let's switch back here. 286 00:14:03,670 --> 00:14:10,910 So that's a very brief overview of how you can use animation 287 00:14:10,910 --> 00:14:12,520 in your own work. 288 00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:18,020 How to do it, technically and artistically is another matter. 289 00:14:18,020 --> 00:14:19,840 I'm happy to talk about that separately. 290 00:14:22,370 --> 00:14:24,740 I don't know how much training is 291 00:14:24,740 --> 00:14:27,380 in this course for animation. 292 00:14:27,380 --> 00:14:28,871 PROFESSOR: Not whole lot. 293 00:14:28,871 --> 00:14:31,170 We do have the equipment if you want to learn more. 294 00:14:31,170 --> 00:14:33,760 We have about 10 of these similar tablets 295 00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:36,930 if you guys are interested in learning about this. 296 00:14:36,930 --> 00:14:39,409 But we're not going to go super in depth. 297 00:14:39,409 --> 00:14:41,700 JOSHUA GUNN: Yeah, this might be an opportunity for you 298 00:14:41,700 --> 00:14:43,980 to talk about that segment that you did. 299 00:14:43,980 --> 00:14:48,210 And from what I understand, the animation that you do 300 00:14:48,210 --> 00:14:49,910 is fairly rudimentary. 301 00:14:49,910 --> 00:14:50,990 And very effective. 302 00:14:50,990 --> 00:14:54,374 And it might be something that these guys could pull off. 303 00:14:54,374 --> 00:14:55,790 PROFESSOR: All right, so I'm going 304 00:14:55,790 --> 00:14:58,220 to talk a little bit about one of the scenes 305 00:14:58,220 --> 00:14:59,720 from the farts video. 306 00:15:02,795 --> 00:15:04,420 This was actually something that George 307 00:15:04,420 --> 00:15:07,050 was going to talk about yesterday in his script writing 308 00:15:07,050 --> 00:15:08,380 workshop. 309 00:15:08,380 --> 00:15:09,890 So this will tie in pretty nicely 310 00:15:09,890 --> 00:15:11,675 if I can get this to work. 311 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:26,040 All right, so take a second to read this passage. 312 00:15:32,330 --> 00:15:36,700 So when you were writing the farts script, 313 00:15:36,700 --> 00:15:40,450 this was a piece of information that George had come across. 314 00:15:40,450 --> 00:15:42,470 Which he found very fascinating. 315 00:15:42,470 --> 00:15:45,870 It was one of the shareable facts that he latched onto. 316 00:15:45,870 --> 00:15:51,210 The fact that the microbial population in your gut 317 00:15:51,210 --> 00:15:54,800 is about 10 times greater than all the somatic germ 318 00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:56,770 cells in your body. 319 00:15:56,770 --> 00:15:59,710 Now if he had said this line in the video it would've 320 00:15:59,710 --> 00:16:01,030 been a disaster, right? 321 00:16:01,030 --> 00:16:04,302 But what is this passage essentially saying? 322 00:16:04,302 --> 00:16:06,362 Does anyone want to take a guess? 323 00:16:06,362 --> 00:16:07,237 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] 324 00:16:09,789 --> 00:16:10,830 PROFESSOR: Not just that. 325 00:16:10,830 --> 00:16:12,530 So somatic and germ cells basically 326 00:16:12,530 --> 00:16:15,205 refers to all of your human cells. 327 00:16:19,738 --> 00:16:23,364 AUDIENCE: There's more stuff that's not you in you 328 00:16:23,364 --> 00:16:24,530 than there is pieces of you. 329 00:16:24,530 --> 00:16:26,080 PROFESSOR: Yeah, yeah basically. 330 00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:27,820 AUDIENCE: Mostly [INAUDIBLE]. 331 00:16:27,820 --> 00:16:28,820 PROFESSOR: Right, right. 332 00:16:28,820 --> 00:16:32,830 So the way George decided to distill this down there 333 00:16:32,830 --> 00:16:35,030 10 times as many microbes living in your gut 334 00:16:35,030 --> 00:16:36,940 as there are human cells in your body. 335 00:16:36,940 --> 00:16:40,740 I mean, that's basically what this entire passage 336 00:16:40,740 --> 00:16:43,500 taken from a journal article is saying. 337 00:16:43,500 --> 00:16:47,310 But the problem with saying just this 338 00:16:47,310 --> 00:16:50,660 is that, at least for me and for George, 339 00:16:50,660 --> 00:16:52,650 one of the questions that we thought 340 00:16:52,650 --> 00:16:54,680 of as an audience member was well, 341 00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:55,840 how does that exactly work? 342 00:16:55,840 --> 00:17:01,040 Like, how can you fit 10 times as many bacteria in you, yet 343 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:03,400 you're not walking around just oozing 344 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:05,839 bacterial cells completely outside of your body. 345 00:17:05,839 --> 00:17:09,470 Because I think a misconception that people often have 346 00:17:09,470 --> 00:17:11,400 is that they're the same size, right? 347 00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:15,060 So it was kind of this paradox that wasn't essential 348 00:17:15,060 --> 00:17:17,579 to the story of the video to explain, 349 00:17:17,579 --> 00:17:19,680 yet was a potential point of confusion. 350 00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:21,640 So this was a reason why we decided 351 00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:24,490 to use an animation in this particular spot. 352 00:17:24,490 --> 00:17:28,470 Because As Josh was saying earlier, 353 00:17:28,470 --> 00:17:30,970 we felt like the story needed to be clarified. 354 00:17:30,970 --> 00:17:33,580 We felt like the story needed to be advanced a little bit. 355 00:17:33,580 --> 00:17:39,502 But we also felt like if we took the time to say 356 00:17:39,502 --> 00:17:41,460 there are 10 times as many microbes in your gut 357 00:17:41,460 --> 00:17:43,370 as there are human cells in your body. 358 00:17:43,370 --> 00:17:45,330 Which doesn't make sense, because you 359 00:17:45,330 --> 00:17:47,260 would think that you'd be oozing out bacteria, 360 00:17:47,260 --> 00:17:50,130 but it actually is fine because bacteria are a lot smaller 361 00:17:50,130 --> 00:17:51,270 than human cells, right? 362 00:17:51,270 --> 00:17:53,400 That actually is, like, two or three seconds 363 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:56,400 of very, very precious time wasted. 364 00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:58,340 And sort of loses the momentum of the video. 365 00:17:58,340 --> 00:18:04,540 So we decided to do an animation to explain all of that instead. 366 00:18:04,540 --> 00:18:07,610 So what we did was we had shot everything 367 00:18:07,610 --> 00:18:09,550 without the animations. 368 00:18:09,550 --> 00:18:13,880 And our storyboarding process is incredibly janky. 369 00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:16,220 But it essentially works. 370 00:18:16,220 --> 00:18:18,380 And hopefully after today your storyboards 371 00:18:18,380 --> 00:18:21,450 will be a lot better than the one we used. 372 00:18:21,450 --> 00:18:25,212 But what I literally did was I got the rough cut of the video. 373 00:18:25,212 --> 00:18:26,420 And I got all of the footage. 374 00:18:26,420 --> 00:18:29,470 And I specifically was looking at this portion of the video 375 00:18:29,470 --> 00:18:31,620 where this animation would need to go. 376 00:18:31,620 --> 00:18:35,440 And I took screenshots of the video at various time points 377 00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:37,290 where I knew the information needed to go. 378 00:18:37,290 --> 00:18:42,610 So this is setting the line in context of the section 379 00:18:42,610 --> 00:18:43,879 that he was delivering. 380 00:18:43,879 --> 00:18:46,170 So the first line [INAUDIBLE] that we carry a fermenter 381 00:18:46,170 --> 00:18:48,960 right here with us in our gut. 382 00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:50,490 And this was the still that he said 383 00:18:50,490 --> 00:18:53,350 that, so I was telling the editor, at this point 384 00:18:53,350 --> 00:18:56,700 I want a fermenter to show up. 385 00:18:56,700 --> 00:19:00,522 And he actually motions during the scene. 386 00:19:00,522 --> 00:19:02,980 And then there was this second line, "Except instead yeast, 387 00:19:02,980 --> 00:19:05,150 my gut uses gut bacteria." 388 00:19:05,150 --> 00:19:07,820 So I was trying to convey to the editor 389 00:19:07,820 --> 00:19:10,010 to take my drawing of the yeast and swap it out 390 00:19:10,010 --> 00:19:11,130 for drawing of a bacteria. 391 00:19:11,130 --> 00:19:13,440 Again, this is incredibly rudimentary. 392 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:17,480 You don't have to be an amazing artist to pull off the clarity 393 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:20,490 that you need for a storyboard. 394 00:19:20,490 --> 00:19:23,370 Then he says, "A lot of them," and I wanted a ton of bacteria 395 00:19:23,370 --> 00:19:24,082 to show up. 396 00:19:24,082 --> 00:19:25,540 And then we get to the line, "There 397 00:19:25,540 --> 00:19:27,350 are 10 times as many gut bacteria 398 00:19:27,350 --> 00:19:29,775 as there are human cells in your body." 399 00:19:29,775 --> 00:19:33,010 At which point I wanted lots of bacteria 400 00:19:33,010 --> 00:19:36,450 to show up and then show it in comparison to the human cell. 401 00:19:36,450 --> 00:19:38,440 This was going to be the key frame 402 00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:41,250 to explain the concept of how you 403 00:19:41,250 --> 00:19:45,870 can have so many bacteria without oozing it 404 00:19:45,870 --> 00:19:47,100 outside of your body. 405 00:19:47,100 --> 00:19:50,670 So essentially we were explaining the whole difference 406 00:19:50,670 --> 00:19:53,810 in scale through one frame. 407 00:19:53,810 --> 00:19:58,890 JOSHUA GUNN: This reminds me a bit of the flipping cat video 408 00:19:58,890 --> 00:19:59,680 we saw on Monday. 409 00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:01,260 And there's a segment in that video 410 00:20:01,260 --> 00:20:02,610 that I think is kind of weak. 411 00:20:02,610 --> 00:20:07,380 Where he is explaining a lot of technical information. 412 00:20:07,380 --> 00:20:09,150 I just didn't absorb it. 413 00:20:09,150 --> 00:20:11,140 I couldn't follow it. 414 00:20:11,140 --> 00:20:13,040 And I was thinking, you know, this 415 00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:17,540 would have been a lot better if he'd maybe done some better 416 00:20:17,540 --> 00:20:18,230 script writing. 417 00:20:18,230 --> 00:20:21,280 But also maybe some animation, you know? 418 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:24,760 I think animation can be really good at moments like these 419 00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:26,820 when you've got this sophisticated or complex 420 00:20:26,820 --> 00:20:30,500 information and you need to maintain engagement 421 00:20:30,500 --> 00:20:32,290 with the viewer. 422 00:20:32,290 --> 00:20:33,650 But also encapsulate it. 423 00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:37,680 Yeah, anyway, sorry to highjack. 424 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:38,596 PROFESSOR: No, no, no. 425 00:20:38,596 --> 00:20:41,560 That's fine. [INAUDIBLE]. 426 00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:45,890 And then the whole way we wrap up 427 00:20:45,890 --> 00:20:48,700 that scene is he explains that instead of just one 428 00:20:48,700 --> 00:20:52,270 species of yeast like they use when you brew beer-- that's 429 00:20:52,270 --> 00:20:54,560 the whole reason why we were at the brewery-- 430 00:20:54,560 --> 00:20:57,210 my gut uses hundreds. 431 00:20:57,210 --> 00:20:59,870 And if we just had that text, I think 432 00:20:59,870 --> 00:21:02,790 that it would bring up a lot it questions or maybe 433 00:21:02,790 --> 00:21:04,610 points of clarification for the viewer 434 00:21:04,610 --> 00:21:06,560 that, again, we just didn't have the time 435 00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:09,180 to explain in the script. 436 00:21:09,180 --> 00:21:14,520 Which is why we relied on the animation to do it for us. 437 00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:17,890 So John's going to show you some animations that 438 00:21:17,890 --> 00:21:21,490 are awesome and very artistic. 439 00:21:21,490 --> 00:21:23,850 For our animations, I literally just 440 00:21:23,850 --> 00:21:25,560 take a Sharpie and a piece of paper, 441 00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:27,225 and I draw out the doodles. 442 00:21:27,225 --> 00:21:28,350 JOHN MCGOWAN: They're nice! 443 00:21:28,350 --> 00:21:29,760 PROFESSOR: Thank you! 444 00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:32,280 But it's nothing crazy. 445 00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:36,010 And I basically scan them in to our editor 446 00:21:36,010 --> 00:21:38,920 and had named each picture. 447 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:42,140 And then in the storyboard I had explained, OK, here's 448 00:21:42,140 --> 00:21:44,610 my drawing of the fermenter. 449 00:21:44,610 --> 00:21:47,750 Please refer to fermenter.jpeg for the image 450 00:21:47,750 --> 00:21:49,300 I want you to use. 451 00:21:49,300 --> 00:21:52,010 And then he went into After Effects and inverted 452 00:21:52,010 --> 00:21:54,720 all of the drawings and moved them around. 453 00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:57,020 And I think you're going to talk about After Effects 454 00:21:57,020 --> 00:21:58,570 just a little bit. 455 00:21:58,570 --> 00:22:00,486 JOHN MCGOWAN: We can talk about After Effects. 456 00:22:00,486 --> 00:22:01,150 PROFESSOR: OK. 457 00:22:01,150 --> 00:22:04,400 And again, if you want to play with any of this on your own, 458 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:07,900 there are really good tutorials on Lynda.com. 459 00:22:07,900 --> 00:22:10,220 And as MIT students, you guys have free access 460 00:22:10,220 --> 00:22:11,360 to the entire library. 461 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:13,990 So if you want a tutorial on how to use After Effects, 462 00:22:13,990 --> 00:22:17,800 which you all have access to as well if you're interested. 463 00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:20,450 You can just come talk to me during class. 464 00:22:20,450 --> 00:22:22,900 So we storyboarded everything out. 465 00:22:22,900 --> 00:22:24,430 And then I drew the doodles. 466 00:22:24,430 --> 00:22:28,570 And the key frame here was this picture 467 00:22:28,570 --> 00:22:33,010 that sort of explains the whole concept of how so many bacteria 468 00:22:33,010 --> 00:22:35,260 can fit inside of you. 469 00:22:35,260 --> 00:22:40,030 But it just takes one picture instead of 10 words. 470 00:22:40,030 --> 00:22:45,477 So this is what that scene ended up looking like. 471 00:22:45,477 --> 00:22:46,310 MALE SPEAKER: Weird. 472 00:22:46,310 --> 00:22:48,660 Turns out, we all carry a fermenter with us 473 00:22:48,660 --> 00:22:49,810 right here in our gut. 474 00:22:49,810 --> 00:22:51,520 Except instead of yeast, my guy uses 475 00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:53,110 bacteria, and a lot of them. 476 00:22:53,110 --> 00:22:55,990 There are 10 times as many bacteria in my intestine 477 00:22:55,990 --> 00:22:59,080 as there are human cells in my entire body. 478 00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:02,557 And instead of just one species, my gut uses-- 479 00:23:02,557 --> 00:23:03,890 PROFESSOR: My gut uses hundreds. 480 00:23:03,890 --> 00:23:05,420 Sorry, it got cut off. 481 00:23:05,420 --> 00:23:08,240 So, I mean, there are many ways that we could have done that. 482 00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:09,990 Like Josh was saying, there's no right way 483 00:23:09,990 --> 00:23:12,510 when it comes to animations, when 484 00:23:12,510 --> 00:23:14,630 it comes to video in general. 485 00:23:14,630 --> 00:23:16,700 But this was sort of our way of working around 486 00:23:16,700 --> 00:23:20,700 the problem of not having access to the footage of real bacteria 487 00:23:20,700 --> 00:23:22,820 necessarily. 488 00:23:22,820 --> 00:23:25,070 It was just a world that we couldn't access, or didn't 489 00:23:25,070 --> 00:23:27,430 have time to access, or would have been too distracting 490 00:23:27,430 --> 00:23:29,680 to access in this video. 491 00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:31,430 The other thing I wanted to mention really 492 00:23:31,430 --> 00:23:35,170 quickly before Josh continues is when we shot, 493 00:23:35,170 --> 00:23:37,910 we shot knowing that we were going to do the animation 494 00:23:37,910 --> 00:23:40,120 overlay in mind. 495 00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:42,000 You may not know that ahead of time. 496 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:43,890 So what I would suggest, if you're 497 00:23:43,890 --> 00:23:45,710 interested in doing something like this, 498 00:23:45,710 --> 00:23:47,980 is to shoot thinking that you're not going 499 00:23:47,980 --> 00:23:49,230 to do an animation overlay. 500 00:23:49,230 --> 00:23:50,480 And then just do another take. 501 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,480 Just in case you want to do something like this. 502 00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,770 So the way we framed the shot, we 503 00:23:56,770 --> 00:23:59,839 tried to make sure that the background was dark enough 504 00:23:59,839 --> 00:24:01,380 to where the animations could appear. 505 00:24:01,380 --> 00:24:06,120 This is not an ideal framing in a not an ideal background. 506 00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:08,350 So I'm sorry to use this as an example. 507 00:24:08,350 --> 00:24:11,480 This is probably one that we could have improved. 508 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,460 But I'll show you another one. 509 00:24:14,460 --> 00:24:16,090 FEMALE SPEAKER: These small molecules 510 00:24:16,090 --> 00:24:17,680 are called metabolites. 511 00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:20,900 Just like how all the DNA in an organism forms the genome, 512 00:24:20,900 --> 00:24:23,820 all of the metabolites form the metabolome. 513 00:24:23,820 --> 00:24:26,940 Even though each metabolite can be made from only six elements, 514 00:24:26,940 --> 00:24:29,320 there are so many possibilities that it 515 00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:31,230 would take scientists thousands of years 516 00:24:31,230 --> 00:24:33,217 to make each one and figure out-- 517 00:24:33,217 --> 00:24:35,050 PROFESSOR: And configure out its usefulness. 518 00:24:35,050 --> 00:24:37,660 So we had the exact same storyboarding process 519 00:24:37,660 --> 00:24:38,780 to create this. 520 00:24:38,780 --> 00:24:41,300 But when we shot Anastasia that day 521 00:24:41,300 --> 00:24:43,670 I knew that this is what I wanted to do for that scene. 522 00:24:43,670 --> 00:24:47,397 So we told her to go like this with her hand. 523 00:24:47,397 --> 00:24:49,980 And we were like, we're going to put stuff there, don't worry. 524 00:24:49,980 --> 00:24:51,630 And we framed her wide enough. 525 00:24:51,630 --> 00:24:54,300 And we gave her enough grass space outside of her 526 00:24:54,300 --> 00:24:56,410 that we could fit some of these animations in. 527 00:24:56,410 --> 00:24:58,584 So just anticipating that-- and I 528 00:24:58,584 --> 00:25:00,000 can talk more about this tomorrow, 529 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,880 when I talk about producing-- is a good thing to do 530 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:04,405 if you want to do animations. 531 00:25:04,405 --> 00:25:05,990 And I'll show you one last. 532 00:25:05,990 --> 00:25:06,220 FEMALE SPEAKER: Those animals get 533 00:25:06,220 --> 00:25:08,665 eaten by slightly bigger animals, which get eaten 534 00:25:08,665 --> 00:25:09,790 by slightly bigger animals. 535 00:25:09,790 --> 00:25:12,160 Which get eaten by animals at the top of the food chain. 536 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,010 Animals like us. 537 00:25:14,010 --> 00:25:17,130 PROFESSOR: So that's the raw footage from our video 538 00:25:17,130 --> 00:25:18,820 on engineering river cleanups. 539 00:25:18,820 --> 00:25:20,610 And again, this is a spot that we 540 00:25:20,610 --> 00:25:22,340 knew we wanted to do an animation there. 541 00:25:22,340 --> 00:25:26,200 So we framed her in such a way that there is enough background 542 00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:27,970 space to accommodate for the animation. 543 00:25:27,970 --> 00:25:29,650 And we actually told her, OK, we're 544 00:25:29,650 --> 00:25:31,670 going to put fish along here in post. 545 00:25:31,670 --> 00:25:35,350 So pretend like you're looking at stuff, point to them 546 00:25:35,350 --> 00:25:38,270 as if there are going be fish there eventually. 547 00:25:38,270 --> 00:25:40,540 I think we also did it take where we just 548 00:25:40,540 --> 00:25:42,640 had her delivering it normally. 549 00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,614 So we had her framed with not as much extra space behind her. 550 00:25:46,614 --> 00:25:48,780 Just in case we weren't going to use that animation. 551 00:25:48,780 --> 00:25:52,590 But again, sort of anticipating using that if you need. 552 00:25:52,590 --> 00:25:55,185 So this is what the final scene looked like. 553 00:25:55,185 --> 00:25:56,810 FEMALE SPEAKER: Those animals get eaten 554 00:25:56,810 --> 00:25:57,940 by slightly bigger animals. 555 00:25:57,940 --> 00:25:59,760 Which get eaten by slightly bigger animals, 556 00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:02,110 which get eaten by animals at the top of the food chain. 557 00:26:02,110 --> 00:26:05,130 Animals like us. 558 00:26:05,130 --> 00:26:07,190 PROFESSOR: So again, it wasn't incredibly 559 00:26:07,190 --> 00:26:09,370 vital to have these animations. 560 00:26:09,370 --> 00:26:10,940 One of the reasons why we did use 561 00:26:10,940 --> 00:26:13,330 it is that, in the context of the video-- which 562 00:26:13,330 --> 00:26:15,130 I'm going to show tomorrow-- we felt 563 00:26:15,130 --> 00:26:18,760 like the visual interest was getting a little bit static. 564 00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:22,040 So we used animation to move the story forward 565 00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,210 in that we felt like it was getting a little visually 566 00:26:25,210 --> 00:26:27,480 monotonous by the time this hit. 567 00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:31,386 And the other thing is the food web stuff is OK to explain. 568 00:26:31,386 --> 00:26:33,260 I think that if you didn't have the animation 569 00:26:33,260 --> 00:26:35,560 it would still be OK. 570 00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:40,027 But it just added I guess a little moment of whimsy to it. 571 00:26:40,027 --> 00:26:41,735 And so that was sort of our justification 572 00:26:41,735 --> 00:26:44,099 of putting it there. 573 00:26:44,099 --> 00:26:46,140 So I just wanted to show you guys those examples. 574 00:26:46,140 --> 00:26:49,088 And Josh, you can continue on. 575 00:26:49,088 --> 00:26:49,754 JOSHUA GUNN: OK! 576 00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:54,386 I can switch here. 577 00:26:54,386 --> 00:26:55,010 PROFESSOR: Yep. 578 00:26:57,730 --> 00:27:01,850 JOSHUA GUNN: When John is helping us 579 00:27:01,850 --> 00:27:05,500 out with the workshopping portion, 580 00:27:05,500 --> 00:27:10,300 he can show you some projects in After Effects. 581 00:27:10,300 --> 00:27:15,310 I don't think After Effects-- it's 582 00:27:15,310 --> 00:27:17,850 a complex program with a lot of capability. 583 00:27:17,850 --> 00:27:19,430 But I think some basic compositing 584 00:27:19,430 --> 00:27:23,380 like this would be quite easy in it. 585 00:27:23,380 --> 00:27:27,840 So we can show you some of those, just some basics about 586 00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:29,660 After Effects.