Operation Filmmaker Goes Science

A camper edits a film.

Operation Filmmaker Goes Science is a new summer camp that brings together art and science, teaching students how to process and communicate information while learning the creative and technical skills of making a documentary film. The first camp took place June 9–27, 2008.

This three-week camp, a collaboration between the Mag Lab’s Center for Integrating Research & Learning and the Character & Heritage Institute, was open to middle and high school students. It was developed in close collaboration with research scientists and educators as well as media producers and consultants.

Advancing through three stages of production necessary to produce a film, students received instruction on the theory and the equipment involved in filmmaking. All students participated, start to finish, in the making of a 10-minute documentary on a science-related topic. The camp culminates in a special showing of student films.

The films created during the 2008 camp were premiered on July 20, 2008, at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in an event called Gala Night. This will was the first showing of the finished films and their associated movie posters. Featured at Gala Night were the following films:

• Time and Time Again
  Let's go back, to the future, and take a look at time travel. Can we actually travel through time, is it even possible. We'll take a scientific investigation of time travel and the possibility that it may exist.
• Helium: The Other Gas
  With the price of gas approaching $4.00 a gallon, let's not forget the cost of Helium is nearly four times that. This film takes a look at this element, its uses, and why we should be concerned with its dwindling supply.
• The Truth About Trash
  With so many disposable items on the market, where is all the trash going? Before we ruin the planet we'll take an inside journey to find about our trash and how it's affecting the planet we live on.
• Psychoacoustics
  Everyone enjoys listening to a good tune, but what happens we hear a bad tune, a bad note, or any combination of tones. Here is what actually happens we listen to music.
• Nikola Tesla
  The man who invented the twentieth century was not Thomas Edison, but Tesla's contributions and successes are largely forgotten for the electricity war these two men waged. Let's let their inventions speak, and we'll discover the real Nikola Tesla.

Students were exposed to documentary topics such as global warming, space exploration and conservation of resources. Ultimately, Operation Filmmaker Goes Science helps students become intelligent consumers of information so that they become educated on the needs vital to preserve our society.

More information is available from the Character & Heritage Institute.

For more information contact Carlos Villa at villa@magnet.fsu.edu or (850) 644-7191.