Short Form Video Examples

These examples are part of the Studio on Making Short Form Videos

Observing a natural process, freezing of a bubble (Vine)

Did you even know that bubbles can freeze? A repeated video provides a way to observe a natural phenomena; the repetition can be used to examine or hypothesize the mechanism or process.

Using fast montage and music to generate a sense of excitement of sport (Instagram)

This is somewhere between a photo and a video. The fast flashing of images generates a sense of excitement, yet the photos are not random– they act as part of a sequence that shows motion through frames of different individuals. Does it suggest a sense of the way fans in India feel about cricket? What id the subject was your academic discipline.

This was produced by Nike, who has more money than _______ to spend on production. But with a mobile phone and Instagram, anyone can produce something of this caliber. You could be that person.

When every yard matters, make every yard count. Young cricketers in India don’t let limited space limit their game. They use it to perfect it. Wherever they can. Whenever they can. #justdoit

A video posted by nike (@nike) on Apr 29, 2014 at 11:01pm PDT

Speeding up time to show a travel sequence (Hyperlapse, Instagram)

A hyperlapse compresses time by speeding up and dropping frames from a video sequence, in this case, it let’s us travel through a space in a faster amount of time. What of we could do a walk through of an archeological site, the working environment of a hospital emergency room, a famous cemetary.

The roads that run through Yellowstone National Park are often roadblocked with roaming bison and other wandering wildlife. This is what my morning commute looks like while on assignment for National Geographic Magazine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. This time-lapse video was created by David Guttenfelder @dguttenfelder for @natgeo with a pre-release version of @Instagram's new app, Hyperlapse. #natgeoparks #hyperlapse10x

A video posted by National Geographic (@natgeo) on Aug 26, 2014 at 2:53pm PDT

Presenting history through imagery (Animoto saved to vimeo)

This video was created by combining still images and music, and letting Animoto create the visual style. Teachers often use Animoto as a means for students to produce short reports in a format other than a slide deck.

Evoking a Feeling (Vine)

This is my friend and colleague, Jabiz Raisdana, a middle school teacher now in Singapore. Can you tell that he loves books? Can you smell the pages and hear what they sound like? His passion for reading and books is illustrated in 6 seconds of video. What if your students (or you as a teacher) could produce something to show the things you care about the most? Can 6 seconds of video say more than 6 paragraphs of text?

Demonstrating a Technique

Show how an architect does perspective drawings by using a simple string

Perspective drawing with thin string:)

A video posted by reza asgaripour (@architectdrw) on Sep 21, 2016 at 12:49pm PDT

Hummingbird motion unobservable to the human eye (Animated GIF)

The repeating form of a looping animation lets us see motion we could not see with our eyes. We can study the mechanics of a hummingbird’s wing flap. What if we stopped the frames and made measurements for the position of the wing tip- could we then chart the mathematical function that describes wing motion?

Also, showing the application of geometry for a practical situation (not created with any of these tools, but useful still)

The geometry of a perfect parallel park. pic.twitter.com/rUUouEydsh

— Simon Pampena (@mathemaniac) November 25, 2016

Seeing all parts in a process, an animator at work (Hyperlapse, Instagram)

In the example above, we use Hyperlapse to show an accelerated path through a space; in this example, the camera stays still and we see a sped up version of a process through time. In this case it is showing how an animator creates a single frame, but what if we used it for other processes as a way to study all of the steps and connections that take place?

A #Spongebob #artists at work in the #Nickelodeon #Animation Studio! Can you draw #SpongebobSquarepants as fast as she can?? ? #hyperlapse #art

A video posted by Nickelodeon (@nickelodeontv) on Aug 27, 2014 at 4:13pm PDT

Natural scene for meditation or creative writing prompt (Instagram)

Tranquil scenes like this can work as a prompt for a creative writing assignment. Or maybe we can just use it to relax from all the pressure and urgency of our lives on computers.

Video @ladzinski / Clouds dreamily drift by the reflected and notorious #ElCapitan in the #MercedRiver in Yosemite National Park. The off season is a quite time in the valley, most visitors have left creating an even greater feeling of isolation to this already amazing place. @andy_mann @3stringsproductions @goalzero #Earth365

A video posted by National Geographic (@natgeo) on Dec 8, 2014 at 7:30pm PST

Creative Animation

The creativity shown here is an example how in 6 seconds we can generate something that is beyond reality, that perhaps offers a moving metaphor, or a statement about the layer of extraordinary our minds can apply to the world we see through our eyes?