Special Effects Video and Chemistry Concepts
Description:
This project aimed to use chemistry concepts to create "special effects" which we incorporated into videos with our own plots. My group, composed of Austin Marshall, Natalie Mansergh, Griffin Leland, and myself, decided to make an avatar-like short film, using chemistry concepts to create effects specific to earth bending and fire bending. Our short film shows Griffin and Austin fighting, both physically and with their "element bending". Our filming was edited with iMovie. We used a mixture of cornstarch and water to simulate "sticky earth", we used dry ice to make a dust cloud, and we created natural gas-filled bubbles and lit them on fire and used that to create fire breathing. We presented this video at a chemistry film night, with both STEM students and non-STEM students alike, and presented and explained the videos in depth.
Chemistry Concepts:
Sticky earth: For the sticky earth, we created a non-Newtonian fluid by mixing cornstarch and water together in a beaker. This is known as "oobleck". When tapped, poked, hit, touched, etc, quickly and firmly, the liquid turns into a solid. This is because cornstarch is made of polymers, long chains of atoms. The chains move past each other freely, when they are in a liquid state, but when force is applied the polymers become entangled and the mixture turns into a solid.
Dust cloud: For our dust cloud effect, we placed a few fragments of dry ice in a beaker with some water and filmed the fog that was produced. Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. Dry ice goes through a process known as sublimation, that it, going directly from a solid state to a gaseous one, because atmospheric pressure is not great enough to allow it to enter its liquid form. You can observe this by putting dry ice alone in a small, airtight plastic container. As it sublimes, gaseous carbon dioxide will build up in the container, increasing pressure, and the dry ice will enter its liquid state. The cold of the dry ice caused water vapor to condense, creating a thick, low-lying fog which we used in our effect.
Breathing fire: We used flaming bubbles for our fire breathing effect. We put dish soap in a beaker of water, and placed a natural gas hose in the beaker. The bubbles that were created were filled with natural gas, so when you ignite them, they create a chain reaction of popping bubbles and combusting gas, which resulted in a big fire.
Reflection:
My group worked very well together, we gave and received constructive criticism respectfully and ultimately created a video that we are all proud of. We could have used our time more efficiently, because we would occasionally get off track talking about school or sports or how tired we were, but mostly a significant amount of time was wasted in trying to decide what our film would be, how we would film it, what we would say, what the plot would be, and so on. Because of this we had to be very efficient in filming, editing, and creating special effects. We were, and we did it well, but more time could have been dedicated to the film rather than worrying about every little detail, especially since we did not stick straight to our plans that we came up with. I am proud of the video, but some parts were rushed, so in the future I'd like to use my time more wisely to create a film that we are proud of and that we didn't have to rush.
This project aimed to use chemistry concepts to create "special effects" which we incorporated into videos with our own plots. My group, composed of Austin Marshall, Natalie Mansergh, Griffin Leland, and myself, decided to make an avatar-like short film, using chemistry concepts to create effects specific to earth bending and fire bending. Our short film shows Griffin and Austin fighting, both physically and with their "element bending". Our filming was edited with iMovie. We used a mixture of cornstarch and water to simulate "sticky earth", we used dry ice to make a dust cloud, and we created natural gas-filled bubbles and lit them on fire and used that to create fire breathing. We presented this video at a chemistry film night, with both STEM students and non-STEM students alike, and presented and explained the videos in depth.
Chemistry Concepts:
Sticky earth: For the sticky earth, we created a non-Newtonian fluid by mixing cornstarch and water together in a beaker. This is known as "oobleck". When tapped, poked, hit, touched, etc, quickly and firmly, the liquid turns into a solid. This is because cornstarch is made of polymers, long chains of atoms. The chains move past each other freely, when they are in a liquid state, but when force is applied the polymers become entangled and the mixture turns into a solid.
Dust cloud: For our dust cloud effect, we placed a few fragments of dry ice in a beaker with some water and filmed the fog that was produced. Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. Dry ice goes through a process known as sublimation, that it, going directly from a solid state to a gaseous one, because atmospheric pressure is not great enough to allow it to enter its liquid form. You can observe this by putting dry ice alone in a small, airtight plastic container. As it sublimes, gaseous carbon dioxide will build up in the container, increasing pressure, and the dry ice will enter its liquid state. The cold of the dry ice caused water vapor to condense, creating a thick, low-lying fog which we used in our effect.
Breathing fire: We used flaming bubbles for our fire breathing effect. We put dish soap in a beaker of water, and placed a natural gas hose in the beaker. The bubbles that were created were filled with natural gas, so when you ignite them, they create a chain reaction of popping bubbles and combusting gas, which resulted in a big fire.
Reflection:
My group worked very well together, we gave and received constructive criticism respectfully and ultimately created a video that we are all proud of. We could have used our time more efficiently, because we would occasionally get off track talking about school or sports or how tired we were, but mostly a significant amount of time was wasted in trying to decide what our film would be, how we would film it, what we would say, what the plot would be, and so on. Because of this we had to be very efficient in filming, editing, and creating special effects. We were, and we did it well, but more time could have been dedicated to the film rather than worrying about every little detail, especially since we did not stick straight to our plans that we came up with. I am proud of the video, but some parts were rushed, so in the future I'd like to use my time more wisely to create a film that we are proud of and that we didn't have to rush.