The Challenge

Every chapter in a Holt Science textbook, be it Earth, Life, Physical, Biology or Chemistry includes a lab. Holt, Rinehart and Winston asked us to present these labs as video primarily for the students to view prior to performing it themselves or as an alternative to performing the lab if time or materials budgets didn’t permit. Our mission was to take the manuscript and bring it to the screen.

The Solution

Our solution was the Edge Media Video Science Lab. This three-camera facility is based on the “cooking show” concept with running water, gas for Bunsen burners and an overhead camera to see what the chef, or experimenter in this case, sees.  This fully-stocked science lab includes special tools such as video microscopes and an underwater camera.

In preproduction, the materials are procured or, with live materials, scheduled for arrival. Each lab is tested to verify the procedure and determine the necessary preparation for the studio shoot. After the lab has passed the test run, a video script is written. The video demonstrations range from simple lessons on weights and measurements to complex investigations such as identifying unknown compounds or dissecting a cow’s eye.

A core cast of six teenaged science students (the best and the brightest) are the on-camera experimenters, thoroughly rehearsing each demonstration and then following plenty of direction from just off-camera. All the sound is replaced in editing with a professional voice-over narrator. The final versions of the labs run eight to ten minutes.

To date, we’re approaching our 250th video lab for Holt. Teachers never had it so good.