Archaeogenomics Explainer Video
Background
This video was created for the Introduction to Science Communication class that I took in the winter of my sophomore year. I decided to create an explainer video for a broad audience to introduce them to archaeogenomics, which in brief is the application of genomic techniques to archaeological materials such as excavated skeletons. Having taken a class in the bioethics of ancient DNA studies the year before that touched on the unwillingness of researchers in this field to communicate misconceptions of their work, this piece allowed me to think about how I could help change that trend and what mediums might be most effective at doing this debunking work.
I was inspired by videos that I had watched in high school on scientific concepts such as Crash Course, but I found that it would be difficult to replicate a video of that standard without a specialized production team. Instead, I decided to use this as an opportunity to learn the Adobe suite and the principles of video production as online videos become a dominant type of media. I believe that this will continue to be a dominant mode of science communication, and building my skills in this area is a useful investment of my time.
Reflection
This video is by far one of the most time-consuming projects that I've completed during my time at Stanford. Not mentioning the gap year that I'd taken between starting and completing this project, this was months of work trying to learn how to use programs across the Adobe suite—Animate, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, to name the primary ones. Having gone into that project only having used Photoshop to remove backgrounds of images, it felt daunting to even start to break down what I'd need to know to create a video, since I felt that hand-animating the video (as I did in my Midlife Crisis video) was going to be too difficult.
The learning curve for these programs was staggeringly high, and at times it felt like I needed 5 years to sit with them to truly understand how they worked. As I worked through each part of the video, however, that feeling began subsiding as I gained an intuition about how each of the programs worked. Eventually, I was able to finish the video, and though I definitely don't consider myself a professional video editor, I feel confident in taking on projects in video production.
In addition to the production details, this project gave me the space to think about ways to effectively and properly speak about human evolution, especially given the history of prominent evolutionary biologists promoting harmful, pseudoscientific beliefs about the "natural" superiority of certain races over others. Drawing on the principles taught in the class, I wanted to create a metaphor that a modern audience would be able to easily understand, and as someone who enjoys playing video games, I thought about what examples I could use. I ended up calling on a mechanic from Minecraft (though it is found in many games!) where customizing the player avatar has little to no impact on your gameplay, other than your visual representation. Being able to complete this thought experiment sets me up well for a future as a researcher who wants to have science education be a large part of my work.
However, this project leaves a lot to be desired, and given the chance to revisit it, I think that I could improve elements across the board. As I had completed this project as a way to learn the Adobe suite, it would be nice to now integrate other tools that I have access to, such as Procreate and Canva that can improve on certain visual aspects of the video. Having now gained more experience in both the theoretical and practical aspects of working in archaeogenomics, I would want to place a heavier emphasis on community-based archaeology as part of the archaeogenomic work pipeline as well as convey more clearly the destructive process of extraction, which is an important aspect to communicate as this field expands.