Official Selection at London International Animation Festival

Screening at the Barbican

I was dead chuffed to hear that Blood, rats and anticoagulants made the official selection at this year’s London International Animation Festival, to be screened at the Barbican.

It was amongst a fantastic line up of films and I was particularly chuffed to get a science story in front of a non-specialist audience.

The history of warfarin, one of the earliest anticoagulant drugs, is littered with the bodies of sick cows and poisoned rats. This animation tells the story of how a bloody beginning gave rise to a life-saving medication. Find out more about the history of anticoagulant drugs in this interactive timeline: https://www.nature.com/collections/hbcnxgwklt/timeline/ This Nature Video is editorially independent.

The film was comissioned by Nature, working with the fantastic Shamini Bundell and with the awesome animator Jules Bartl at Dog and Rabbit.

Blood, rats and anticoagulants: The story of Warfarin (video commission)

This film I produced and narrated for Nature tells the story of how a bloody beginning gave rise to the life-saving medication, warfarin. This anticoagulant is one of the worlds most widely prescribed drugs and its history is littered with the bodies of sick cows and poisoned rats...

The history of Warfarin, one of the earliest anticoagulant drugs, is littered with the bodies of sick cows and poisoned rats. This animation tells the story of how a bloody beginning gave rise to a life-saving medication. Find out more about the history of anticoagulant drugs in this interactive timeline: https://www.nature.com/collections/hbcnxgwklt/timeline/ This Nature Video is editorially independent.

Experience Composite (Video Commission)

What is in the contents of your head at the moment of the beep?

Experience Composite A film by Ed Prosser (http://www.edprosser.com) This film was commissioned as part of a residency within the Wellcome Collection's Hubbub Group and exhibited at the "Rest & its discontents" exhibition at Mile End Art Pavilion, London October 2016. Using playful imagery the film presents a collection of short vignettes that explore the strange and often abstract nature of our everyday inner experiences. The experiences were documented through a process called descriptive experience sampling (DES), a technique developed by American psychologist Russel Hurlburt that aims to document inner experiences - the thoughts, feelings, sensations and bodily experiences that constitute our everyday consciousness. Participants of DES wear a small beeper which sounds randomly throughout the day, at the moment of the beep, individuals are instructed to note down the exact contents of their experience (this could include internal monologues, physical sensations or visual imagery). Follow up interviews tease out the information of the experiences and distill them into short summaries. These so called "beep summaries" provide wonderfully vivid depictions, almost like a dream diary, for seemingly mundane everyday experiences. Using material gathered by several members of the Hubbub team, this film translates and re-interprets the contents of the beep summaries, referencing the distortions and adaptations that occur when we try to share our inner experiences with others. Find out more about the Hubbub Research group here: hubbubresearch.org

This film was commissioned as part of a residency within the Wellcome Collection’s Hubbub Group and exhibited at the “Rest & its discontents” exhibition at Mile End Art Pavilion, London October 2016.

Using playful imagery the film presents a collection of short vignettes that explore the strange and often abstract nature of our everyday inner experiences.

The experiences were documented through a process called descriptive experience sampling (DES), a technique developed by American psychologist Russel Hurlburt that aims to document inner experiences – the thoughts, feelings, sensations and bodily experiences that constitute our everyday consciousness.

Participants of DES wear a small beeper which sounds randomly throughout the day, at the moment of the beep, individuals are instructed to note down the exact contents of their experience (this could include internal monologues, physical sensations or visual imagery).

Follow up interviews tease out the information of the experiences and distill them into short summaries. These so called “beep summaries” provide wonderfully vivid depictions, almost like a dream diary, for seemingly mundane everyday experiences.

Using material gathered by several members of the Hubbub team, this film translates and re-interprets the contents of the beep summaries, referencing the distortions and adaptations that occur when we try to conceptualise our inner experiences with others.

The film was shot over the summer of 2016 on a Sony A7s. I used old M42 lenses to help give the piece a faded, dream like quality – which was further aided by adding film grain and muting the colours slightly in post. Most of the portraits were shot on an old Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens which has a beautiful vintage bokeh, which is full of character and lacks the somewhat clinical precision of a modern lens.

Find out more about the Hubbub Research group here: hubbubresearch.org

Animation: Marie Tharp – Revealing the Secrets of the Ocean Floor

Mapping the ocean floors

An animation I produced last year with animator / illustrator Rosanna Wan for the Royal Institution.

Continental drift is common knowledge now, but when the idea was first proposed it was revolutionary. Helen Czerski tells the story of how the maps of one of history’s finest cartographers shifted our view of the planet. In the early 20th century, Alfred Wegener proposed a revolutionary idea: that the Earth’s continents were once joined together, and had gradually moved apart. The idea contradicted almost everything scientists thought at the time, and it took the detailed work of a brilliant cartographer to prove him right. Conventional ideas held that the ocean floors were flat, featureless planes. As expeditions started to go around the world collecting ocean depth measurements, Marie Tharp – not allowed to join the expeditions herself – processed the data and began to craft detailed, revealing maps of the hidden ocean depths. She discovered that the ocean floor was in fact a complex assortment of peaks and troughs. In particular, her profiles revealed stark rift valleys, which supported Wegener’s controversial ideas. Even then, it took a long time to convince the scientific community that her findings were correct. Eventually, however, she was proved right, and Marie Tharp took her rightful place as one of history’s finest cartographers.

Rosanna’s distinct visuals incorporate a hand drawn style that tell the story of cartographer Marie Tharp, whose work helped to detail the complex geography of ocean floors around the world.

Her maps helped to demonstrate that the ocean floor was in fact a complex assortment of peaks and troughs – which went against conventional wisdom at the time. Despite fierce opposition, she stuck fast to her findings and as more data was collated, the tide of opposition turned, paving the way for our modern understanding of plate tectonics.

Directed and animated by Rosanna Wan.

Produced and scripted by Ed Prosser.

Narrated by Helen Czerski.