Video: Chemistry & Applied Biosciences in 210 seconds
Our new video offers a journey through the department, showcasing the D-CHAB, its members, and chemistry itself. Putting all the exciting things that happen daily at D-CHAB into such a short video was challenging though. Julia Ecker (PR D-CHAB, Director of the video) reveals some insights about the making of this film and presents the final video here. Check it out, share & enjoy!
“What actually happens here at D-CHAB?” The visitors look at me curiously. “Well, a lot of research and teaching is done here,” I start an attempt to explain, “in short, we explore the world of molecules and create new compounds and materials.” The visitors nod a little helplessly, then one raises his hand hesitantly: “Don’t you have a video?”
Go directly to the video
With over 50 research groups and students from around 26 countries, D-CHAB is an enormous department. The day-to-day happenings at D-CHAB are indeed difficult to put into short, tangible words. Especially in view of the International Chemistry Olympiad, which will take place at ETH Zurich in July, it became clear that a video was needed – one that would briefly express in pictures what words cannot.
The Public Relations office D-CHAB received the order to conceive and produce a short film about the D-CHAB. The budget was set, and Multimedia Production were hired for the production. The brainstorming was euphoric, resulting in a flood of ideas, enough for a one-hour D-CHAB documentary. How on earth can we show the essence of one of ETH Zurich's most traditional departments, its campus life, teaching, and the work of over 50 research groups in a few minutes?! Many cups of coffee, meetings, on-site inspections, and research hours later, a first draft was finally stuck on the office wall, and a script in an envelope was taped on the department head's door. Ready for the shoot!
... and action!
In the fall of 2022, for several days two women were seen in the corridors of the HCI building pushing heavy handcarts packed to the brim with studio lights, batteries, microphones, lenses, filters, headphones, light reflectors, tripods, with a camera on top. No studio, no big crew. For our story, we had to be on-site and flexible enough – within the predetermined shooting time, of course – to react to any situation. At times this turned out to be quite an adventure.
In other words, we had to get creative. The planned outdoor scene on the Hönggerberg with a golden autumn morning and grazing cows, for instance, turned out to be a cloudy one with mostly brownish fields without cows on the day of shooting, and our protagonist – although patient despite time pressure – could not wait forever for better weather or cows (neither could we, shooting time is money!). We also had to be prepared for extras who, out of the blue, suddenly fell ill on the day of the shoot, for rooms that changed at short notice, for difficult lighting conditions, and for laboratory equipment that did not allow the use of certain cameras for safety reasons.
But at the same time, it was adventurous to find solutions and new ways to shoot, which often turned out to be better. We found new ways of presentation (and got the Hönggerberg cows in front of the lens after all – yee-haw!); we found extras – some of whom volunteered spontaneously – who performed amazingly, and rooms that were unexpectedly visually more attractive than the ones originally envisioned. We had staff, researchers, and students who were fully committed and contributed many ideas, and we gained exciting insights into the everyday life of research and teaching that we would never have had without filming. That was great fun. In this short video, we captured some of the many things we found exciting and put them together with care to create an entertaining journey. Below you can find the final video. We hope you will like it. Enjoy!
Special thanks go to camera woman and cutter Nathalie Schmidig from Multimedia Production for her commitment and know-how in this project, to Roman Frischknecht for his fine-tuning of the sound, to the department board for their support, and to all contributors and protagonists in front of and behind the camera, without whom this video would not have been possible.
About the film:
Production: Multimedia Production ETH Zurich
Camera, editing, post-production: Nathalie Schmidig
Director, Concept, Project/Production Manager: Julia Ecker (PR D-CHAB), Oliver Renn (Head PR D-CHAB)
Sound mixing: Roman Frischknecht, mirrorlake Studios
Overall responsibility: D-CHAB, ETH Zurich