‘Invisible’ wins the Science Expression Competition at the UCD Imagine Science Film Festival
The winners of the Science Expression Competition have been announced. The competition was part of the UCD Imagine Science Film Festival which celebrated the Dublin City of Science 2012 during ESOF 2012.
UCD Research and The National Film School, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology organised the competition with the support of Science Foundation Ireland. The aim of the competition was to enable collaboration between scientists and student film makers in producing new Irish science films.
The winning film ‘Invisible’ was directed by Evin O’Neill. The plot revolves around a science and superhero obsessed boy finding out about the importance of invisible-to-the-naked-eye marine micro-organisms and deciding to use his own perceived invisibility to help his parents. The making of the film saw collaboration between Evin O’Neill, a film student at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology and Dr Emmanuel Reynaud, a cell biologist from UCD’s School of Biology & Environment Science and the UCD Earth Institute.
Dr Reynaud was part of the Tara vessel expedition that mapped the range of plankton in oceans across the globe. While invisible to the naked eye, plankton are essential in supporting life on earth, not least in producing oxygen.
Invisible from Barry Dignam on Vimeo.
“It was a genuine surprise for me to see the quality of the productions given the small budgets. All the films shone but one, ‘Invisible’, was a corker and, I'm pleased to say, the other judges agreed” said Dr Barry J Gibb Multi-Media Director at the Wellcome Trust and member of the judging panel.
The film, ‘A Rogue Idea’, was runner-up and was directed by Niall Toner. This film highlights the existence of rogue waves and how understanding their genesis is relevant to a number of areas of science. Through visual metaphors and a journey with a physicist from the university to the sea, the objective is to show all the facets of rogue waves: the positives and negatives of their instability and power.
The making of the film ‘A Rogue Idea’ saw the collaboration between Niall Toner, a film student at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology and Professor Frederic Dias from UCD’s School of Mathematical Sciences and the UCD Earth Institute.
A Rogue Idea from Barry Dignam on Vimeo.
Professor Dias is an applied mathematician who specialises in ocean waves and hydrodynamics and is a European Research Council awardee. According to Professor Dias, it is always difficult to research a rogue wave because nobody can agree on a definition, yet everyone knows it to be a massive wave which is localised both in space and time. He said, “These waves will occupy a specific area of, for example, one kilometres squared,”
The winning film received an AAAS Visual Science Award. Two members of the team who produced the film will travel to New York for the Imagine Science Film Festival in November 2012. They will also receive a Master Class with Professor Jay Anania, Head of Directing at New York University Film School, which is supported by Science Foundation Ireland. Both the Winner and the Runner-up will be screened in competition at the 5th Annual Imagine Science Film Festival in New York.
ENDS
6 of August 2012
For further information contact Micéal Whelan, University College Dublin, Communications Manager (Innovation), e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: + 353 1 716 3712.
