For my final project, I did a 360 Video at the biology department in Syracuse University. I have always been curious about what the life of a scientist is since I am majoring in art. It is like a totally different world to me. Therefore, I think it is interesting to film some behind-the-scene stories in a science laboratory, and show viewers some new knowledge they usually don't get to know in daily life. I contacted Yao Xiao, one of the PhD students from the biology department, and asked for an interview. Luckily, she was happy to give us a tour around her lab and tell us a little about her current project.

The purpose of their project is to extract ethyl from trees and grass. Currently, ethyl is extracted from corns, and it will reduce our food resources as a result. Hence, I believe it is a pretty meaningful and practical study that is going to make a difference. Throughout the video, you can see Yao's daily office where she analyzes the data, and their little green house where stores many tree samples. An interesting fact is, the trees used in her project were all grown by themselves. When Yao first arrived at Syracuse University, she spent first two years dedicating herself to planting trees. It was pretty difficult at that time, because they did not have samples for experiments, but they managed to get the project going gradually after years of hard work.

I added some light music and used some effects in Premiere in order to make the video more interesting, instead of just a boring explanation of the project. I followed Yao's daily routine and documented the process of her dealing with the sample and analyzing the data. I believe it shows a fun part of being a scientist and doing experiments. In one shot, I put the camera around the tree samples, and you can take a close look at the greenhouse.

There are definitely things I would have improved, given more time. For instance, the machine Yao used to grain the tree branch is comparatively noisy. I used my cellphone as a voice recorder, but the result still did not turn out to be very perfect. Also, there is some stitching issues since I used Samsung Gear 360. It is probably because I shot the film on a rainy day and the lighting condition in the laboratory was not that good for the camera. I would certainly fix those problems for my next 360 project.

Here is my video. Enjoy, guys!