How to prepare your supporting video presentation
To enter The Big Bang Competition, you can submit a written application or a 5 minute video.
The video should introduce yourself/your team and give a brief overview of your work. You can highlight any demonstrations or elements of your project that you'd like the judges to see.
You can use any device with a camera and microphone to film/record your project presentation. These include smart phones, tablets and laptops.
Judges won't score your film quality so don't worry if you don't have the best equipment or latest editing software.
The most important thing is that the judges can hear your presentation clearly and see any posters, diagrams, and demonstrations you'd like to show them.
Methods
You can submit the following types of videos:
In front of camera – students talk directly to the camera. They could be running through a poster or PowerPoint slides or demonstrating their experiment or products
PowerPoint recording – students record a PowerPoint presentation with voiceover
Length
Your video should be no longer than 5 minutes. Judges won't review videos past the 5-minute mark so you'll need to be concise and make sure to cover the relevant information within this time.
Format
film in landscape mode and at 1920x1080 resolution if possible
export your video as an .mp4 file
maximum file size is 300MB
Audio
It's really important to make sure our judges can hear you clearly throughout your video. Try to make sure there are no background noises, and that you're not too close to the microphone.
Your instinct might be to talk as quickly as possible about as much as possible as soon as you start recording. This might make it harder for our judges to follow your presentation. Take a deep breath and speak clearly and slowly so you get all your important points across.
Content
In your video you should introduce yourself/your team to the judges and give them a brief overview of your project, including:
what you set out to achieve
whether you were able to achieve it
whether there were any surprises or challenges your encountered on the way
You can also highlight any elements of your project that you’d like the judges to see, such as demonstrations or models.
If you choose to highlight any printed or written materials, make sure the camera remains in focus so judges can clearly see and read it. You can also upload any diagrams, graphs and other images you'd like the judges to review. Do this on your project entry form.
If you choose to film a PowerPoint presentation, make sure your slides are concise – they should not feature too much content.
Technical advice
Editing software
If you’re working as a team but are unable to come together to film your presentation, you can still all be part of the video. You can bring together different film clips and merge them into one longer video.
If you’re creating a video on a PC, videos can be edited in the built in Windows Photos app. This app has options for structuring video clips on a timeline, with options for adding voiceover, music and text. On a Mac and iPhone, iMovie is included for free and has the same capability.
Adobe Premiere Rush can also be downloaded for free on a PC or Mac. It is also available on an iOS and Android phone. It's also a great piece of software for editing video. The free version has all the features of the paid software but only allows 3 exports.
Recording a voiceover for your PowerPoint presentation
open your PowerPoint presentation and head to the 'Slide Show' tab
in the 'Set Up' group, select 'Record Slide Show'
a drop-down menu will appear
choose to start the narration from the beginning or from the current slide
start recording!
Sign up to our newsletter
Join our mailing list to get regular updates and stay in the know. You'll be the first to find out when we drop new resources, open funding applications or open registrations. We won't spam you and you can unsubscribe at any time.
