STEM Experiments

The Brief

ExxonMobil and SJR Group wanted to inspire parents to get their children excited about STEM subjects. The idea: a series of animated kitchen experiments that families could replicate at home. The brief called for a clean, sophisticated aesthetic — something that made viewers imagine following along in their own kitchen.

The Process

We spent four weeks figuring out how each experiment would actually work, which involved a lot of trial and error. For Colourful Cabbages we tested countless food colouring brands and types of cabbages until we hit the formula that created a pigment bright enough to capture on film, but durable enough to maintain its form during production.

Once we'd cracked the science, we designed and built the sets. We animated lights moving and dimming to convey the passage of time and combined stop motion, time lapse and burst photography to capture three experiments in camera:

Rain Clouds: How clouds hold invisible water vapour that turns into rain
Colourful Cabbages: How water travels up from the ground and around a plant
Ghostly Static: How invisible static electricity has the power to pull and lift light objects

The Outcome

Three YouTube videos, composited, edited and graded entirely in-house — each one turning a kitchen counter into a miniature science lab.