So why do I claim it is not an error? We consciously went with this simplification, so we could avoid talking about the expansion of the Universe, and knew our butts were covered because it was correct for one particular distance measure. There is a distance measure, called the look-back distance, which, by definition, is the light-travel time between the two events times the speed of light. This is the ‘distance’ that we meant. Cheap, I know. But it allowed us to avoid that complication. We hoped someone would ask about it so we could explain!

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html

I apologize if I came across as being harsh.

If you want the basics, digital video for dummies will give you basic information (a basic as you would expect in a dummies book). Not great, but a good place to start. filmmaking for dummies, likewise. Get a basic video production book and a program like Celtx (free), so you can plan the video and maybe put together a script.

As for sound, you must, must, must get an off camera mike. Camera mounted mikes have to be useable in many situations, so they suck at all of them. Since you are doing documentary stuff you can get away with a lavaier (the little clip-on mikes that newscasters wear) or you can get a directional mike on a boom. I would even use a handheld over a camera mike.

Finally, there’s about a billion web sites with free info on the basics of doing this. Google.

Hope this helps.

I believe the spherical cows come up in the joke more often as the spherical chickens (after all, for the purposes of the joke it really doesn’t matter what the animal is!) For example, this book starts with the spherical cow:
http://www.amazon.com/Consider-Spherical-Cow-Environmental-Problem/dp/093570258X

The other reason for us going with this name is that UC Davis is an Ag school (as well as many other things). We thought this tied in the campus identity with our idea of presenting a simplified description of the early universe.

Our goal has not been to set up a professional media company. Instead the goal is much more modest; to connect with people who are curious about how the world works, but are following other careers and cannot spend a large fraction of their time on this. We are catering to the audience which likes to go to the planetarium but don’t want to become astrophysicists or (professional) astronomers.

Having said that, if there are easy (and inexpensive) ways of improving sound quality we would be very happy to hear them. To push your physics analogy a little further, most physicists would be happy to suggest books to learn physics (there are many, and some are better than others). If you are willing it would be constructive to suggest some resources that we should be reading.

You can contact me privately on djmartin at (don’t include this bit about the cows) ucdavis dot edu, or leave some suggestions in the comments on this blog to help other physicists that may want to help educate the public.

Damien