However, the musical sound track for the non-narrated one is good. That’s the one I played before and after the series of lectures on molecular and cell biology, and while they missed what was happening when they first viewed it, they understood what was happening in the second viewing (I used still images for some of the lectures so they when the saw the video again they were viewing familiar images; and I did the before and after thing to show them that they had indeed learned something in-between the viewings).

You’re quite right. A good soundtrack is needed to compliment these visual works of art. Otherwise, people will turn it off. In my mind, it was the soundtrack that ruined March of the Penguins (bland elevator music, all the way through. They should have taken a hint from Winged Migration or even some of the Home soundtrack–parts were like nails on blackboard, mind you, but overall, well done).

Harvard videos here for those interested: multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/media.html (e.g. see the 3-minute version….there is an 8 minute musical clip somewhere, but didn’t find it on the above link…it is in youtube though).