Particle science can be pretty mind-boggling at times, right?
But if you are region is competing to host the ILC (International Linear Collider), you need to have your grasp on what’s an electron and what isn’t a positron, and all that jazz.
How do you make this exciting? Well, you could hire teamLab, for a start.
That’s what Sefuri did. The region is located in Fukuoka and Saga prefectures and is one of Japan’s candidates for the ILC (the other is in the Kitakami Mountains in Tohoku).
teamLab came along and recruited some actual local schoolgirls from Saga to make a “high school musical” about the science.
The result is the vibrant Sefuri ILC High School video.
According to teamLab, “even though this work is less than 300 seconds and has had over an incredible amount 200 shots taken, it has incorporated the determination of the production team that have worked through scenes mere seconds long for extensive shots of scenes, costumes, props, motion graphics, animation, and more.”
Along with an exhibition at Tokyo Cultuart by Beams, they also made a very spectacular GIF Tumblr website for the promo, and which is guaranteed to give you a headache if you watch it for too long.
Although it’s very well done, we do wonder what it’s appeal could be to the bods that make these multi-billion-dollar decisions. Sure, it shouts “Cool Japan” (in a way that the central government could never understand) but it might be shooting itself in the foot by not taking itself seriously.
The ILC is, in the words of ScienceMag.org, “The ILC is expected to pick up where Europe’s Large Hadron Collider leaves off in studies of the Higgs boson and other exotic particles. Physicists in North America, Europe, and Japan agree on the need for the collider and have collaborated in the design stage. Each region would like to host the ILC, but Japan has emerged as the most ardent suitor. It is not clear, however, how the machine will be paid for.”
With Tohoku’s budget set to be occupied by post-disaster reconstruction for many years to come, ILC Kyushu is in with a real chance.
Here is the making-of video too!
The video also features the brilliant Shota Mori. He made this hilarious Taxi Driver-inspired “Sleeve iPhone” that generated quite a buzz earlier a few months back.
