Edutainment: from Paleontology to Potterology

OP and former Senior Editor of Portsmouth Point, Doug James describes how he and OP Ben Thomas have turned their academic interest into a fascinating career.  



It’s a bit of a unique hobby. I’m not even sure if one could classify it as a hobby. Every Monday, unless I have decided before, I have to think of what (probably) historical topic I want to create a short 5-15 minute video on, and every Wednesday, I take what I believe to be most interesting scientific news of the week, while Ben writes in Paleontological News, and then makes a video on that too. 

I’ve simplified it all quite a bit and I don’t know what that’ll be like to read for someone else. I’m sure if I told my sixteen-year-old self that, he would find it far stranger than I do now, but it’s easy to forget the strangeness of something that you’ve been doing for what feels like so long. 

It’s also dangerously easy to forget that the audience of people who watch the videos we create are all real, especially when I’m just looking at statistics, and even comments. But it’s always on my mind when I’m writing a script, editing a video, or scoring the video, I’m constantly thinking ‘will people like that?’, ‘will this make sense to someone who doesn’t know the facts?’, ‘will this edit seem jarring?’, ‘does this chord sound too out of place?’ 

I guess it’s the same as any work that you know someone else is going to see, except there are quite a few people who are going to see this piece of work, and they’ve all turned up expecting to be entertained. 

Luckily for me, I can do pretty much all the work I need to do at home, so the lockdown hasn't been as detrimental to me as it could have been - and so the show goes on.

Here are links to both channels:

Doug A James:





Ben G Thomas:






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