桃色视频

Introduction

My follow up project for the Communication and Impact for Postdoctoral Researchers module is my participation in an episode of a new TV programme called ‘Food Unwrapped’ produced by Ricochet for Channel 4. After I finished my participation in this programme and saw the end result, I felt that it would be appropriate to use what I have learned during this process as the final project for this module.

In June 2012, I was contacted by a TV production company, Ricochet, to provide a strain of bacteria that causes black rot of crucifers, one of the most important diseases of brassicas (e.g. cabbage, kales, broccoli, turnips, mustards) worldwide. This bacteria is also important industrially as it is used to produce xanthan gum, a product used as a thickening, stabilizing, gelling agent in many food and non-food products including toothpastes, sauces and yogurts. After some e-mails and phone conversations, I ended up being involved in doing an experiment to prepare xanthan gum. Eventually, in a very short period of time, I was asked to participate in the TV programme and the filming took place at the Wellesbourne campus, School of Life Sciences on the 6th of July. The programme was broadcasted on the 22nd of October 2012 at 8:30pm on Channel 4. In addition, I also appeared at the beginning of four episodes and in a trailer, so some of the filming done in Wellesbourne appeared in 6 out of the 8 episodes of series 1 of Food Unwrapped. In this report, I will describe how the relationship with Ricochet started and progressed, what we did and the challenges that we faced.

Initial involvement with Ricochet

On the 8th of June 2012, I was contacted via e-mail by a researcher, Siân Jones, working for a TV production company, Ricochet, asking if I could supply a strain of Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (e-mail included in the Annex 1). I assume that the researcher from Ricochet found my web pages on black rot of crucifers and contacted me knowing that we had a large collection of bacterial isolates. At this point, I checked the programmes that Ricochet was producing and confirmed that there was no information about a programme on ‘how our food is made’, so I could not assess how interesting this could be.

On the 18th of June, I had a phone conversation with the TV producer/director, Matthew Ainsworth from Ricochet, and I explained why the experiment that they were planning could not be done with the plant materials that they had in mind (cabbages from supermarket) and in the timescale suitable for their filming. We decided that we could try to find plants already infected with the disease, so I provided contacts of my colleagues that could have some materials. Unfortunately none of my colleagues had infected plants at the time. I have also planned to do an experiment, but could not do it as there was not enough time to obtain symptoms until the planned date of filming (which was less than a week later).

After considering the short amount of time available, we decided that we would send photos of symptoms that could be used on the programme. I contacted our communications officer, Tania Page, and she agreed that I could send some photos to Ricochet as long as they acknowledged the University of 桃色视频. On Tuesday 19th of June, I sent a selection of 11 photos of plants with symptoms of black rot and photos of the bacteria to be used during the filming. I have filled the copyright form to give Ricochet permission to use the photos after checking with the communications officer, Tania Page, and Head of Communications, Peter Dunn, that everything was fine. At this stage I thought that I had finished my involvement in this TV programme.

Research

On the 21st of June, I was contacted again by the Ricochet researcher, Siân Jones, and I was asked if I was familiar with the process of making xanthan gum and if I could point them in the right direction (e-mail included in the Annex 2).

After e-mails and a phone conversation, on the 22nd of June, I was asked if I could try to make xanthan gum in our laboratory. I had never done it, but I agreed to try it, although they wanted results in less than a week. I consulted my line manager, Professor Eric Holub, and he was supportive, agreeing that I could try to do this experiment. I then started to read the literature and to plan an experiment to go through the process in a small scale. I also realised that the commercial process is done in industrial fermenters and that we have a relatively large fermenter at 桃色视频. I contacted Dr Guy Barker and he agreed that we could film the fermenter located in the old Mushroom Unit.

On the 25th of June, I was asked if I could produce enough xanthan gum for filming the process four days later. I asked for more time to make sure that I could prepare everything and it was agreed that the filming could be moved to a week later. On the 29th of June, the filming date of 6th of July was agreed. I had several phone conversations with the researchers of Ricochet in order to prepare for the filming day. Some days I had trouble working as my phone would not stop ringing regarding all the arrangements necessary.

I had to contact (e-mails and phone conversations) the Communications Officer, Tania Page, the Head of Communications, Peter Dunn and the Head of Administration of the school of Life Sciences, Simon Bailey to have permission for filming in Wellesbourne. I have also contacted our Chief Technician, Dr Rebecca Allen, and asked to have support for Health and Safety issues. Rebecca was extremely helpful and she organised a rota of Area Safety Advisors to be present in the laboratory during the filming. This was essential as I felt that I could not leave the TV crew in the laboratory on their own in case I needed to go out of the laboratory at any stage and I also could not look after all the crew whilst I was doing the experiment.

Preparation of the experiment

The experiment to prepare xanthan gum needed to be simple and relatively quick to perform as we only had one day for filming. I decided that part of the experiment had to rely on materials prepared earlier.

The process involved growing bacteria in liquid medium, boiling to kill the cells, centrifugation of the cultures to eliminate the cells, precipitation of the gum in the presence of alcohol, drying the gum and making a fine powder. I have used equipment in three laboratories to complete the process, but I realised that it would be impractical to do this with the film crew. Fortunately we still had the Genomics Laboratory at Wellesbourne that contained most of the equipment needed and was wide enough for filming. We organised some of the bays of the laboratory and quickly learned how to use some of the equipment there.

Although my first attempts to produce xanthan gum were successful, I had produced a very small amount of powder. On the last days before the filming, I decided to grow larger cultures of bacteria and produce more powder in order to be able to show it on camera.

We gave particular attention to the laboratory and how it would look on camera.

Financial considerations and potential benefits

In conversations with Ricochet, I was aware that they had a relatively small budget for this programme, but they asked me to calculate the cost of preparing the experiment and our time. I contacted a Research Funding Officer and we calculated a cost of £2050. When we contacted the Production Manager of Ricochet, Malaine Adams, we realised that their budget was much lower than that figure and they did not want to spend more than £250. After a quick negotiation we agreed on charging £500 although we were aware that it would not cover all the consumables, the time that a postdoctoral researcher (myself) and the area safety advisors would be spending.

We decided that this project was justifiable because it could be used to raise the profile of our research, could be used for educational purposes (as part of practical lectures or open days) and would be an opportunity to show and use our facilities. On the day before of the filming we reached an agreement and the crew booked their hotels and travelled to the Midlands.

Filming

A day before filming, I had a phone conversation with the producer of the programme. I described the experiment that I was going to do and the laboratory that we were going to use. She gave me information about the film crew that included:

- The producer/director (Lisa Poulter)

- The sound operator (Alan)

- The cameraman (Ollie Weaver)

- The presenter/reporter (James Watt)

I had assumed that, the presenter, James, would do most of the work and I would just show how it was done, but the director, Lisa, asked me if we could have a dialogue and James could ask me questions whilst we were filming. She also said that the programme was aimed at non specialists and they wanted me to explain everything in a very simple way and use simple language (e.g. alcohol instead of ethanol, sugar instead of glucose). She described James as being also a comedian so I would have to be ready for some jokes.

I prepared the laboratory and took all the materials to be ready in the eve of the filming and early in the morning. Our PhD student, Vânia Horta de Passo, also decided to join and help in the filming.

We started the day meeting Lisa Poulter, the producer/director of the programme at 9:30. I showed the facilities, the equipment and we also visited the fermenter in another building. The sound operator and the cameraman arrived, but the presenter was delayed as he went to the main campus of the University although we had sent clear details of our address on the e-mails that we sent and had also mentioned the location in phone conversations.

When James Watt arrived, it was decided that to tell his story, we would need to film his arrival at the Life Sciences reception and someone would have to escort him to the laboratory. We found Claire Barratt, the Crop Centre secretary, that agreed to be in reception and Vânia escorted James and introduced us in the laboratory.

My involvement in the filming process started in the laboratory introducing myself and then I explained the process to James and encouraged him to perform part of the experiment.

On several occasions, I was out of my comfort zone especially when James made jokes and did unexpected things such as sitting on the floor of the lab waiting for the cultures to grow and later asking if I could spin him on a chair to pretend that he was in a centrifuge. Some questions were also relatively hard to answer in simple terms. Maybe it would have helped if I had a laptop ready with images (e.g. the structure of xanthan gum). Nevertheless, it was very unlikely that very technical/scientific information would be shown in the programme. At the end of the day of filming, I had got a better understanding of what the producer wanted and how they worked. I wished I had known a bit more about the programme before we started filming as I would have been more relaxed about it.

I did find it particularly difficult not to look at the camera when I was talking with the presenter and when the cameraman was moving around us. I also found it difficult to go through several takes and sometimes it was difficult to repeat exactly what I had said as I could not remember the exact conversation. We also had to think about continuity and where we stood at each point, what we were doing, and details (like which flasks were in the incubator), so they could then edit the footage without problems.

At the end of the filming, I had to sign several forms to allow Ricochet to use the materials. The PhD student, Vânia Horta de Passo, also signed the forms and Claire Barratt was asked to sign some days later.

Two photos taken at the end of the shooting in the laboratory are included in Annex 4.

Final result

After filming, I talked with the producer/director Lisa Poulter and she said that she was happy with the material that they had gathered during the day at 桃色视频. On the 17th of July, I received a thank you message from the Ricochet researcher, Eve Mundy (Annex 5).

Episode 6 of Food Unwrapped was broadcasted by Channel 4 on Monday 22nd of October at 8:30pm. The programme could also be seen for some weeks on 4oD and YouTube:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/food-unwrapped/4od#3425232

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqvc-3Iub1E&feature=context-shows&list=SL

Copies of two episodes in MPG4 format are attached to this report on a DVD. My collaboration in episode 6 can be seen in the trailer at the beginning (00:01) and towards the end (from 00:20, including photos on a laptop and then part of the programme filmed at Wellesbourne). Some images of James Watt spinning on a chair can be seen at the beginning of episode 7. This could also be seen in other episodes.

The part done at the School of Life Sciences is on the second half of the episode 6 (22nd of October) as part of the story to find out what replaces fat in light mayonnaise. The programme is very lively and interesting to suit a large audience including young people that might not generally watch programmes about food or science. The story includes an interesting demonstration on how low-fat mayonnaise is produced using xanthan gum. There is also a part in the kitchen with a Food Scientist, Rachel Edwards-Stuart; the images shown in a laptop are some of the images that I have sent for the programme. The part filmed in Wellesbourne, has been edited to approximately 2 minutes. We obviously filmed a lot more than was necessary for the programme and I would have liked to see some of the last material that we filmed, especially drying and grinding to obtain a powder, to have got into the programme, but as the time was very limited the narrator just says what the next steps would have been and that does work well. Filming of the fermenter also did not make the show, but on the other stories that they presented (e.g. the story of the orange juice or the episode on beer) they show fermenters and large equipment, so our fermenter was possibly not impressive enough and was not absolutely necessary for our story.

In addition, images of me spinning the presenter, James Watt, appeared at the beginning of episodes 3, 4, 7 and 8. I also appeared at the end of episode 5 on the trailer for the next episode. The trailer was a bit worrying as it leaves the public with the question if the product is good for us. I was a bit embarrassed with the scene where I spin the chair, but James Watt knew that the programme had to be light and energetic, so now I understand that it was an important part of what we did and showed that we can have some fun in a laboratory.

The main worry that I had, was that the programme could have a negative impact on xanthan gum and products that include xanthan gum, like the light mayonnaise. In the trailer, the presenter James Watt says “does not sound like something I want to have in my food” and during the conversation with the Food Scientist he says “the xanthan bacterium is a cold blooded cabbage assassin”. Nevertheless after my final explanation saying the bacteria does not harm us, the programme shows that xanthan gum does not affect the taste of mayonnaise and another presenter, Kate Quilton, says “Bless those cabbages”. The programme is therefore balanced; I think that the general idea is that these products are safe for consumption and xanthan gum is a remarkable product.

After seeing the programme, I have contacted Tania Page, the communications officer, and we wrote some sentences that we posted in the Life Sciences web site and intranet (Pictures in Annex 6) together with the link for the programme. We thought this was a good opportunity to publicise our work on black rot of brassicas.

I have enjoyed participating in Food Unwrapped. Generally we do not get opportunities like this, so although it was a risk as we knew very little about the programme, it was worth investing time and effort in it. The course on Communication and Impact gave me more confidence to deal with the TV researcher, producer, finance and the TV crew that came to Wellesbourne. Although we could not charge the amount that we calculated to cover all the time and consumables, it was very good to be able to get £500 that will go into the School of Life Sciences to contribute for the consumables and some of the time that we invested in preparing for the filming.

I have found that collaborating on a TV programme has a huge impact and a show like Food Unwrapped is viewed by a range of people that would not read the scientific papers that I am publishing regularly. My own children enjoyed watching the show and their grandparents were also really interested. Apart from my colleagues at work, I have had positive feedback from school teachers, friends, parents and even grandparents of my children’s friends. They now seem to know where I work and understand that I am scientist and work in a laboratory. They also said that it was good to see inside one of the laboratories in Wellesbourne. I think that this collaboration was a risk, but it did raise my impact with the general public and gave me an opportunity to publicise part of our work within the School of Life Sciences.