How can you communicate science with animated videos? SciCom-Special #4 with Şeyma Türk and Julia Ruff from Empathique.

Introduction to Kaleidoscience

0:00Hi and welcome to Kaleidoscience. You are listening to our winter special where we are taking a look at science communication. During December we'll have special episodes on Sundays where we talk to fellow science communicators about their medium and experience. In January we'll go back to our schedule and we will take a look at the research behind science communication. This episode is hosted by Elisa Palme and Luffy Kühne. So sit back, relax and enjoy this week's episode.

Guest Introduction

0:34Hello and welcome. In this episode we're talking to Shema Turk who is a doctoral student and a psychotherapist in training at the University of Heidelberg. And Julia Ruf who also holds a master's degree in psychology and is a licensed psychotherapist. And both of them are founding members of the educational project Empathique where they post videos in multiple languages about psychological topics. Welcome. Thank you that you're here.

1:06Thank you as well for inviting us.

Get to Know Game

1:08And as always at the beginning of our episode we play a short get to know game where you get three sentence beginnings and I would ask you to finish them as spontaneously as you can.

1:24The first sentence is As a kid I always wanted to be A fashion designer Nice That's the most interesting one I think Because mine is really standard I think I always wanted to be a teacher Or architect Something like that Nice The second sentence Currently I'm most fascinated by I think I'm most fascinated by coffee

2:00Right now Specifics of coffee Or just coffee in general Especially portafilter machines And making coffee with them myself And trying out different styles of latte art And so on Nice Nice Did you just get started with that Or did you kind of do a workshop And then got deeper into it Oh there were some people who took me into it Nice I am most fascinated by How much stuff you can put into a day

2:32And into a week Because I have Pretty busy days and weeks The last few days And That's what I'm most fascinated by I feel that Me too And our last sentence is If I was an emoji I would be Do you know the emoji that has like small hearts in its face? That would be me I would be the star emoji

3:03The ones With the three stars Because I like The lighting And stuff And especially Right now In Christmas time True A lot of fairy lights Okay

Empathique Project

3:19Then I think we're going to go into the main part So I already touched that you have an educational YouTube channel On psychological topics Could you explain a little more what you do?

3:33Juliet, do you want to start?

3:37So we have a big team That consists of psychotherapists and psychologists And people working in animation and design And together we are always looking for funding For new projects That cover some psychotherapeutic topics That are not represented well enough right now For example we made a series of women mental health

4:10Or mental health in women And covered some new diagnosis That came up with the DSM-5 For the people who don't know Who are not into psychology Or that deep into psychology Could you briefly touch on what the DSM-5 is? The DSM-5 is a system for classification of mental diseases And it's the classification system

4:42That the APA, the American Psychological Association Discussed Yeah Nice, thank you And what kind of brought you specifically to making videos about the topic Especially in comparison to, for example, writing articles Doing a podcast I can touch on our founding history a little bit if you want to The four founding members are Julia, Sibel Neiman, Miriam Celebe and me

5:20And we are all former scholarship holders of the Avicenna Studienberg It's one of the scholarships that is supported by the government And kind of supports Muslim students who are successful in university and so on And that's where we all met And then the idea kind of came up

5:51That we could do videos for stigmatized or marginalized communities To kind of disseminate knowledge Disseminate topics in psychology that are harder to understand And that was the first idea, the first spark And the first ideas always kind of revolved around videos We at first talked about doing videos where you kind of

6:24I don't know if you remember the old types of videos Where you kind of put drawn symbols and people and stuff into the camera And then you kind of tell the story by holding those pictures up Like stop motion Kind of stop motion And we started with those ideas And then it kind of evolved into animation And after that we looked into how we could realize all of those ideas And we were really lucky to be organized and networked so well

7:01Inside of different student I mean different professions But I mean student-wise professions None of us had any graduate degree at the time when we founded everything And then we met with students who studied animation Graphic design and all of that creative stuff And we started looking for funding

7:32And everything kind of came together And it worked out perfectly It was very much fun for all of us And we continued doing that And finding more sponsors for us And looking into other interesting topics That are marginalized and not known Or not talked about enough And that's how it kind of came into rolling And that's how we kind of got into videos and animation Nice

8:02How long have you been working on Empathique now?

8:07I think we started 2019 Yes Nice Before Corona Yeah I was just counting bags right before COVID And how many people are working together for your project? That's a good question Because we have a really big team We have just four psychologists and psychotherapists And we have so many people in animation And so many people who are doing the translations

8:39And who are also doing the audio So we have a very big team But people are also Sometimes they don't have time to take part in one project And they take part in the next So they are also switching a lot It's hard to say how many people we actually are Okay, so it's a little bit flexible Yes, maybe up to 20 people or more Even 30, 20 to 30 people With the people who do translation and audio and so on

9:12That's impressive Excellent And What do you think Like because you make video animations And videos Do you think anything is Yeah This makes it easier Or like are there parts that make it easier to display Or like Explain psychological phenomena Or are there parts that make it more difficult

9:43Like what would you say are kind of the advantages And disadvantages of your medium?

9:49I think the first thing that came to my mind Is that we live in a more visualized society nowadays So I think a big, big advantage of our work Is that Things are watched a lot And thus we kind of Have the advantage of being watched as well Instead of being read And That's one big advantage that we have Julia, you can add to that if you want to

10:20I also wanted to say that animation Gives the possibility to illustrate things That are not easy to To comprehend It helps a lot with comprehension For example If you want to animate dissociative symptoms And you Don't know how You can just add a fog Around the person And it makes it more comprehensive for the viewer What is meant by that Or we had a video of Psystrophenia

10:52And there Our character had Like acoustic hallucinations And it was also very good That our Audio team Could just Layer some Audio on top So it could Make It comprehensive for the viewer How our Psystrophenia And acoustic hallucinations Might feel Sometimes you can express Those Things

11:23In words And For example Talk about acoustic hallucinations But sometimes people Don't even get the description Or They can't really understand What's meant by that And I think the biggest advantage Is that If you see it Or if you kind of I mean We tell a story In all of our videos And If you see how someone Experiences something It adds a different layer to it And it kind of Makes it more approachable And Understandable How's the process there?

11:53So when you are Working on the video Do you sit together In a team And discuss On how to make it Best visible Or How to make it Most easily To comprehend Or is it more that One person Takes the lead on something? How is the process there usually?

12:10Yeah, Julia Actually we are discussing a lot First The Psychologist team Is writing a script For the new video And we always Always have Some ideas How we Could Visualize Or explain The things That we are Talking about In our script And Then we take This information To the animation team And Then we have Weekly meetings Or In the last video

12:40It wasn't Weekly anymore Because We are working Quite good right now And Everyone is quite Reliable Or Not right now But always So We have Bigger Gaps Between our meetings And Yeah So It comes together As a team And we Sometimes Also have Some kind of Model That we kind of Build the story around So we use

13:11Some kind of Element Either in The person's Story With the person That we are Talking about The person That's experiencing Something We take An element Out of that Or a model From Psychotherapeutic Handbooks Or Whatever So we have Some kind of Source Where we take A model Or something And then we Use that element And try to Build our story Around that And use that As a symbol

13:41Sometimes And we build On that Sometimes That happens As well But it's a Really creative Process So it's Different Every time And what Would you say Is the most Interesting thing You have learned Doing science Communication Doesn't need to be Content wise Necessarily It can also Just be Like Related to Doing that I think For me It was very Interesting To learn How

14:12Expensive And how Much work Goes into Animation I was quite Shocked when We were looking For animators In the first Place And for Designers In the first Place And had To Figure out That we Need a lot Of money For our Project Yeah That was Quite shocking So I can Relate with That And another Thing is That I

14:42Think we Were also Quite Surprised About how Many people You could Reach With YouTube For example One of Our videos Hit over 200,000 Views And so Many comments That we Didn't even Have an Overview Of what Was happening And how It even Went there Yeah I Also Check your YouTube Again

15:13During Like Researching This episode And I Think it's If I'm Yeah it's Over 200,000 Views and you Also have Over like 3,000 People Like following Your videos And I think That's really Cool because You make Really important Content So it's Nice that It gets Seen and That also People seem To be Interested In it Yeah thank You it Means a lot To us as Well that It's kind Of successful And it

15:43Shows in Numbers Yeah And what Do you like About doing Or working On this Project Just really Broadly I think For me The biggest Thing is That I'm Learning Something Every time Because I Mean I Was studying Everything And I Learned it For my Exams And so On but It's a Different To kind Of learning For every Episode That we're Doing Because I Kind of Get a Comprehensive Understanding Of what

16:14I will be Talking About And I Especially Love the Creative Part I Especially Love to Kind of Combine it With Pictures With Stories With Whatever Is happening In that Video I think For me The best Moment is Always seeing The final Product When everything Came together And we Watched the Whole video For the First time How long Does it Take you Usually Like from

16:45The moment You have An idea For a Video To the Point where You're like Okay this Is ready We can Upload This Like just The rough Estimate Takes Too much Time Like half A year At least Yes Because we Always have To get Funding And after We got Funding We have To Get to Team Together Again And Work on The script And the Videos Animation So a Lot of Work Goes Into

17:15Each Single One Of These Videos It's Very Nice But also Probably Very Like It seems So large Scale For a Video of 10 minutes But if You know All the Background All the Knowledge That is Needed And all The Different Steps It Obviously Makes Sense So Yes And in The end We are All Working So also Our animation Team is Also working Already We aren't We ain't Students Anymore

17:45So we Have to Combine Our Scudules Yes

Consuming Science Communication

17:50I think This is Also very Relatable Looking at The podcast Team Do you Yourself Consume Any kind Of science Communication And do You have Like Formats You Really Enjoy Consuming When I Had Instagram I Consumed A lot Of Science Communication Pages There And on YouTube As well So I Did that When I Was in School Up until

18:20Now That I Look up I don't Know Sometimes Historical Stuff Or Psychological Stuff So it's A wide Range Of Things That I Look Into Me too I also Look for Science Communication Content On Instagram For example Like other Psychotherapists That are Sharing Things But also On YouTube And we Had a chance To take Part To take part In a YouTube Program Was it

18:51Last year Or the Year before Last year Okay Last No it was Two years Ago I think Could be It started Two years Ago Okay The program Started Two years Ago And there We met A lot Of other Creators And I Love to Watch their Videos On YouTube That's Very nice Do you So Would you Recommend Any of These other Creators Like do you Have anybody

19:22Where you're Like oh Yes for Example I Can recommend Ruth McAuliffe Is her Name I can write It later And she Makes a lot Of content On eating Disorders And as I Like to work A lot with Eating disorders I like to Watch her Videos That's very Nice Do you Still have Anything you Want to share With us About your Project Like anything We didn't Ask about Or like Anything you Would like To go into More detail I think

19:54In general We would be Really happy If people Kind of Supported our Work And looked Into it And just Shared it Wherever It's kind Of wherever It makes Sense For example We have The idea Or it Would be Cool If it Is shared In Therapeutic Settings As well For example For patients To share It with Them For example But also In different Settings So that

20:28In general And specifically We're also Open for Different Kind of Suggestions On how To improve Our work Or if People kind Of think That we Should do Things differently We're open For that Julia do you Want to add Something I think What makes Our video Special is That we Are really Trying to Make diverse

21:00Videos and Diverse animation And I Think that's Something that Is missing A lot In science Communication Yeah also The fact that You upload Basically the Same video And make it Available in Multiple Languages with Proper translation Is very Impressive and Also very Important Could you Maybe For our Listeners who Haven't Checked out You yet Just name The languages You usually Do the Translation For And one In one

21:30Series we Had a Funding for Also on English and Turkish Voice over But we Found out That it's Quite difficult To do the Voice over Over a Video that Is animated Specific for The German Script So we Changed that And we Decided just To go with Subtitles So we Have always Subtitles in English French

22:01Russian Spanish Urdu Arabic I think Also Farsi I don't Know Turkish Of course I think Somewhere in Russian Also So we Try our Best to Get as Many Translators As we Can And we Try to Be diverse In the People that We Depict So they Have Different Sizes Different Weights Different Skin

22:31Colors Different Looks in General We try to Look at Women for Example That's why we Make the Series on Women Our first Series was On Refugees And refugee Mental health So we Kind of Try to be Inclusive And think Of people Who are Probably not Thought of Enough Are not Included Enough Especially In science Science Communication That's really

23:03Cool Thank you So much For talking To us Today So for For all The people Who now Want to Check you Out Where can They find You You can Find us On youtube Under Empathic Everything Will also Be linked In the Show notes Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you So much For talking To us Thank you For inviting Us and Thank you For asking The questions You asked This was

23:34Kaleidoscience We hope that You enjoyed This episode And we would Love to have Your feedback You can Rate our Podcast And give us Feedback on Our instagram Account Have a great Week and You'll hear From us Again in Two weeks This episode Was hosted By Sophie Kühne And Elisa Palmer Produced by Imogenhüsing Clara Kühne Sophie Kühne Sönke Lül And Elisa Palme The music Is from Jan-Luka Schröder And the logo Is from Annika Richter