Brain Games

John Crawford was a co-director and commentator for a portion of the Watch This episode. First aired in October 2011, this episode has been broadcast multiple times on National Geographic and other channels. It has streamed on Netflix and Disney+ and was commercially distributed on DVD.

Working with the episode director and crew in a television shoot at the House of Moves motion capture studio in Los Angeles, Crawford directed a dancer (UC Irvine graduate student Amy Allen) and two actors in a series of movement activities for a perception game played by viewers of the television series. He also co-directed a shoot where the dancer was filmed using a Phantom high-speed camera to capture dance sequences used in the episode. As commentator, Crawford was interviewed on camera for this segment to discuss motion capture technology and related perceptual issues. He explained how point clouds (fields of dots that follow a subject’s motion) can be an effective method for representing human movement.