The documentary film maker Mike Paterson has been making a series of excellent films, Colliding Particles, following a handful of physicists through the opening and maintenance of the Large Hadron Collider in Cern.
The films begin before the collider was started and are still following the scientists now.
Watch the films here (they are all wonderful so I suggest starting from episode 1). For the first and fourth films I provdied a few sections of animation with a technique I want to explore more. Initally the technique began in 2003 with the film for the London International Festival of Theatre where I started to get interested in simple animation bedded into live action.
Here, two of the physicists Gavin and John explain the basic premise of the Higgs-Boson particle.
Here one of the Physicists, John, explains the basic principles of the Large Hadron Collider.