“Samaras died in what apparently was some horrible anomaly where two funnels are combining to make a supercell and then you don’t see the other funnel out of corner of your eye.”
Pretty good for a Hollywood actor who probably spent a couple days prepping for a week long shoot before he's off to the next thing. As a total non-weather person, he had to try to explain to other non-weather people the documentaries he watched for background info in which quickly developing and merging subvortices (funnels) are moving about the MVMC (supercell).
Not that I have to defend this, and I am super biased. I was invited to appear in the film in a bit part. It was a chance to do something fun and different, and I jumped on it. And indeed it was a blast. I was there for a couple days in Montana this May, and was really impressed with everything I saw. The crew seemed passionate and dedicated to their craft. The actors and production staff were outgoing and put in a ton of effort. Even Baldwin was friendly and engaging with the other chasers that were there, asking questions about Samaras, his work with his Turtle probes, and the El Reno storm.
The gust front of an elevated storm hit the location the first day I was there. I thought it was pretty awesome. But the crew, not so much. The outflow wreaked havoc on the props, rigging, and lights.
Although it's a small budget indie project, the effects are going to be mostly practical while combining real storm footage (ala Hollingshead's shots in
Take Shelter I hope). The effects and compositing I got to see looked really good. I hope it translates well to the screen as opposed to other films that drop millions on computer animation only to come off looking cartoony. Even if this turns out more like
Tornado! than
Twister, there are a bunch of nods to the real world history of storm chasing and meteorology (including Stormtrack), so hopefully the chaser crowd gets a kick a out of it just as
Twister has become an endearing classic despite being an over the top (sometimes cheesy) thrill ride. I can't wait to see what they do with the final product.
Me with the director, Jamie Winterstern, and the lead Daniel Diemer:
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