Into The Storm Movie [was "Is anyone else worried that..."]

[Rob H]

The best chasers still make their forecast from home, don't worry when data is unavailable, and routinely make decisions based on the sky and not a computer. I know all three chasers posting on this page do that, so it can't be as rare as you profess. Granted, it's not the norm, as any idiot with a cell phone can drive 100mph and eventually score tornadoes when they live in the SGP and their forecast funnel is literally Risk area->MD->Watch->Warning.

Your biggest challenge may be financial, but I'm still challenged by the forecasting and the nowcasting. My biggest challenge is forecasting the setups that are "worth it", because with my new daughter and my job, I can't chase anything and everything under the sun. Must of us have external restrictions on our chasing.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

The only person who believes the extra time/distance makes chaser A's video better is chaser A, because that person had more time into the effort. But that doesn't increase the level of difficulty, it just means they had to leave home sooner. That's just simple math, not meteorological prowess.

This is where I think people really differ. To some people, yes driving hours and trying to get the best target is hard work. And if that person misses a golden opportunity (not to open the wounds of those who missed 6-16 this year), they really beat themselves up. There's also a group of people who don't beat themselves up simply because of circumstances that prevented them to make that target. Or they stick to their forecast and it didn't pan out. Either way, these people know that busting is part of the sport, and don't let it get to them.

There's also people that do drive hours and hours to their forecast through the night and do successfully score. But maybe they didn't get that perfect angle with the best lighting and contrast as opposed to another chaser. Maybe their footage didn't go viral and wow'd people everywhere. Or their pics aren't calendar worthy. Does this take away the fact that you drove hours and hundreds of miles to nail down your forecast? It shouldn't, it really shouldn't make a damn bit of difference. At least if you chase purely to see the storm with your eyes instead of through a view finder. If you're out there strictly to make your Facebook albums the best out there, then I wish you the best of luck. If you're out there trying to make a living, then I wish you even more luck. If you're out there simply to watch all these ingredients come together before your eyes and create nature's most mysterious and powerful phenomenons. If you're out there to watch these particles of moisture create behemoth striated flying saucers in the sky. If you enjoy the actual "hunting" aspect of this hobby. Then to you, I tip my hat and would like to shake your hand. Now don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with getting pics and video out there to show friends and family. But I truly think that shouldn't be the focus of chasing.

 

[Shane Adams]

This is where I think people really differ. To some people, yes driving hours and trying to get the best target is hard work. And if that person misses a golden opportunity (not to open the wounds of those who missed 6-16 this year), they really beat themselves up. There's also a group of people who don't beat themselves up simply because of circumstances that prevented them to make that target. Or they stick to their forecast and it didn't pan out. Either way, these people know that busting is part of the sport, and don't let it get to them.

There's also people that do drive hours and hours to their forecast through the night and do successfully score. But maybe they didn't get that perfect angle with the best lighting and contrast as opposed to another chaser. Maybe their footage didn't go viral and wow'd people everywhere. Or their pics aren't calendar worthy. Does this take away the fact that you drove hours and hundreds of miles to nail down your forecast? It shouldn't, it really shouldn't make a damn bit of difference. At least if you chase purely to see the storm with your eyes instead of through a view finder. If you're out there strictly to make your Facebook albums the best out there, then I wish you the best of luck. If you're out there trying to make a living, then I wish you even more luck. If you're out there simply to watch all these ingredients come together before your eyes and create nature's most mysterious and powerful phenomenons. If you're out there to watch these particles of moisture create behemoth striated flying saucers in the sky. If you enjoy the actual "hunting" aspect of this hobby. Then to you, I tip my hat and would like to shake your hand. Now don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with getting pics and video out there to show friends and family. But I truly think that shouldn't be the focus of chasing.

I used to feel that way, that it somehow made my efforts more "skillful" or "noble" when I would drive a thousand miles to a target and see tornadoes VS someone who lived close by. But then I realized that nobody else besides myself cared, because nobody else had to endure what I did. They just saw the pics when I posted them. They didn't care if I was down the street from home or had driven over 24 straight hours...nor should they.

Nobody forces a chaser to drive long distances. Nobody forces a chaser to pine over setups asking themselves "do I or don't I?" In my own mind, I think it's pretty damned cool that I'm as passionate as I am and that I'll do a lot to try and be there, but simultaneously I realize nobody else gives a damn. Maybe it's a deal where the perception (of everyone else) is the reality more than the actual reality (that chasers endure a lot to get what they try to get). I don't know. I just know that, at least for me, there's never a tickertape parade of people cheering "nice effort!" waiting for us when we roll in at 3am and have to be at work in five hours.

Also, I have never understood the philosophy of "just watching the storm" and not documenting it in some form. IMO, documentation is the entire point of being out there. Maybe I'm just getting old and senile, but memories fade. Emotions are gone the moment the tornado vanishes. Nothing I've ever gotten out of "just watching" has ever stayed with me, other than the basic knowledge that it happened. Even thinking back to the memory of a given chase, is like remembering it as someone else's accomplishment. There are a few chases where I can remember having the emotion, but the emotions themselves are lost forever to the actual moment they were created. So what does that leave me? Video documentation, to relive the experience whenever I choose, with everything as it actually happened (not the way my ever-exaggerating memory of it tries to tell me it did).

Very off-topic, but I felt it was worth the time to explain why I am a huge supporter of video documentation in a world of photography and "just watching" purists. There's nothing wrong with not doing video if it pleases a person. I just don't have any inclination to strap in and try if I can't preserve the encounter on video. Nobody cares that I saw 10 tornadoes in one day a decade ago. And if I never documented the experience on video, I probably wouldn't either.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I don't think this movie will be anything other than just another building block of the crazed insanity of a spectator sport that chasing has become. It has gotten continually worse year after year, even with the cancellation of StormChasers and without any weather- or chaser-centric movies being released lately. No doubt some number of people who know nothing about chasing or severe weather before they see the movie will be inspired to start chasing after watching it, but isn't that how we all got started? We were all inspired in some way. For me, I was lucky enough to be a young impressionable child in the early 1990s who watched The Weather Channel more than any other channel and happened to come upon some commercials about tornado videos such that my parents bought me a few. The rest was history.

I don't think the exposure via TV and movies is really the heart of the problem. I think the heart is in the glorification of chasing, especially of the dark side of it. It's "cool" to almost get killed by a tornado because those are the videos that get the most YouTube hits and fetch the highest prices for media outlet purchases. The people who get interviewed aren't the ones who took excellent tripoded video from a few miles away with no noise; they aren't the people who documented the entire tornado from birth to death; they aren't the people who caught structure with the tornado; they're rarely the people who have spent years researching, documenting, cataloging, and developing a scientific understanding of them. No, it's the people who have shaky, obnoxiously loud video of them screaming while driving 60 MPH through a neighborhood just before it gets hit; it's the people who were first on scene and found bodies. It's generally those who captured the "human dramatic" side of the event (which rarely coincides with the scientific or aesthetic drama aspect). That's a lot easier to do with the increased technology and exposure.

None of this is going to stop as long as someone continues to make big bucks off of some aspect of it. As long as media companies are shelling out thousands to Joe Blow for his video, and as long as Google AdSense keeps paying people lots of money when they get millions of video hits on YouTube, this isn't going to stop. In fact, I think it's just going to keep getting worse until something even worse than what has already befallen this community happens.

 

[Jeff Duda]

The best chasers still make their forecast from home, don't worry when data is unavailable, and routinely make decisions based on the sky and not a computer. I know all three chasers posting on this page do that, so it can't be as rare as you profess. Granted, it's not the norm, as any idiot with a cell phone can drive 100mph and eventually score tornadoes when they live in the SGP and their forecast funnel is literally Risk area->MD->Watch->Warning.

Along with the themes of Shane's posts, though, it doesn't matter how a chaser comes upon a tornado (whether stumbling through the core after reading the sky and sticking to their target that they determined 12 hours prior while at home or whether they woke up 100 miles away, looked at the SPC risk, waited for a warning to come up and drove recklessly to get there), the success via any method gets mixed into one pot of "all the people who documented this tornado".

And I agree with Shane. Anymore it seems like some of the most successful chasers are those who have seemingly unlimited resources (time and money), rather than those who are the most knowledgful, most experienced, and most intuitive. Give every person who wants to chase an equal pool of support and I think you'll see a lot more names start to come out as being more successful.

 

[Rob H]

I try to not base my success on what other people are doing, so it's a useful distinction to me.

I'm not going to condemn any chasers for having more resources or using more crutches. I chase for myself and I'm happy with the work I put in and what I get out of it. Who cares if you bust your ass off and someone else doesn't and you both get lumped into the same pot?

 

[Skip Talbot]

Because a person drove 6 states from home doesn't make any accomplishment anymore impressive; there are no awards for effort.

There are awards when you're one of only a handful of chasers on the storm because nobody else made the trek. That chase becomes special and unique on a personal level. Their footage becomes more valuable. The reward for driving 20,000 miles isn't a pat on the back for effort from your peers. It's getting that tornado you would have missed had you not put that much effort into it. It's getting that tornado nobody else did because they didn't put the effort into it.

Back when a person had to make a forecast from home, and had to live with it once they were on the road...if they scored 1000 miles from home, that was impressive.

That's still the case. Chasing has always been about making the best out of limited information. There's more information available now, just like there was in the 1990's compared with the 1970's. Making the most of that information to maximize your chase experience is still a challenge. Maybe if you're content catching the last half of a tornado from 10 miles out once out of 10 chases, then yes, chasing got easier. Obtaining that position is easier (sometimes, but not always!) because there is more information available now. There are still a myriad of setups where the forecast is challenging, where the positioning and logistics of the chase require real work and expertise.

No matter where you're from, you still have to drive hundreds of miles to get the best tornadoes. On average you might be driving less to get tornadoes if you live in the center of the Plains vs the Midwest. However, one year the best chase is up in Goodland, the next it's by Aberdeen, Denver, and then Midland. And this year for example: Pilger, NE is almost exactly the same distance from Springfield, IL as it is from Norman, OK. A commitment is required with much uncertainty. It's a challenge picking those days given finite resources. Otherwise everyone would have footage from that day because they'd just know to be there, right? Even if you had unlimited resources and were out there for every single setup, (which is also hard work), you'd still be missing big tornadoes and the best angles on them. Why? Because it's a challenge. Driving is easy sure. Getting the best documentation given the available yet limited information is still a challenge.

The only challenge left in chasing is financial.

Anymore it seems like some of the most successful chasers are those who have seemingly unlimited resources (time and money), rather than those who are the most knowledgful, most experienced, and most intuitive.

So everyone from Norman nailed El Reno and Moore right? I mean you've got a couple F5's rolling through the backyards of chaser Mecca and all you have to do is connect the dots with minimal commitment or investment. Yet, it seems the majority of folks got suckered south on the Moore day before the OFB could light up, or couldn't pull a decent shot off the El Reno HP.

 

[Warren Faidley]

It will be interesting to see Hollywood's take on chasers and chasing. From the trailers, it looks like the chasers are screaming idiots who get too close.

I think someone once said, "Movies are a reflection of society." Will the characters be portrayed from fiction or reality?

We will see!

W.

 

[KimC]

It will be interesting to see Hollywood's take on chasers and chasing. From the trailers, it looks like the chasers are screaming idiots who get too close.

I think someone once said, "Movies are a reflection of society." Will the characters be portrayed from fiction or reality?

We will see!

W.

There are cases where a misleading portrait of someone or something in a movie had bad consequences. One is "Jaws", which added significant to a misinterpretation of a species that became endangered, because everyone thought white sharks were what they were portraited, even though aws was never thought to be a documentary, but merely entertainment.

Stormchasers (Discovery) does adress some upsides and downsides about chasing, but the series can not be seen as a portrait of storm chasing in general, as the teams involved are all specialized in their different tasks.

I have not seen anything of Into The Storm, but there have been some negative feedbacks here, and I agree that a misleading portrait of chasing can become a problem.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Well it's lagging in the box office from what I've heard and read. Lots of mostly empty theaters and other releases are currently out pacing it. If the movie flops and nobody sees it, it's not going to have much of an impact on the hobby, good or bad.

 

[Mike Tobin]

Well Gents I went and saw it this morning.... Visually it was stunning honestly. They did a great job. They really tried to get the termonology right. Yes of course the sign of some issues with the storms and motion but I enjoyed it. You can see from the get go they tried to morph Reed Timmer and Sean Casey into the character Pete. The Two rednecks that shows them are actually only a couple of yahoos who want to make it big on YouTube. I enjoyed it for what it is. I recommend a matinee showing. But I dont see it having any type of impact on the chaser community.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I hate to be so blunt, but the movie is just bad. And I'm not saying that from a nitpicky chaser standpoint (I liked 'Twister' and have the score CD in my MP3 library). Bad enough that *I* don't even want to be the one who starts a thread on it. I say 2 out of 5 stars, but that may be too generous. It flows more like a "Lifetime" special than an action movie (not that I know what a Lifetime movie is like). Just think a lot of sappy, emotional soap-opera themes with a few tornadoes in between. IMO no self-respecting chaser type is going to want to claim this film as his/her inspiration. I could be wrong, though. If it does, maybe they'll be more sensitive, considerate and in touch with their emotions, who knows.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

That's good, because I saw the newest trailer where the movie's "TIV" gets sucked inside and gets taken above the clouds before falling again. The driver showed zero emotion too. I mean seriously, that right there is so ridiculous I bet the makers of The Blues Brothers would've thought that was dumb.

3 comments in 1 minute, what are the odds. I was reffering to Skip's post. Sounds like a high budget CGI film with no real good story. I hope it flops hard.

 

[Skip Talbot]

[Is anyone else worried that] "Into the Storm" will once again breath in a new era of young, reckless, idiotic chasers?

Not anymore

 

[Shane Adams]

Has anyone else wondered why they chose August for a release date instead of May? I don't think a late Summer release helped this film any.