Tony Perkins
EF2
Are orders not being shipped out until after Dec 6th? Just wondering because I ordered about 2 weeks ago.
-
A new feature has been added to the Xenforo software - Shoutbox. A quick chat platform
- News
- STORMTRACK: Announcements
Greg Stumpf
EF5
Orders are being shipped out this week when Jim LaDue gets back in town (tonight) to help me with these massive quantities. We oversold the first batch of 100 DVDs, and we already placed an order for 200 more to be ready in a few days! Be patient, "barring any unforseen circumstances" - you'll get it before Xmas!
209 DVDs have already sold in the first 16 days of sales. We are only 6 DVDs away from breaking the total from last year (215 DVDs in 6 months).
The challenge continues!Mike Hollingshead
Hmmm, I ordered the second I saw it up in Market Place. I knew I should have went to the showing. Seriously jonesing at this point.
Greg Stumpf
EF5
I'll whet your appetite. I've placed a low-resolution wmv preview of the entire June 5 chapter (SW OK storm; the chapter I produced) on the web:
http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~stumpf/june5_preview.wmv (13.7 MB)
And we will be sending out orders as they were recieved - Mike, yours was #2 (Robin Tanamachi beat you for the #1 spot).
nickgrillo
EF5
I apologize for my delay in ordering one... So far, I have heard nothing but sensational reviews of this production -- and am very much looking foward to seeing it. I would have donated more material, but Dan Robinson already had the same position as me (we were chasing together) on 6-9-05 and I guess the 6-7-05 segment never materialized. I'm glad to see this is raising money for a great cause. I just saw your 6-5-05 preview, and it looked excellent.
Melissa Moon
EF5
Greg,
The article ran last Friday. Hopefully someone's response with purchase info will run in the paper. I could submit one too. Or, another option is running an ad in the paper.
Jeff Snyder
EF5
All three of our responses giving the website have been posted (Greg's, mine, and Glen's), so interested folks should be able to get the purchasing info on that site.
Melissa Moon
EF5
Are they going to be in the paper tomorrow or are they just online? Cause I think that more people read the print version of the paper (when they should be paying attention in class).
What about other schools? I'm sure that other colleges that have newspapers and a meteorology program would be interested in running the article as well.
Greg Stumpf
EF5
The ball was dropped with the OU Daily. Even if they run a small "addendum", it is doubtful it will be seen by the same number who read the article. Unfortunate, since print media has the best marketing power of all media. We will not be running an ad either, since OU Daily readership will be dropping to zero after this week (finals).
I already did interviews with the Daily Oklahoman (OKC's major paper) and the Tulsa World (theirs). I know that the DailyOK's article is slated to be a lead story for a "community" section (Section B) in the next few days. From here on out, I am specifically requesting that any media we interview with does not omit the purchase information in any story! We are also going to target other markets as soon as Keli Tarp (NOAA Public Affairs officer) is done dealing with press requests on the November tornado outbreaks, and I'm working on arranging a meeting with National Red Cross HQ next week in Washington DC.
Greg Stumpf
EF5
Here's an update on the shipping of the DVDs. The first pressing we made was of 100 Storms of 2005 DVDs. They have all sold out and all those orders were shipped on Tuesday. Preference in shipping was given to the early orders. Mike H. - yours is in transit now!
A second pressing of 125 Storms of 2005 DVDs and 75 Storms of 2004 DVDs will be ready on December 9. Any remaining orders received before December 10 will be shipped on December 10. These should arrive to U.S. customers before Christmas.
Any orders received after Dec 10 will be shipped sometime before Christmas, but there are no guarantees that they will arrive before Christmas.
Orders will continue to be taken while supplies last. Additional pressings will be made if demand is high.
Here's the count so far - based on Internet word of mouth and advertising in the Norman weather community: 241 DVDs have been sold in the first 19 days. Last years combined total across 6 months was 215 DVDs, so we are already outpacing last year. 75 DVDs were sold directly to the American Meteorological Society for resale at the AMS Annual Meeting in January in Atlanta. After Christmas, we will tally up the orders and make our first donation presentation to COCAMS and the Red Cross.
46 more DVDs have been sold since I stated the challenge to sell 50 more between Dec 4 - 10. Well done! Let's see if we can meet the challenge, and extend that to 25 more DVDs (total 75) before Saturday Dec 10!
Order now! http://stormsof2005.org/[/b]http://stormsof2005.org/[/color]
Our next challenge will be this: Last year, we raised just over $4K for charity. This year, our goal is to raise over $20K for charity. This will require us to sell about 1200 DVDs total.
Anyone with local print media contacts wishing to run a story on our fundraiser, please have them contact Greg Stumpf or Jim LaDue.
Greg Stumpf
EF5
An article about the DVD is now in the Daily Oklahoman, OKCs major daily newspaper:
http://newsok.com/article/1699239/
gregjladue
EF1
Orders have been shipped
I just shipped all orders that have arrived by 9am December 10. Will ship the rest in the upcoming early part of the week. The Tulsa World story apparently sparked a surge in sales from that part of Oklahoma. But we would like to see more sales. We've sold on the order of $6k but our target's $20k.
regards,
JimJoe Nield
EF5
I received the DVD late last week, and finally got around to watching it yesterday. This is an exceptional collection, and that's really all I can say about it. It is worth every penny, and my hat is off to all involved...a terrific effort!
Greg Stumpf
EF5
I wanted to update everyone on the status of the sales of the Storms of 2005 DVD (and the Storms of 2004 DVD).
We easily met the pre-holiday challenge I stated, and in the first month of sales have sold 557 DVDs. By comparison, we only sold 215 Storms of 2004 DVDs in all of last year (6 months of sales). We have raised over $7400 in charitable donations (as compared to just over $4K last year).
Remember, a portion of your cost of the DVD is tax-deductible (details on the Web page), so get your orders in before Dec 31, 2005! We plan to make our final 2005 shipment next week (after Christmas). New challenge - 50 more DVDs sold between now and December 30, 2005!
Our final challenge will be to sell enough DVDs to raise $20K in charitable donations. We are 37% of the way toward that goal.
Order now: <a href=\'http://stormsof2005.org' target='_blank'>http://stormsof2005.org[/size][/b][/color]</a>
Greg and Jimsebenste
EF1
Storms Of 2005- A Review
Reproduced from the wx-talk list:
Hello all,
Well, after hearing what people were saying about this DVD, and the cause it
was going to...I had to get it. "The Storms of 2005" (available online at
http://stormsof2005.org and in the Oklahoma City/Norman area, see website
for details) was, I admit, something that I wasn't too excited about at
first. I mean, it's going to be good, tornadoes can't be bad, right?
But, I had bet that the production quality would not be the greatest, there
weren't many chaseable days this year (OK, it largely stunk, let's put that
card on the table, outside of the hurricanes) and I couldn't imagine that
the split screens and other special effects showing where chasers were as
they were filming it could be done well without heading into a professional
studio.
Boy, could I have not been more wrong. From the opening sequence to the credits, you're in for a 5-ticket ride. Each segment is introduced by a
weather discussion showing relevant surface and upper air maps from the
morning and late afternoon. Then, you are in the driver's seat with a
professional storm chaser as your narrator and guide. No bad or
family-unfriendly audio here, no tasteless, insensitive shots, no boring
segments. Each one captures your interest from the beginning. And, despite the fact that the video was done by several video producers/storm chasers, each one maintains a high-quality production level with a consistent format, yet with enough leeway to break it when appropriate for special shots and/or graphics.
As the video begins, your appetite is whetted with early season weak
tornadoes in March. Then, all hail breaks loose (and tornadoes) in April.
Used when needed, the split-screen, time-synced tornado shots from multiple angles with a graphic radar overlay and markers showing each chaser's location is phenomenal! The satellite, radar and surface graphics from NCAR display well when used to highlight points of interest.
I literally cringed when I saw the May 12 video segment. I mean, I've heard all about it, and I knew it was coming. Watching the gorgeous tornado cross over the power poles/lines to the chaser's only escape route out, and watching as one of the chasers pans over to the west to view the oncoming Armageddon fury of hail, you know that anyone north of that tornado is doomed. A video of one chaser who pulls up to the downed power poles and lines covering the road can easily see "freedom" just a few hundred feet away. Then, after a few seconds of nothing real exciting happening, you see a huge white ball of ice explode in front of the car. The rest is history. Many chasers lost windshields and even cars from the onslaught of hail up to softball size and larger. "Hail nets"? They're great for golfballs and baseballs (sized hail), but beyond that...oh my. The screams, yells and terror is both fascinating and painful to watch. Nobody in that crowd is a millionaire, and they're losing their cars as a second awesome-looking tornado roars nearby. You quickly don't care about it, though (trust me!), as the barrage of hail does its damage to the frightened armada of chasers. This segment made me never even think about punching a core ever again!
The next 4 segments are from tornado days in June...specifically, June 4, 5, 9, 12. I had to be at a graduation on June 4th, and I KNOW, I KNOW I would have been there to see the big one. This segment just made my heart sink, but I'm glad those who were there got that one, and the video was excellent! And again, on the other 3 days, bravo. Nice split-screen shots and radar (reflectivity and velocity)...very well done.
OK, enough of the kid's play. It's time for the Katrina segment. This
video's proceeds go largely to the Red Cross (and is mostly tax-deductible
as a result). I had hoped this part of the video would be done especially
carefully, sensitively, and professionally. When Martin Lisius' voice broke
onto my speakers, I knew I had nothing to worry about.
Martin is a professional film maker and videographer. And, he also happened to chase Katrina. You know, I think the video quality on my stuff looks good with my Sony Digital 8 camera. But to my surprise, Martin doesn't use a cheaper "field camera" to shoot this historic storm. I don't know what he used, but it is shot in TRUE widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) and it also appears to be shot in high definition! Now, DVD's can't handle that, so Martin has to "letterbox" his video to fit it on the screen. No matter---the video quality is extremely crisp, higher than what TV news crews shoot with standard 4:3 aspect ratio cameras, and it looks terrific.
After Gary Woodall's excellent introduction, we get Martin's angle as he heads from Mobile westward towards Mississippi. He meets the storm surge head-on. Martin is a very good storyteller; the irony of the "Celebrate Mobile!" sign is not lost on me. But then he heads to slightly higher ground as the storm surge rolls in. Two things from his video blew me away (no pun intended). The first: his amazing video of the fire department rescue boat, going around, IN THE HURRICANE, looking for those trapped in cars now being submerged by the storm surge. Throw out the definition of bravery and stick this segment in the video dictionary, folks. Then, how in the WORLD did he get the tight shot of the waves lapping up on the stop sign with not a drop of water on the lens, nor a hint of shaking, shot from a good distance away, in the hurricane winds? Wow. Wow!
But there's more gems in this video segment, too. We see the storm surge coming ashore and washing right over a camera. Hollywood couldn't match that. A roof being torn off at close range, the top of a parking garage coming off and flying past chasers on the way down...a few expletives had to be bleeped out here, but when you see the video from multiple angles, it's obvious why they almost needed a diaper change! Jim Leonard's stuff is great, and talk about "valet parking" at a hotel as cars float up to the building. I bet they didn't tip the valet parking drivers! ;-)
I have only given out one 5 star rating for videos, but this one is close.
"Storms of 2005" gets 4.5 stars out of five from me. Even if you have been chasing for 30 years and were at these events, you still need to get this video. Professionally done, enhancements and effects done well with good narration, and excellent quality, largely tripoded digital video make this a stocking-stuffer, no question about it. I wanted to hop in the car and go chase a storm! The producers and videographers put their heart and soul into this production, and it shows. Even better, the profits are largely going to people who desperately need help from the events that were seen in the DVD.
(Enthusiastically pounds fist on table) Well done, gentlemen. Well done!!!Similar threads
