Screaming and yelling

I've turned the excitement commentary around and made it work for me. I've turned mindless commentary and such into trying to not only allow plenty of time for silence, but often "report" the situation I'm seeing. Sure...the first years, like many here, I had stupid commentary and such...even got a lot of what I was saying wrong (ah...the learning years). In fact, my style of commentary in the video is what got the attention of a production company when they asked me to host their weather show (the precursor to WeatherProof in TWC). Good commentary can go a long way, but so can silence.

It all depends on your perspective too. The hobby chasers that really on video for sharing their specific experience via FB, YT, twitter, ST, etc. really don't need to worry about technique. But if you are really looking to put something out for the public (and care that it's enjoyable) than you have to understand your audience and realize lots of cursing, loud vocals, etc. 9 times of 10 aren't cool.
 
I'm working on a new invention; a camera that gives the user a shock every time it detects the words "HUGE tornado," "dangerous situation," "OMG," etc. We'll have those bad habit, obvious comments cleaned up in no time. (Void where prohibited. Language chip understands English only. Other languages may give random results.)

:D
 
I think we've all gotten better at it as we've gained experience. I don't know about you guys, but what I want to hear in a tornado video are all the sounds that nature makes during the entire experience....the birds, the thunder, the surrounding winds and if possible....the roar of the tornado. The least amount of talking makes me the happiest.
 
Not going to post a long response, but I will say that it really depends on the degree to which you are into storm chasing and the degree to which you can suppress your emotions while filming the wonders of nature. The group dynamics must be taken into account. Since I suspect I know the video in question, and since I was in the same car, I can tell you that emotions ran high as we viewed TWO TWIN TORNADOES on the ground at the same time! Situationally, I think any emotional response is valid; that ranges from fear to shock to absolute and total joy (we clearly showed the latter haha). Bare in mind that right after the twin tornadoes came the wedge, and all this happened in 15-20 minutes time. This is some rare stuff that I will likely never see again in my life, and just talking about that night is making my heart beat faster. So while understand where anyone is coming from w.r.t. hating/liking yelling in video, I think in this particular situation it's completely acceptable. Putting yourself in our shoes I'd like to see anyone not yell and scream, either out of fear or total happiness!

EDIT: It was said in an earlier post that yelling makes you look silly. My response to that would be storm chasing is kind of silly. But it's something we all love to do, so it's not silly to us right? Also, if you can't laugh at yourself what can you laugh it.
 
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I have no problem with people sounding excited or saying stupid things in the heat of the moment, but the absolutely ear-piercing screams and shouts are way too much for me to handle, LOL. I found myself getting excited Saturday, but never was I screaming. I'm sure I said "wow", "OMG", "there it is!", etc plenty of times. It's the "Reed Timmer yelling" that starts to be too much and makes us all sound like crazy yahoos. Haha.

BTW, Kevin, you guys definitely had some over-the-top screaming in your video. But it was an awesome video. I caught your interview on a morning show today, nice job.
 
cstrunk said:
BTW, Kevin, you guys definitely had some over-the-top screaming in your video.
Click to expand...

I definitely agree that yelling of that kind, is very over the top. BUT the situation around us was out of control and over the top as well. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be looked down upon by those who were not there to see it. If you check out our Wisconsin video from the next day, there was a lot less yelling and the dialogue was more commentary-like with moderate excitement and in my opinion extremely acceptable. This is because, while awesome, the tornado was not even close to what we had seen the night before. To
me, certain things like that can't be looked down upon based on how ultra rare and extraordinary this event was.

cstrunk said:
But it was an awesome video. I caught your interview on a morning show today, nice job.
Click to expand...

Thanks! We definitely did not expect to fall into all of this. It's been an amazing 72 hours!
 
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Jason Boggs said:
I've done it, but as I've gained experience, I just try to keep quiet and let the video do the talking. The last video of a tornado I got was Hammon, OK of last year. I took a few minutes of video and never said a word.

This is how I used to do it: CLOVIS, NM TORNADO OF 2007

I have to say, looking back on this video makes me look like a total dweeb. I find it very annoying when someone claps and starts hollering on their video, but again, I've done it myself.
Click to expand...

I LOVE how someone says "shut up!" lol!

But, I agree, the yelling can be somewhat annoying, but it makes sense when you think about all the excitement.
 
I caught my first 4 tornadoes this weekend in IA and WI. I sounded like a freak spazzed out on crack on the videos along with everyone in my car. Because it was my first tornado, I don't care... I wanted to have that crazy freakish excitement on the sound so I can relive it the best I can. It was a high unlike anything I've ever experienced. However, when I put it up on youtube, I fully intend to take the sound off and only keep the one with the sound for enjoyment for me and my friends. I do agree that some chase commentary gets a little old, but I cannot and will not blame anyone for getting excited off their rocker... it is like an orgasm in many ways... especially if its your first or you haven't seen many. I am hoping to be able to get control of it a little more as I get more experienced, but I am perfectly okay with sounding like a raving lunatic idiot on my first!
 
Thinking about a standard for acceptable voicing in video to me would be the the examples shown in Tornado Video Classics (most of the newbies probably don't know what I'm talking about). The commentary from folks like Marshall, Moller, Rhoden, Faidley, and their chase partners were pretty good. Some of the commentary from that series you could here in other later productions because they were "quoting" the original. That was kinda fun. I mean, how many times have you heard someone use Marshall's "T-time".
 
I am not a big fan of screaming and yelling along with "shaky camera syndrome" but I am also guilty of both. Over time, I have tried with varying success to limit my stormgasms. I was fairly quite last year for Bowdle and Howes, SD. Some of my quiet during Bowles was the result of shock from almost getting munched. Everybody has their own style. To each, his or her own...

Bill Hark
 
I'm not a person who swears. I guess wow is about as crazy as I get.
 
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