Interstate 94 Semi Truck Roll Over Cleanup Drone, Saint Cloud, MN – 1/2/2020
Well, 2020 is off to an interesting start. I finally got to use my Drone License today on a crash aftermath and cleanup of the Semi Truck that crashed in the westbound side of Interstate 94 just west of Highway 15 in Saint Cloud, MN.
The semi ended up in the right hand ditch only and only injuries reported where to the driver. Cause of the accident is unknown at the time of the event, the sky was overcast with winds 15-25mph and slick road conditions around the area.
Now that my backlog of To Do’s are Done, going to be getting out more in 2020 to chase and more drone work.
Travel nightmare on slick roads in Central Minnesota – 12/30/2019
Gez, it was a mess today. Another round of extremely difficult driving conditions in central Minnesota with the latest winter storm system impacting the area. Footage shot on Interstate 94 in Monticello and in Saint Cloud, MN as well as Sherburne and Becker Counties . Pretty much wherever you drove you had to be careful not to spin out in crash.
Got back to my roots and was in downtown Minneapolis, MN covering the Alberta Clipper weather system that moved into through Minneapolis, MN this afternoon bringing another blanket of snow on the Twin Cities metro area. Footage shot in downtown Minneapolis on the Nicollett Mall as people where out going about their day in downtown Minneapolis, MN as the snow was falling.
Stearns County, MN Interstate 94 pileups in snow – 12/12/2019
I was back out today for another round of snow combined with near zero temps created extremely slick road conditions on Interstate 94 in Stearns County, MN that resulted in several areas of multiple vehicle piles up’s.
Don’t play with fire they said… Tomorrow might be boring as… or maybe a new chapter in video production and off season chasing.
Live from what is reported as the most haunted hotel in the upper midwest, The Palmer House, All Night Long!!! Of course I had to book the most haunted room in the place too. Live feed starts at 6pm and goes all night to 7am.
Today has been one of those days where it is a drive down nightmare lane, not memory lane… it is the one year anniversary of Category Five Hurricane Michael making landfall at Mexico Beach, FL in Bay County, FL.
I say nightmare because this was the scariest storm intercept of my life. Then again, I was in one of the worst possible position you could put yourself into without getting hit by the surge. The trip also was good to answer questions about time and distances for my own sanity since this was the first time being back at Mexico Beach, FL since the storm.
Shot on 10/10/2018 in the eye wall of Hurricane Michael on highway 98 before the surge.10/9/2019 The view of what is left along the same area of Highway 98 a year after Hurricane Michael.
Below are some of the images from the area on the one year anniversary of the storm. You can see some of the damaged homes and structures are still waiting on insurance claims and a large amount of lots are empty where houses once stood.
Photo from the drone of the party at Mango’s in Mexico Beach, FL
Over the next few weeks I’m working on a follow up documentary project for this storm and the recovery.
When I first started out chasing, it was not about getting the best video or video sales but it was about getting amazing still images. The other day I was able to get back to playing with the still images and time lapse work which will be a main focus for 2020 for me.
Here is the time lapse stuff I shot on 9/30 that was featured on The Weather Channel.
Vivid lightning time lapse over Eagan, MN and MSP Airport – 9/30/2019
Starting later this year, major upgrades are finally taking place with the camera equipment and working on more in house productions as the state of media chasing has drastically changed over time.
Back in June we started chatting with a company that wanted to work with us on various different productions and after about four months of back and fourth, last week we are going ahead with it. This comes just in time for us to bow out of another project that sounded interesting at first but after careful consideration and looking at the pros and cons, we decided against it. The main reason was, do we work for someone else or do we become the production company and chart our own path and own future?
We picked the path that allowed us to chart our own path. From what I have heard through the chasing channels, us or “SCV” as a whole declining this project, has killed off this project. Probably for the best as this was a show that morphed into following around chasers chasing and talking about their chasing and into a competition show of one chasing team against another chasing team like so many of the other “So Called” reality shows. The last thing chasing needs is a show that makes all the chasers look like a bunch of jerk offs looking for destruction.
It was pretty funny as I was trying to be polite (rare eh?) and say we are not interested last week but Monday I was bugged about “Why Can’t You Do Both?” and “Can’t You Double Dip?” and this one made me laugh “You Will Have Lots Of Eyes On You” by one of the producers. The worst part about this whole project is that they wanted me to sign off on being locked into their “potential show” for up to nine (9) months without any pay. Yes, you read that correctly, nine months, no pay, can’t work on any other projects but yet my company works on lots of different projects every week with production companies all around the world.
The conversation ended with me saying the following. Here is the fundamental problem. We already work in TV and everyone you have talked to has been on numerous reality clip shows, commercials or their own not so reality shows.
So eyes on means absolutely zero and it’s more of a pain in the ass vs being able to be incognito to get in and get out to get our shots.
The whole being on TV thing, we could be on the weather channel tomorrow if we wanted to with the footage we shoot today…
Seriously the show I did for in 2008, that only paid me scrap money and is still on the air 11 years later did nothing but brought me hate mail.
We could double or even triple dip but the problem is their is absolutely nothing in it for us but having a camera crew in our way all the time vs us being our own camera crew. Good luck with the project, but as of now, we’re not interested.
The following morning I followed up with a final message that just said. And like I said, screen time, I opened The Weather Channel morning show this morning with this video
10/1/2019 Opening shot on AMHQ on The Weather Channel with my footage in the background.
When I talked to everyone on my crew after I decided to not work on this project last week after hearing from another company that is looking to work with us, everyone was in agreement that a competition show would not be the best for chasing and doing more documentary project is the way to bring chasing into a much more friendlier public exposure after all the negative press over the last year by other’s.
