Author: Doug

Footage shot during a winter storm in Minnesota from Saint Cloud to Minneapolis, MN. B-Roll video of snow plows in action, cars and trucks stuck in the snow on Interstate 94 and general bad winter weather travel hazardous weather. Footage includes some insane video while driving right next to a snow plow at highway speeds while the blade is down.

I’m back home after almost a 24 hour blizzard video gig. 

From St. Cloud to Fergus Falls, then back to Saint Cloud then to Minneapolis and then back home to Saint Cloud.  Ugh, I’m home and going to bed now.   I did get a chance to shoot some sweet HD footage for the station.

Today’s high temp will be a sub zero of -3 to -5 in the Saint Cloud area. The outside air temp when I got home this morning was -13F per my Jeep.

Okay, it’s very late and I need to get some sleep and veg out after all the chasing today.

Here is the link to the video I shot for the station.

Chasing with Bill Doms right now.  We are in the middle of this mess.  The roads are bad!!

MNC005-027-111-167-141945-

BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
CIVIL EMERGENCY MESSAGE
MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
RELAYED BY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GRAND FORKS ND
1038 AM CST SUN DEC 14 2008

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE
MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.

THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION HAS DECLARED THAT
INTERSTATE 94 FROM MOORHEAD TO FERGUS FALLS…UNITED STATES ROUTE
10 FROM MOORHEAD TO DETROIT LAKES…AND STATE ROUTE 210 FROM
FERGUS FALLS TO BRECKENRIDGE HAS BEEN CLOSED.

Right now I’m gearing up to head out with two locations in mind.  Up north towards Fargo North Dakota or over towards Duluth Minnesota for the major Blizzard hitting the area.  I have a ton of work to still catch up on and I really don’t want to go and spend 3 days chasing a blizzard by getting stuck someplace far from home.

In North Dakota right now the state has issued the following warning:

URGENT – IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
CIVIL EMERGENCY MESSAGE
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
RELAYED BY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BISMARCK ND
719 AM CST SUN DEC 14 2008

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE
NORTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.

THE NORTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION HAS ISSUED A NO
TRAVEL ADVISORY FOR THE ENTIRE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA. HIGH WINDS
ARE CONTINUING TO REDUCE VISIBILITY TO ZERO AT TIMES.

NO TRAVEL IS ADVISED FOR THE ENTIRE STATE

Here is the latest warnings for the central Minnesota area or MPX area.  This is not going to be fun today.

Below is the latest radar image at the time of this blog.  There is a major band of snow just to the south of Saint Cloud MN so it looks like I won’t have to travel that far today after all. 

I’m still trying to put the last of the travel plans together for today but I don’t know where I’m going to be chasing yet. 

More proof of Global Cooling!  No, not GLOBAL WARMING, but COOLING.  Oh wait, CHANGE… the weather is always changing… ugh.
First there was the sun with no sun spots. Now, there is a WINTER STORM WARNING, but not for Minnesota, for NEW ORLEANS. 

No, this is not a joke.  There is a WINTER STORM WARNING for the Big Easy along the Gulf Coast of the United States.

LAZ059>065-MSZ081-082-111800-
/O.UPG.KLIX.WW.Y.0002.000000T0000Z-081211T1800Z/
/O.EXA.KLIX.WS.W.0001.000000T0000Z-081211T1800Z/
UPPER LAFOURCHE-ST. CHARLES-UPPER JEFFERSON-ORLEANS-
UPPER PLAQUEMINES-UPPER ST. BERNARD-UPPER TERREBONNE-HARRISON-JACKSON-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…THIBODAUX…RACELAND…LAROSE…
DESTREHAN…NORCO…METAIRIE…KENNER…NEW ORLEANS…
BELLE CHASSE…CHALMETTE…VIOLET…HOUMA…BAYOU CANE…
GULFPORT…BILOXI…PASCAGOULA…OCEAN SPRINGS…MOSS POINT…
GAUTIER…ST. MARTIN 809 AM CST THU DEC 11 2008

…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST TODAY…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN NEW ORLEANS HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST TODAY. THE
WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

A COLD AND POTENT STORM SYSTEM WILL CAUSE A MIX OF COLD RAIN AND
SNOW THIS MORNING TO SWITCH OVER TO MAINLY SNOW BEFORE 10 AM.
TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO REMAIN NEAR OR JUST ABOVE FREEZING
WITH THE GROUND REMAINING RELATIVELY WARM…HOWEVER OCCASIONAL
HEAVY BURSTS OF SNOW MAY CAUSE ONE TO TWO INCHES OF ACCUMULATION
IN GRASSY AREAS WITH SOME ICING AND SLUSHY CONDITIONS POSSIBLE ON
ELEVATED BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES. THE SNOW IS EXPECTED TO CHANGE
BACK TO A MIX OF LIGHT RAIN AND LIGHT SLEET AROUND NOON…THEN
END AS ALL LIGHT RAIN DURING THE EARLY TO MID AFTERNOON HOURS AS
TEMPERATURES WARM BACK TO THE LOWER TO MIDDLE 40S.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW…
SLEET…AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO
POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.

Just a quick update.  I’ve been very busy this past week on a new project that I got for another TV show.  I’ve been working non stop to put together all of this years footage into catalogs along with the best of the best stuff from years past and trying to do about a months work in about a week for the demo tapes.

I did get some winter chasing in this past week and it looks like I’m going to be chasing later on today into tonight with the winter storm watch in Southeastern Minnesota.  But still not sure if I will chase this snow event since I’m backlogged on several archive projects that need to be finished up this week.  

We well be launching the new BNVN site by the end of the month.  I can’t say what is new but there is a ton of new tools we have for clients to make everything faster for the selection and turn around for stock footage and some new preview options for the news footage.

It’s pretty sweet looking but I have not had a lot of down time to finish it up.  I need to get the new site finished up and yes even Neva is starting to tell me to stay home and work on the website before the show I’m in comes out early next year.   So much work to do, so little time to get it done.  Well I better get back to work to get this first project done just in-case I do take off for the winter storm and maybe ice storm Monday night.

I wonder, just how many people have actually read this?  I bet you in this day and age, not many since it is not in a video game or cartoon.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

This week was one of those weeks where everything needed to be done all at once and I wished I was able to clone myself.

I’ve been pretty busy for the last 6 months and looking back at the last six months it feels like it has passed by in only 6 days.  Last week was a busy week to say the least.  I wrapped up on a bunch of stock footage for a show on History Channel.  Then locked in on a stock video gig for a TV documentary about Katrina for another network.  Then I got to film a TV pilot gig in Wisconsin for production company in London and wrapped up the final stuff for my show on NBC and locked in on all the stock footage for it as well. 

The term “A Lock or Locked” for a show means that the final stock or archive footage they wanted has been selected and they need to get all the paperwork in order and payments processed before it goes to broadcast.  In TV production, everything is hurry up and wait then get it done at the last minute.  We took care of the lock on Wednesday and the show aired on Friday on Gangland on History Channel about the gangs of New Orland’s.   The other gig was a lock on a show on for a documentary movie about Katrina and took care of that paperwork on Friday since they were rushing to finalize that gig.  Can’t say which gig it is yet but it will be on the air soon. 

This weekend the final episode for the storm chasing show I’ve been working on in front of the camera and also behind the scenes got locked and now it is just ready for the final post production work.  It just needs graphics, music and audio work, and the voice over work.  Then she is ready for Prime Time with the air date is still forecasted for early 2009. 

Now to answer the big question that everyone keep’s asking me with what is taking so long with the production.  It is simple, this is not cable TV show.  This is a broadcast network television show which means it has a lot more levels of review before anything can go on the air.   And why are people wondering why it is taking so long because it’s not taking so long since we wrapped shooting in September and this is now November which means it’s only two months since the last of the filming. 

Being part of the show has also helped expand on my own production gig where I’m doing more field production work.  This week I was over in Wisconsin filming and interviewing some people for a new pilot project for a production company out of England.  This is a pilot project that I can’t talk about what is happening or what I am shooting, except that is not weather related.   All the tapes are off to London now and if the network in London gives it the go ahead, I’ll be busy this winter and early next spring before tornado season starts back up with field producing and filming this new show. 

Jared, you would have been proud of me because I was just like you, asking all the annoying questions where I thought they were going to show me the Mayo…  (Inside Production Joke).  

It’s no secret that I love storm chasing but I also loving filming and producing so even if the new gig is not a chase related gig, it’s a gig that pays day rates.  Why is that important?   Day rates are the rate for a average 8-12 hour day of filming and shooting and travel and range from $600 – $1200 per day depending on the gig and if you have to use your own equipment.  Now factor in a five day work week and a good shooter could make what some make in a month, in just a week.  But it takes a lot of knowledge and skill to be a one man band shooter.  You have to monitor the audio, watch the camera action and ask the questions on the fly while trying to control the lighting in a ever changing situation.  It’s a lot of work but if you love what you do for a living and you love being a shooter then it’s not really work. 

I need to get some rest as tomorrow is going to be a big day again with some more projects wrapping up before the long holiday weekend. 

I know I should update the blog more often but I have been busy working on stuff and have not had time to post any updates.

First off, I got word that the show is coming along great and all the post production is almost completed.  There is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes word is that it’s all good. 

Just wrapped up two major stock footage deals for two shows and now I’m booked to go and film a pilot production later on this week for a company in the UK.  This is a pilot tv show project but if everything goes well with the shoot for the first part and the network loves it, I will be back filming the whole show for them.  Can’t say what it is or for who it is but it’s not weather related. 

Otherwise, just slaving away in the office today trying to get through a ton of stock footage catalogs from the guys this season for the website.  I got at least two terabytes of HD footage to edit through and make into stock video catalogs in the 10 days and then get the new site format up and running during the slow weather period. 

Oh yeah, Gustav is loving his new home.  Neva and I got a kitty that loves to be photographed and loves to just hang around us.  Here is a photo Neva took last night as Gustav was just chilling out with me watching TV.  I swear this kitty would want control of the remote if he knew it could change the channel to Animal Planet…

It is Winter Hazard Awareness Week in Minnesota and today was prime example of why everyone needs to slow down and pay attention to the road.  Put the cell phone down and watch the road and also make sure your seat-belt is on since it was another deadly day on the roads due to two separate winter weather related fatal car wrecks.

Above is a screen cap from the footage I shot from around the St. Cloud area this morning for the network and the local station while I worked the north side of the winter storm system to document the snow and blowing snow.  I may be going back out later tonight do cover the second round of freezing rain in the metro.