June 23rd, 2005 The Weather Channel stringer lightning footage

Video was taken on June 22nd, 2005.

This video is a quick example of what I use to do as part of my business. For a while many storm chasers were providing stringer footage to The Weather Channel. I started doing this in 2003 after Jeff Gammons (weatherzine.net) showed me what to do, and I partnered with Doug Kiesling (BNVN) who did the billing and such.

The beginning of the video shows TWC using just a few seconds of the overall package I sent in. This is how it tended to work. I go out during a good storm, rain, or high wind day, shot for about one or two hours. Then I would have to edit the video (from my car) and then find a very high speed network (hot spots were not as available as today, and data cards aren't fast enough). Once I found a spot I would upload the video. It was always a very tight schedule for thunderstorms because from the time the storms hit, to the time TWC wanted the footage was very short. It took a lot of skill in those days to do it.

However, TWC stop accepting stringer footage when they paired up with ABC and used affiliate footage. Basically killed that line of work. And now with TWC being part of the NBC family, they use NBC affiliate stations footage, and as of this posting, TWC budget is pretty bad and they don't hardly even accept severe footage (tornadoes, lightning, etc.). But it was fun while it lasted...wasn't bad money either for a few hours work.

The footage itself was taken along I-270 in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The shot with the maroon pick-up was taken on the ramp from 270 onto W.Diamond/Clopper Road. The other shots are from I-270 southbound next to NIST and are looking south.

I also just noticed at the end of the video I cut off my audio...I was making the comment out there was rotation in the clouds...but the part that got cut off was "but there isn't anything to worry about"...because this was not meso related circulation.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• The Weather Channel
• June 23
• 2005 Gaithersburg
• Rockville
• Maryland
• TWC
• Weather Warrior Media
• stringer
• footage
• stock
• lightning
• thunder
• storm