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by Jim Edds, Managing Director, Extreme Storms
, December 20, 2006
BIG PINE KEY, FLA.
Jim Edds follows and records major storm events for his business, Extreme Storms.
Extreme Storms creates professional stock footage and still images of extreme weather. Its footage of lightning, hurricanes and tornadoes regularly earns its place on TV news reports and documentaries and is also popular with the public on DVDs.
My job involves getting to the heart of storms as they occur and then transforming raw footage into professional, usable content for broadcast. Particularly for news broadcasters, rapid turnaround is essential, so I must be able to create what they need in the format they use as quickly as possible—before someone else does.
The major 2005 season storm, Hurricane Katrina, was the costliest and third strongest land-falling U.S. hurricane on record. With one of the highest death tolls of any hurricane, it devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast and wrought catastrophe in New Orleans and coastal Mississippi.
Capturing the breathtaking natural phenomena and human consequences was critical for communicating with news audiences across a wide region. A quick turnaround on editing was essential.
SAVES TIME IN EDIT ROOM
I shot all footage in SD and, using the DV capture utility and EDIUS NLE from Grass Valley, I could ingest three streams of video simultaneously and edit them in real time. This also meant that I could add audio in real time directly to the timeline, without having to wait to import audio files separately.
I had recorded a great deal of footage, including the actual storm itself and the human reactions, such as store looting and rescue efforts, so I had a lot of content to organize. Shots included the storm-surge coming up over a highway, four feet of water outside a glass door, as well as looters gathering quarters from a devastated casino. I stayed in the Biloxi Coliseum for the duration of the shoot and from where I slept, I almost could film cars floating past.
A huge benefit with EDIUS is its ability to output any format directly from the timeline so I could distribute information in any format from my hard drive. This eliminated the need to render, which saved even more time. When it came to creating the DVDs for broadcast and consumer sales, I could also generate the format I needed within EDIUS.
BIG DEMAND FOR FOOTAGE
As a result of the quick editing turnaround, my footage from the DVD appeared on The Weather Channel, “Good Morning America,” The History Channel, “Inside Edition,” CBS, the Discovery Channel and German TV.
Ultimately, any investment in post-production technology must demonstrate its value and EDIUS paid for itself sixfold within three months. To me, it’s more than just an NLE—it’s the heart and soul of my business and helps to keep me organized. It ensures that I can keep this unique and innovative trade alive.
Jim Edds has been recording weather for the past seven years and started up Extreme Storms in 2003. He may be contacted at jimedds@bellsouth.net.
