Starting the month out with some video reviews
Two 2008 Hurricane Documentaries Reviewed
February 5th, 2009 at 5:18pm EST
I recently had the pleasure to watch Mark Suddith’s 2008 Hurricane video titled Tracking Hurricanes 2008. This was a fun and interesting video that lasted 1 hour and 38 minutes. Mark not only brings his hurricane adventures of 2008 into your living room, but also shows you his scientific research side with the various deployment video and instrument packs. A fully documented journey through Tropical Storm Cristobal all the way through Hurricane Kyle. There is extensive footage of Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav (which I both chased). Mark and his team did a great job of capturing many of the important parts of the hardest hit areas of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. I even remember seeing Mark’s truck a few times myself while in both storms, so he certainly got around a lot, and the video shows that. My only complaint about the documentary was that we didn’t get a great introduction of Mark and his crew, nor did we see a lot of himself in the video. It’s a common thing for us Storm Chasers to spend all our time behind the camera though.
I certainly recommend you pick up this video for your Severe Storms collection, you won’t be disappointed.
A few months ago, Jim Edds sent me a copy of the DVD that he produced on Hurricane Ike, I’m finally getting around to watching it gain and writing the review. This documentary was strictly centered around the events of the most significant storm to hit the Texas coast in decades. Jim Edds, Jeff Piotrowski, and Chris Collura contributed video for this documentary and boy is it a collection. I knew Chris’s footage would be great because I was with him during our intercept of Hurricane Ike. But when I saw the footage that was included in this film, it was very impressive. While Jim commented in his video about getting a little more conservative as he gets a little older, I think he still pushes himself to get some of the best. Jim’s professional film work show through in this production with strong editing and excellent sequencing. The narration was done by Jim himself throughout the film and was a little weak at times, but that is about the only complaint I had. It also would have been nice to see a little bit more of the chasers themselves in front of the camera.
This is still a visually vibrant and informative view and insight into intercepting Hurricane Ike. This is the premiere documentary to own for your tropical collection for 2008.