Chasing the Wind, StormStock teams with Chevy Trucks


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CHASING THE WIND
StormStock teams with Chevy Trucks to Create Award-Winning
"Storm Chaser" Commercial
Friday, December 17, 1999
Contact: Lorie Kinkaid, Prairie Pictures, (817) 276-9500

ARLINGTON, Texas - Prairie Pictures announced today its participation in the creation of a newly released television commercial for Chevy Trucks. Campbell-Ewald Advertising created the 30-second spot, titled "Storm Chaser," for Chevy S-10 pick-ups. It was honored with a Silver at this year's Caddy Awards held in Detroit, Michigan. The spot features Prairie Pictures' producer Martin Lisius in the role of a real-life storm chaser. In addition, Prairie Pictures' StormStock footage library provided 100-percent of the stock footage elements used in the commercial.

Lisius, a veteran storm chaser and StormStock founder, appears in the commercial and endorses the product. The spot opens as he runs for his black Chevy S-10 extended cab pick-up. Actor James Coburn, voice for Chevy Trucks says, "Meet Martin Lisius, storm chaser. Some head for a basement, he heads for a Chevy S-10." With the help of a professional stunt driver, Lisius dodges flying debris including tumbleweeds, garbage cans, tires, exploding utility poles and a trailer home that crashes onto the road in front of him. Thanks to his Chevy S-10's four-wheel anti-lock brakes, he is able to miss the trailer and snap off several pictures of the nearby "tornado."

That tornado is just one of numerous StormStock elements that appear in the commercial. Footage of tornadoes and stormy skies shot by Lisius on 35mm motion picture film were composited with the product throughout the spot. Martin Lisius worked closely with Campbell-Ewald agency producer Craig MacGowan to make sure the best StormStock elements were available prior to the shoot. "Craig was really excited about the quality of the StormStock images we showed him," Lisius said. "He created a storyboard of stills captured from StormStock material and had it available on the set to reference. I think he was most excited about the fact that so much of our material was on 35mm and locked down. Craig, Propaganda Films and director Antoine Fuqua, were able to combine our material with product shots taken alongside alfalfa fields in Lancaster, California and crashing utility poles, airborne trailer homes and other flying debris to recreate a convincing tornado chase," he said.

MacGowan was pleased with Prairie Pictures' involvement saying, "When the creative team at Campbell-Ewald came to me with their Chevrolet "Storm Chaser" commercial for Chevy S-10 pickup trucks, I knew I had to go the extra mile for them on the production. That meant I had to find the highest quality, rock-steady stock footage I could find. Time and again, reel after reel of stock footage, and the Prairie Pictures [StormStock] footage was the clear leader. MacGowan went on to say, "Martin Lisius is one hell of a cinematographer who happens to know a lot about weather, and that adds up to some real high quality, kick-ass storm footage.

The Chevy S-10 commercial called for some real clean high-end special effects and compositing, which was done by the team at Digital Domain, to pull-off a real tornado storm effect with live footage of Martin Lisius chasing and filming the storm in his Chevy S-10 truck. Those storm background plates had to be rock-steady and his were second to none. The library is totally organized at Prairie Pictures and they can turn on a dime in any format, including digital. They really become a part of the production team and make things work great, the first time...when your back is to the wall on a time deadline."

StormStock images that appear in the commercial were captured on Eastman Kodak Vision 250D 35mm motion picture film and transferred to D5 on a Spirit Datacine by senior colorist Steve Franko at Video Post & Transfer in Dallas, Texas. Images were composited into the spot by Digital Domain of Venice, California.

Craig MacGowan is a freelance producer who regularly works for Campbell-Ewald Advertising of Warren, Michigan. He is also a director and executive producer at Voyager Productions, Ltd., Inc. in Novi, Michigan and Glendale,
California.

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View the Chevy S-10 "Storm Chaser" Commercial
WINDOWS MEDIA CLIP
QUICKTIME CLIP

Photograph available with this story.