Reed Timmer is the star of The Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers. Storm chasing is a very dangerous but adrenaline-pumping thrill ride. In an attempt to better understand how thunderstorms and tornadoes form and function, Timmer and his team put themselves in the center of the mayhem. Their data and results are invaluable for the scientific community and for every day people who are in the paths of these deadly storms.
This is a trailer of the famous movie "Independence Day". This movie talks about a situation which aliens invade the earth. Unlike most of the alien invadtion movie, "Independence Day" has done a brillant job in illstruating how large the scale of the invasion is. In the movie, the aliens invasion begins with them blowing up the significant places on the Earth such as White House. This is the most remarkable sence of this movie in my opinion. It does not only show the purpose of the aliens, but also shows how advance their technology is and how much destruction they can cause on earth as well. Under such desparate situation, it is exciting to see how the human fights back to the aliens and secure their home.
Scientist want to know better about the disaster, chasing storm is one of their choices. Through the assistance from media, peeple are able to understand the details about the research of disasters. These two videos are about some researchers who focus on close research of the storm in US. They built an armed car to avoid and resist the damage from storms. Even though it is a dangerous task, they still try their best to solve problems and defeat obstacles in the researches by risking their lives. In order to tell the world about their intention and raise patronage for further research, such a group of brave people contacted Discovery series to make and launch videos about their jobs. Here are the videos about their chases towards the storm in US.
Storm Chasers returns Sunday, Oct. 18th @ 10pm EP on Discovery!
Check out Reed's ten favorite twister encounters:
Sean and the TIV take a back road that nearly traps them in a massive tornado.
The preceding movie trailer is for the 1996 Steven Spielberg disaster thriller, Twister. The movie focuses around a team of Oklahoma meteorologists, led by Dr. Jo Harding (played by Helen Hunt) who are attempting to deploy an instrument named "Dorothy" into a tornado in hopes of designing a more advanced tornado warning system. When Dr. Bill Harding (Bill Paxton), the brains behind the Dorothy Project and former member of the team (and Jo's ex-husband) shows up to finalize the two's divorce, he sees the finalized Project, and only after encountering a rival storm-chasing team with a similar device headed by Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), he decides to come back to the team to help them stake their claim to the first successful deployment of the Dorothy Project. The movie does a fine job of creating a real and not overly "Apocalyptic" feeling of a natural disaster, giving the viewers the thought, "Maybe this could happen to me!"
The movie, although simple in plot, touches heavily on a very realistic yet dire scenario: What were to happen if a tornado outbreak of such an epic magnitude were to strike a developed area? What sort of measures are being taken to prevent a large number of casualties in real life? Is a real-life "Dorothy Project" in place?
In the movie, Dr. Harding explains that the average time between a Tornado Warning and the arrival of the tornado is approximately three minutes, and that theoretically, with Dorothy's new information, the new system could increase the warning time five-fold. This is a staggering statistic, and although this story is purely fictional, steps must be taken in that direction in order to effectively increase warning time.
A real-life example of this worst-case scenario can be taken from the "Super Outbreak" of April 3-4, 1974. On the 4th, at approximately 3:30 pm, an F5 tornado leveled the city of Xenia, Ohio, and caused about 35 deaths. One can wonder if a more advanced warning system could have prevented those deaths. That can't be proven, however, until Dr. Bill Harding's "Dorothy Project" can become a reality.
2012 is one of the latest movies we have that talks about disasters and I guess this draws people in from the simple fact that we all have some sort of fear of the unknown. We want to know how characters survive the end of the world, how they overcome disasters happening to them and maybe even use their actions as a method - a reminder - for us to survive, in the event that a tragedy as depicted in the film actually happens.
Also, 2012 relates to people a lot simply because the year 2012 is merely two years from now and I think I can safely say that we all want to know if the end of the world will really come in two years time. Then, there is also the wordings that appear at the start of the trailer mentioning how "the Mayan calendar predicted it" which the film uses to further claim that it is indeed something that will happen.
On top of that, most people should be familiar with all the famous locations and landmarks that show up in the movie e.g. the Vatican, The Statue of Christ the Reedeemer in Rio, Times Square etc. and we all love to see the effects of disaster striking on these locations.
Facination with doomsday; with chaos, and life-threatening situations basically grabs people's attention.
Cloverfield is the perfect example of a true disaster movie. The trailer entices the viewer with an unique presentation. The movie is filmed as though someone is carrying around a videocamera and is enjoying themself. However, an unknown monster attacks New York City and citizens run for their lives. The trailer especially caught my interest because the main characters are searching for loved ones and you feel their desperation. You form a bond with the characters through your short but miraculous glimpse. The fictional media inside of the movie also has no clue what is going on. It adds a realistic sense of terror to those who are watching the movie. It is a very well crafted trailer to get people to watch the movie and view the fate of the city's unfortunate citizens.
This trailer/movie caught my attention because it uses humor to explain some religous beliefs. It's a disaster in the sense that it could offend millions, yet the spin used made the movie popular.
The movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a ficitional movie that examines World War II and Hitler's quest for world domination through unconventional and disastrous methods. War is the prime example of a disaster because it affects a wide array of people and cultures. World War II had a worldwide impact and negatively affected most people of the countries who were involved. The attempted extermination of many groups of people, mostly those of Jewish ancestry, tore apart families and took the lives of many thousands of innocent people.
This movie, and its subject, are related to media because War is often associated with bias and miscommunication in the media. In this movie, the father of the young boy, who is a part of the Nazi army, tells his son that he does not need to worry about his work and that it is for a good cause for their country. This miscommunication is a result of the shame that the soldiers felt about what they did to innocent people for the sake of their own rise to power; they wished to make other people believe that what they were doing was for a good cause, when in reality they knew that it was unneccessary and brutal. Throughout the decades of wars that the world has experienced, most media outlets have resorted to lying and twisting stories of the war so that the people will fully support futher involvement.
Unfortunately, this is a continual cycle that the world cannot break and if it does not stop, war will continue to cause disaster around the globe.
This is an example of a post-disaster movie. The comedy and the slow-motion effects made the trailer interesting. It turned out to be a great movie.
The title 2012 itself excited me to see the movie. The trailer gives us a rough idea with a lot of details of how the whole exciting the movie is going to be. The trailer tells us about why it all started and how mankind is responsible for it. It conveys the whole theme of the movie that nature is not going to be quiet to all the abuse by mankind and we should act before this all really happens. The extensive use of computer animation to show the detailed effects on real life standing structures of today made me want to watch the movie more. At the end of the movie you realize that its time to act before it gets too late.
I was in Elemantary School the first time I saw the trailer for "Titanic," although I never watched the entire movie until this past spring. I was encouraged to watch the movie by my friends because of the incredible love story between Jack and Rose, the two main characters. Honestly, I was enticed to watch this movie because of the emphasis on the love story rather than the disaster of the Titanic. Personally, I think this kind of disaster is more interesting because the viewer has the opportunity to learn about the lives and form connections with the characters before the disaster strikes. However, I was interested in using this trailer today because of an article I read yesterday about the real reason for the Titanic's crash and fatal ending. In summary, the article states that the tragedy could have been avoided if the captain had steered the wheel the opposite way. The article is very interesting, and you can find it at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100922/lf_nm_life/us_britain_titanic_book.
"The Day After Tomorrow" portrays disaster through rapid global warming and the fictional new ice age forming all over the globe. This trailer grabbed my attention because when it was released it was the first movie I can remember that focused on the effects of global warming, which at the time was not as well researched as it is today. Portraying a national disaster of such caliber in a movie not only draws media attention to the natural disaster at hand, in this case global warming, but it also allows the viewer to be educated on the issue at hand, which in itself can be a media disaster if the source is extremely slanted and biased. After seeing this movie several times I still find it fascinating because of all the technological ways the extreme weather is reported, researched, and applied. All of the examples of the extreme weather also grabbed my attention because they seemed so far out and unrealistic at the time, and even today I find it hard to grasp tornadoes destroying LA, a hailstorm destroying Tokyo, and a title wave the size of the Statue of Liberty hitting NYC.
At first I was instantly heartbroken when I read the headlines "Gymnast Shawn Johnson Put To Sleep After Breaking Leg." Usually I would skip and not bother to watch something like this if it was anybody else, but this was Shawn Johnson, someone with talent which no one can compare to. I clicked on the video and gradually I learned that her whole death was a big lie.
The news was done by people called The Onion. Everything they report is all fake but all just for a good laugh, and it sure grabbed my attention right from the start.
The movie "28 Weeks Later" is an excellent example of a movie that paints a vivid image of what it would be like if an apocalypse-bringing pandemic was released into a densely populated city. The trailer was very interesting and descriptive, drawing me in using words and video clips to describe how in the prequel movie "28 Days Later" the pandemic was quarantined and contained and in the second installment "28 Weeks Later", the city is beginning to be repopulated when the pandemic returns and shows a glimpse of what chaos a pandemic of that magnitude would cause. Using intense scenes of violence such as large-scale bombing and rabies-infected zombies chasing uninfected people, the preview was extremely enticing to me and made me want to see what happened and if the virus would be contained. The concept of a virus that could cause such chaos is scary but interesting to me because it does not seem out of the question, and I feel the preview to "28 Weeks Later" illustrates in great detail what society might become if something like this happened.
The video I chose was a trailer from the 2007 movie, "I Am Legend". This movie represents disaster in many ways including the epidemic which wiped out the entire city, and the death of the main character's family. This trailer is effective and interesting because it does a good job of giving the viewer a good idea of the main character's pain and lonliness due to his abrupt isolation. I believe this trailer does an exceptional job of engaging the viewer and reeling them in to want to learn more about the journey which ensues.
I am Legend is a prime example of an apocalyptic movie. I am Legend raises the question of what would happen if a new drug released to the public created a new disease. The disease is airbourne and turns humans into a horrific species and seems to effect everyone. However, there is one survivor, Will Smith, and he must live his life with no other humans. He lives in constant fear of the new species of humans and must grow his own food and in addition, his only companion is his dog that he had before the epidemic began. He does mundane activities everyday, including searching for a cure to the disease. It gives a great insight of how it truly feels to be alone and in constant fear.
Set in 1983 during a Spanish Civil War, El Viaje de Carol (Carol's Journey) tells an intertwined story of mass and personal tragedy through the eyes of a young Spanish American girl. Though the story begins with images and expressions of hope, the brutal and sneaky disaster that is the Spanish Civil War does not leave Carol unscathed. Her innocent eyes are made to witness lives unfairly taken and the remaining lives be ruled by fear and loss, her own included.
El Viaje de Carol is a story of a losing battle, heartbreaking injustice and the inevitable loss of innocence that comes with the unforgiving touches of war.
In the movie Inception, someone's mind can be broken into. All of one's thoughts and ideas can be stolen. In the sense of personal privacy, this is a disaster; one can take private information as they please. The idea of someone being able to take your thoughts without your own consent is frightening and, if possible, can cause fear knowing that at any moment while they are asleep, their brains can be hacked into. Though dream inception or stealing is not yet possible today, the idea is not simply science fiction. Today, there is new ongoing technology that is going to be implemented in Mexico that can take your information with the scan of an eye. No matter where you go, there will be scanners that will scan an individual's eye and gain access to that person's information such as criminal record, credit card data, and other types of privacy related information. Will disaster result from accessing private information too easily?
Disaster narratives make for powerful story-telling. This class blog will be an online forum for us to discuss and exchange ideas about representations of disaster in the mass media, including both fictional calamities as well as factual catastrophes in history. By analyzing the choices made by content producers in the way they frame disaster narratives, we will consider how mediated presentations of catastrophe affect us as audiences. Some research questions we can consider include: how do presentations of catastrophe in the mass media differ? How does such diversity of representation affect viewers or readers differently? How has tragedy been marketed (or even exploited) in contemporary culture? and so on.
Writing does not happen only in college papers and assignments, and research does not happen only in university libraries and science laboratories. The Class Blog Project offers you the chance to better understand blogging as a form of public writing as you join this online research community, which can give you invaluable insights when you begin to think about your Commonplace essays in Weeks 6 and 7. Engage in discussion with members of this community--your classmates and your instructor--and use this online forum as an open space where you can write about and think more deeply, critically, and reflectively about our course theme and your own research project.
You are welcome, at any time, to post any related links or information to our course theme on the class blog, or even to share a video link to your favorite disaster movie.
