“Into the Storm” and Into Our Hearts, Richard Armitage Saves Lives, September 19, 2013 Gratiana Lovelace (Post #449)

Have I mentioned that in the early years of our marriage, I was my hubby’s navigator while he storm chased tornadoes as a weather nut cum nature photographer? Well, I have now.  And let me tell you, being in the midst of torrential rain so dense you can’t see to drive, quarter sized hail (when you’re lucky) that will surely dent any car, and winds that battered ourselves and our car around is not my idea of a romantic couples’ activity.

Nor is it for the faint of heart.  My hubby would hang out of the car window to get his storm shots–most of which are on hundreds of sheets of yet to be scanned into the computer slide negatives.  But at right is a recent stunning lightening shot that my hubby took this past Summer on our back yard deck (my hubby is the relatively new to blogging, Midlife Cyclist Blogger).

And I learned to drive defensively chasing those storms–getting close, but not too close, before turning around and heading at a 90 degree angle away from the center of the storm. The theory is that you can’t outdrive tornadoes, so you have to out maneuver around them.  Yeah right!  There is no safe way to do it.  I know some people think storms are a thrill–but then, they probably haven’t been in the midst of some truly scary storms like I have in the long distant past.

Gratefully, my hubby now sticks to less severe weather storm chasing and being one of the weather (temp, precipitation, etc) datapoints for our town as a Cooperative Weather Observer for the National Weather Service (NWS)–getting up at 4:30am every morning to collect the measurements and enter them into the NWS website.   It is a volunteer position, so the only cost to NWS is the initial analog equipment.  I say analog, because the temps–highs and lows–are taken by two mercury based thermometers.  This setup is much cheaper to NWS than equipment and maintenance for an automatic electronic data collection.  But then, just think what more data NWS could gather–if only they had the funds to create such a system?  Until then, weather research is primarily people driven.

So I give a respectful bow to scientists and others who purposely put themselves in harm’s way to seek to understand these storms better in order to create better early warning systems.  That was the premise of the 1996 movie “Twister” .  The rest of us?  We have to live with these storms–and sometimes their aftermath of downed tree limbs, destroyed homes, and sadly sometimes, loss of life.

But if disaster movies like the upcoming British actor Richard Armitage’s film “Into the Storm”(earlier named “Black Sky”) by producer Todd Garner’s Broken Road Productions–about a father (Richard Armitage portraying a teacher and father character whom we now know is named Gary Morris) trying to save his son when he goes out storm chasing–have a positive outcome beyond the obvious dramatic entertainment value, it is to remind us to recognize that forces of nature cannot be tamed–and we should all have our emergency preparedness plans ready to go.

As you can see from my tweet to Garner (right), I put in a plug for a Public Service Announcement (PSA) connection about emergency preparedness. Ha!  But PSA aside, seeing Richard Armitage portray a teacher and a father–two heroic roles even before a tornado gets into the mix–is a lovely dream come true.  And I can’t wait to see the film!  So I hope that it might premiere in the U.S. in  Spring 2014.

Since the beginning of Tornado season is six months away–it being March through August–I think I will be getting ready in a slightly different way, by enjoying the teasingly  slow production snapshots tweet shared (below) by producer Todd Garner of Richard Armitage in character in the film “Into the Storm” (aka “Black Sky” ).

Crystal Chandlyre has a post with a lovely collage (below) of Richard Armitage as Gary Morris pix (which if you read the fine print watermark at the top of the collage, it says it originated at jassy2101tumblr) and more.  Thanks for the link, Crystal Chandlyre!

Armitage Agonistes (Perry) (left) blog has a thought provoking post about how one might interpret what it means when a film goes back into production to film added scenes–and much discussion ensued.  Perry also had a subsequent post about “The Final Tease:  Richard Armitage’s Tornado Film” .

Marieastra8, the Obsessive Behavior blogger, also has some thoughts about the “into the Storm” film regarding “RA as Suburban Dad?” (right).

Phylly’s Faves blog shares her thoughts about being “In a Whirl!” about this tornado movie thingy–or the post could be subtitled, it could have been worse.  Ha!

And Ania’s blog about Richard Armitage called “zRYSIOwana ja” (below)  shares “Something about Black Sky” with a  video from teen Nathan Kress who portrays Richard Armitage’s son in “Into the Storm” (aka “Black Sky”).

And RAFrenzy (right) weighs in about British actor Richard Armitage’s impact upon a film with her blog post “Richard has Struck Again”.

And graphics whiz Bccmee has two RA pompadour gifs on her tumblr (banner below) that are quite humorous!

These are just a sampling of images and post links that I have seen in the last two days.  If anyone else has a post or graphic about “Into the Storm” (aka “Black Sky”), please share its link in a comment below.  Thanks!