When a then-12-year-old Martin Lisius climbed on the roof his family home in Texas to install a weather station to track storms moving through, the first steps to his being a storm chaser were born.
Now a full-time storm chaser, Lisius is sharing what he’s learned in “The Chasers of Tornado Alley: Touching the Sky,” a new documentary which premiered recently on Vimeo and coincides with the release of the NBCUniversal movie blockbuster “Twisters.”
The 48-minute film, written and directed by Lisius and presented by his Arlington-based Prairie Pictures, introduces a group storm chasers, what they do and why they do it, a press release stated. The story is set against Lisius’ cinematography of storms he caputered on the Great Plains in the past seven years; he used 4K- and 16K-video cameras, along with film to showcase the storms. Lisius stated viewers should feel like they are on an actual chase.
“It’s a challenge to communicate the visual experience of Tornado Alley on screen,” he stated. “I think that drives me to find new ways to make it happen; to bring the audience there.”
The film received praise as an official selection by Reale Film Festival in Milan, Italy, for Best Cinematography, the press release stated.