Tornado season may be winding down in the region of America’s heartland known as “Tornado Alley,” but IMAX filmmaker Sean Casey and his custom-built “Tornado Intercept Vehicle” (known as “the TIV”) are still on the road and will be making a special stop to meet fans and visitors at the Tennessee Aquarium on Sunday at noon.
Mr. Casey, star of the Discovery Channel’s wildly popular Storm Chasers series, will be at the Aquarium to give industry insiders an advance screening of some of the dramatic footage from his upcoming film, Tornado Alley.
For the past seven years, he has traveled Tornado Alley, the “severe weather capitol of the world,” on a personal quest to capture the birth of a tornado on film—at point-blank range.
While the film will not be released until the spring of 2011, Mr. Casey will be taking a break from the activities of the Giant Screen Cinema Association’s annual conference to spend some quality time with fans of the TIV and Tornado Alley.
Winners of a Facebook contest, http://www.facebook.com/notes/tennessee-aquarium/win-a-chance-to-ride-in-a-tornado-intercept-vehicle/442454038255 will take a spin with Casey in the TIV, the armored vehicle he built to carry his IMAX camera into gale force winds, torrential rains, and unrelenting hail.
During the event, Aquarium visitors will be able to get a close-up view of the vehicle and can pose for pictures with Mr. Casey and the TIV.
Available only for giant screens like the Tennessee Aquarium’s IMAX Theater, Tornado Alley takes audiences on a heart-pounding mission to experience a tornado’s destructive power.
The film follows Sean Casey and the scientists of the VORTEX 2 project, the most ambitious effort ever made to understand the origins, structure, and evolution of tornadoes as they traversing Tornado Alley in their DOWs (Doppler on Wheels) and the TIV.
Mr. Casey and the VORTEX team experience the relentless strength of nature’s elemental forces while gathering the most comprehensive extreme weather data ever collected.
Audiences will be swept away by the adrenaline and the science as the giant screen reveals the beauty and untamed power of these breathtaking weather events.