Filming Basics

• 1). Plan out the movie's story. If there is no story to the tornado movie, it will end up looking like a documentary rather than a narrative. Something as a simple a father searching for his kids, a missing lover or the unexpected arrival of a tornado can all create solid story lines.
  
  
• 2). Check the local weather. To realistically re-create tornado-like weather, you're going to have to work around mother nature. Shooting during cloudy days will create more natural lighting for a real tornado. It will also create good footage if you tape during stormy weather, including rain and hail.
  
  
• 3). Rent giant industrial fans from a home goods store. Most stores allow rentals of tools, and these fans will provide maximum power during intense tornado scenes. Set up various props like paper, cans and other clutter that can fly through the air.
  
  
• 4). Spray paint Styrofoam pieces to create realistic looking props that can interact with the tornado. For example use silver spray paint on a long piece of styrofoam to create a steel pipe. Send the pipe into the fan's path to fly it through the air and toward an actor.
  
  
• 5). Wait for windy days to get B-roll footage of waving trees, flying leaves and other effects of wind. Even if the wind is not extremely fast, the shots can be mixed with other action shots to show the effects of an incoming tornado.
  
  
• 6). Download stock footage of tornadoes and other extreme weather. Free clips can be found on CreativeCommons.org, while you can pay for high quality stock footage from websites like StormVideo.com. Pay attention to the surroundings of the tornado. For example, if your tornado story is set in New England, a tornado surrounding a couple of palm trees will look unrealistic.
  
  
• 7). Tape actors in front of a green screen. Use the actor's shots to insert them into the stock tornado footage. Make sure that the green screen footage is well-lit to remove any extra shadows that may hamper the effects.
  
  

Computer Graphics Tornado

• 1). Use Adobe After Effects to generate a digital tornado. The CC Particle plug-in generates clouds and fireworks and can even be used to create a tornado.
  
  
• 2). Add the CC Particle effect to a standard background shot on a cloudy day. You can use a still picture or a steady video for this background.
  
  
• 3). Set the grid to "Off." You can turn it on to see how the 3-D plane matches with the tornado, but when rendering the final video, it should be turned off or the grid will appear in the final video.
  
  
• 4). Change the "Particle Type" to a "Darkened and Faded Sphere." It will appear like there are a few green bubbles, but it will quickly change into a tornado.
  
  
• 5). Expand the "Birth Rate" to 60 to add volume to the tornado. Keep the longevity to one second. Change the animation type to "Vortex" to create the volcano shape.
  
  
• 6). Change the birth and death colors to a dark gray and a dark black by using the color selector. Move the bar on the timeline to see how the colors flow with each other.
  
  
• 7). Move and position the tornado on the screen to match the dimensions of the background video. Press enter to render a preview and see how the tornado looks. Make any extra adjustments to fit into the video.