Oklahoma Scientists: Stars behind the scenes of the new movie ‘Twisters’

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — The big screen thrill ride, “ Twisters “, opens in theatres Friday.

The movie highlights Oklahoma’s landscape, wild storm season and real tornado science.

The stars of Twisters descended upon the Sooner State for a homecoming premiere earlier in the week.

Glen Powell, staring as Tyler Owens, said, “Oklahoma is such a wonderful place in the world where weather is like – it feels like it’s the main event. It’s what people talk about. Everybody talks like a meteorologist here.”

Lee Isaac Chung, the Director of “Twisters” highlighted the importance of storm accuracy in the film.

“I know that I cannot fool an Oklahoman when it comes to weather, the average person here knows so much more about the weather than a lot of people around the world. I just hope that we honored the sense of place here. This state, this beautiful place. And also, just the immense beauty of what happens in the skies,” said Chung.

Before filming began, The National Weather Service in Norman hosted a tornado boot camp to teach the cast and crew about tornado culture, technical terms, storm spotting and safety.

Rick Smith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service said “I think, in a way, it’s better than the first one, from a scientific standpoint, they do a really good job.  The chasers are using terminology that makes sense, I think it’s good, I think people are going to like it.”

Movie-makers depended on meteorological consultants for accuracy and authenticity.

Kevin Kelleher worked on the original film and was asked back for the reboot.

“I kind of presented all of the different technologies that had changed in the 30 years since the first one and they picked what they wanted. So, you’re going to see some things like advanced radars, drones and a few other things that are inserted in the movie,” said Kelleher.

Research scientists helped design and build props for the movie, modeled after real data collection technology used today.

Sean Waugh from the National Severe Storms Laboratory served as a meteorological consultant for the film. He said, “They do a good job of explaining that technology as they introduce it into the movie, so that the general audience that is maybe not as familiar with this technology actually understands it and realized the importance of it.”

Meteorologists worked with special effects artists to make sure that the seven tornadoes in the film had the right feel, texture, and matched the radar.

Sean Waugh offers a challenge for true weather enthusiasts, “I actually picked real cases, real meteorology events so that the film is very authentic. I’m actually really excited to see if anybody can go through and take those frames and try to figure out what cases those are from.”

Filming during Oklahoma’s true storm season, Oklahoma skies brought its own drama.

One of the stars of the movie, Anthony Ramos, recalled one close call, “The sky turned green out of nowhere, which I’ve never seen the sky turn green in my life, I think a tornado touched down that night, pretty close to where we were.”

Real storms, real storm chasers, and real life weather technology that’s sure to blow you away.

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