Obscast ideas

2008-11-10 22:31:23.000 – Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist

We have all heard it before: Which came first the chicken or the egg? A conundrum that has an infinite amount of answers depending on a person’s education, beliefs, philosophies, etc. So instead, I pose this question: Which came first, the idea for an Obscast or the music we use in an Obscast? For the uninformed, an Obscast is short for “Observatory Webcast.” These are short videos (usually about three minutes) that are produced by the observatory staff and posted to our website every Monday morning. If you are a member, all you do is sign in (or sign up) here and after you are logged in, you will have access to the nearly 100 videos we have produced on the summit over the past two years.

Topics of these videos run the gamut of topics: the “Nin cam” (April 9, 2007), day hike planning (October 22, 2007), Groundhog Day w/ Marty (February 4, 2008), or an explanation of “The Century Club” (March 31, 2008) just to name a few. Usually we come up with an idea, shoot the video, edit it down, and then fit appropriate music to it. But in the case of this weeks Obscast, I heard a song on my internet radio that had a weather word in it then thought of how to make an Obscast with it. The other time we did this was when we were trying to decide which song we were going to dance to last fall (see October 1, 2007 to hear the “thrilling” song we settled on).

So the song I heard that inspired me was “Under Pressure,” a cover The Used and My Chemical Romance did of the original sung by Queen and David Bowie. I thought it was such a fitting song since pressure is one of the key driving forces behind all things weather. So I looked around the room and settled on talking about some of our weather instruments. I then outlined my shots, my script and my music placement and set forth on making the video. So, in yesterdays production of this weeks Obscast, the answer to: “Which came first…?” the answer would be the music came first then the idea of an Obscast came to me. Working backwards doesn’t always work, but in this case, it seemed to work itself out so we weren’t “under pressure” to come up with a new idea for the week.

Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist