Monday, July 09, 2007

From the Mailbag: A Note from Terry Burhans

From: Terry Burhans, former WKYC Meteorologist - now in San Diego at XETV...

Q: Frank...Nice work on your "Where are They Now?" blog (If you missed the article I did on Terry recently, CLICK HERE)

Here is something to add to your update...I'm Brian Christie's sidekick on "The Boomer Show" on Wealth TV. Check out our site www.Boomershow.tv or you'll get a great High Definition clip at www.wealthtv.net.

Life here is huge! No Lake Effect. You mentioned Steve Brown...he's in San Antonio Tx. Our "Mr. Inside & Mr. Outside" promos were in High Definition and were memorable to me because we shot them in New York in Queens in a huge 80 foot ceiling sound stage...The tape recorder they used that day was the only one in America at the time that recorded High Def and it's speed was 30 inches per second...(30 1ps) We did three segments...

"Rain"...while Steve was safe and sound in the studio at the weather set I was chroma keyed on a pier on a huge body of water...presumably Lake Erie...with a humongous wave approaching..cut back to the studio ...more Steve safe and sound...cut back to Terry...being blasted with water from an off screen 20 gallon water cannon...we did 6 takes and I was soaked...cut back to Steve tossing to me..."Oh Terry...How's the Weather out there...Terry?"...cut back to pier and all you see is my sailors heavy weather yellow hat floating off the piercut to steve voice over..."Terry?...Oh Terry?".

"Wind" this one was my favorite...same edit set up...Steve...cut to Terry... cut to Steve... cut To Terry...But this on was about a huge wind storm event...Big enough to blow me completely off camera...sideways...of course...this concept was thanks to my mentor and possibly the funniest man ever on TV Ernie Kovacs... because we used one of his tricks to turn the camera 90 degrees and instead of falling down as gravity tends to make us do...I fell off the right side of the screen with a scream...Big yucks here...

"Snow" was a kick too...we even brought an authentic Cleveland no parking Snow sign and used it in the studio...it looked just like an 8 to 10 inch storm in downtown...The shoot was all done in one day...I stayed over night in a great hotel on Park Avenue and remember it like it was yesterday.