FLORIDA

 How can you beat an assignment like a 31-day shoot in sunny Florida?
  1. When you can take more than two days off in that period ...
  2. When that "little daily afternoon summer rain shower" doesn't start at 9 AM and produce torrential rains and flooding!
They called it La Niņa.  Truly, Florida normally enjoys a wealth of sunshine, but in 1999 this weather anomaly played havoc with vacationers, flood-control systems and video crews.  Jim Zura and the crew from Travelview   dodged the thunderheads and managed to capture the Sunshine State at its finest for FLA-USA's state travel video.

"There's a lot of situations where you can shoot TV/Video segments regardless of the weather-- you just brave it out," observed Zura.   "But when you're promoting the Sunshine State, you can't even have dark clouds in the background.   While we were there, with this La Niņa thing, there was no predicting the weather even a half-day in advance.  Every morning, I was up early, checking detailed local weather via the Internet and phone, and revising the demanding schedule of close to 200 setups.

"It wasn't unusual to suddenly find ourselves having to drive 100 miles up the coast to grab shots where the sun was out, then heading back to where we were after the storm passed.  Thanks to the creativity of DP Jim Coulter and the diligence of Associate Producer Jimmy Herrera, you'd never know by viewing the finished product that there was anything but fair skies!"

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