Into the Storm is an action packed disaster thriller, directed by Steven Quale (“Final Destination 5”), produced by Todd Garner (“Zookeeper” and “Knight and Day”) and written by John Swetnam.

Into the Storm starts, when in a few hours, the city of Silverton is ravaged by an unprecedented onslaught of the most furious twisters ever seen. This entire town is at the mercy of the most erratic and deadly tornadoes, even as storm trackers predict the worst is to come. Most people seek shelter, while others run toward the vortex, testing how far a storm chaser will go for that once in a lifetime shot.

Told through the eyes and lenses of professional storm chasers, thrill-seeking amateurs, and courageous townspeople, Into the Storm throws you directly into the eye of the storm to experience Mother Nature at her most extreme.

In the United States, tornadoes tend to form mostly on the Tornado Alley during the months of March to May. Tornadoes are are one of mother nature’s mysteries and till this day, scientists are still looking for ways to actually anticipate, when and where a tornado will strike. They can become EF5, which can stand winds of over 200 miles per hour. In 2011 four EF5 landed, that year, was one of the most intense years since the 1920’s, taking with it 550 human lives.

On Into the Storm this is what you see, it can happen and it had happened. Writer John Swetnam told us, that the tornadoes you see during the film, he found them from real footage in youtube.

“I did all my research on the internet. When I wrote the script it was more about story visual style. I met a meteorologist from UCLA and when he read the script, he made me know what’s real and what is not real. So, I think the script is very real. Also, on the original script I put pictures that I found from “found footage” on youtube. Even the fire tornado is real, literally every tornado on the film was on those found footage videos,” said Swetnam.

For this tornadoes to look as real as possible, Director Steven Quale contracted various visual effects companies to do the CGI for Into the Storm.

“I worked closely with these companies, because I have a background in visual effects and I was able to communicate with them. I showed them all the youtube videos of real tornadoes and I told them ‘this is how they look like, you just have to come up with the technology to make it look just exactly like that’. Also one of the things that makes it look real, is my insistence that I had over the cast skies, brought on all the storm sequences. Also, during the shots of the tornadoes, the trees are digital, because they are blowing at the wind and now you have to replace all the sky, replace all the trees, add the rain, add debris and the only thing that is real is the actors faces and a couple of areas, but all the rest is digital,” explained Quale.

Even though most of the film was shot with visual effects, the actors suffered a little when things were blown their way, while recreating the winds of the tornado.

“We didn’t have to fake it, because we had things blown to our face. And something that impress me, is the power of the wind. Because it’s amazing how much something can hurt, no matter what it is when it’s thrown to you at 100 miles per hour. I remember a take, where a crumpled piece of paper, made down it’s way through the hallway and it hit me at the side of my face and it felt like getting punched,” said Nathan Kress.

“Yes, there were difficult days, everything you see in the film happened to us, I was sore for a week, but it was a great experience,” said Max Deacon.

“There was even a point, where they needed to stop shooting, because they noticed we were actually being hurt,” said Alycia Debnam Carey between laughs.

Something interesting on this film, is how it was shot. The camera angles feel like is from found footage making the audience feel they are Into the Storm. Director Steven Quale explain to us a little about this shots.

“You have to motivate and justify this camera angles. If you see closer, you will see somebody in the background with the flip phone, that is justifying that angle and we tried to do it as much as we could. This is what I call a first person narrative point of view. In reality the professional storm chasers are professional camera operators. I felt that I didn’t want super shaky cameras that is typical found on footage videos, but having more of a professional compose diastolic version. We kind of started at the beginning of the movie with a “camcorder” and the characters before the tornado and then as we sideway with the storm chasers we kind of became more cinematic, but still handheld,” explained Quale.

He also commented, that this movie was shot only hand held.. with not a single dolly camera crane.

“It was daunting for me how expensive this film became with such a huge crew and only shot hand held. There was not a single dolly camera crane, the whole movie was shot handheld and that was liberating, because it get some amazing shots, but at the same time I wanted to get a cinematic sense opposition and epic shots, giving respect to mother nature and be awed over the power and horrific forces and I even hate to say this, but is an inherited beauty,” said Quale.

One of the main characters that we can’t forget to mention, is the tornado interceptor and ultimate vehicle on Into the Storm the “Titus”. The “Titus”, was driven by storm chaser Pete Moore (Jon Reep) and it’s purpose is to intercept and be right inside the very heart of a tornado.

The ‘Titus’ was designed by David Sandefur (film production designer) and is outfitted with bullet proof Lexan windows, 4mm solid steel armor plating, a 12 ton capacity winch and a mini weather center. It also was designed to stay firmly to the ground with winds up to 170 miles per hour thanks to it’s custom grappling claws: heavy steel struts, that when triggered it can anchor itself deep into the earth.

Even though this sounds like the ultimate and coolest vehicle, but.. according to actor Jon Reep, the “Titus” kept breaking down while shooting Into the Storm.

“The Titus was fun, but he kept breaking. It was a joke, it was like the ultimate machine that will never work. He got towed a couple times, he got water leaked in and he was suppose to be a water proof vehicle. Once, I closed the door to hard and it broke several windows. There were times when Steven screamed action and went ahead to start the “Titus” and he won’t start and they had to scream cut. Then somebody had to open the trunk and try to be fixed. If he wasn’t fix he would be towed,” confessed Reep.

Into the Storm in theaters August 8.