Prairie Pictures’ StormStock improves the look of lightning on video

Over the years, the production team at Texas-based Prairie Pictures has created ways to improve the look of lightning caught on video. Their StormStock division, a footage brand specializing in the production and licensing of weather content, has pushed them to be innovative in the way they capture atmospheric phenomenon. “One of our biggest challenges has been to record lightning the way our eyes see it in nature,” said cinematographer and founder Martin Lisius. “To that end, we’ve experimented and established methods to make that possible.”

One of the issues common with lightning captured on video is what Lisius calls, “flash banding,” unsightly horizontal bands that appear in the frame the instant a lightning strike appears. Lisius has noted a difference in the way lightning looks from storm to storm and makes adjustments to his cameras to synchronize with those characteristics. “Basically, I make the camera see what we see,” Lisius said. “The result is beautiful, life-like lightning shots our clients can utilize in their productions.”

Watch a lightning screener and download preview clips at StormStock’s Lighting Footage page.

Prairie Pictures is a Texas-based media production company, and home to StormStock, the world’s premier weather and climate footage collection since 1993. StormStock produces its own content and licenses it for use in high-end feature films, documentaries and commercials.

Martin Lisius is a filmmaker, cinematographer and founder of StormStock. He is the first to capture a violent-class tornado on Super 35mm film (1998), the only person to film Hurricane Katrina making landfall on Super 35 (2005), and developed 16K video production in 2018.