Keeping your Cool in Hot Weather or Cold Weather

Video Production Oakville – The Captain’s Blog

Keeping your Cool in Hot Weather or Cold Weather

Hello everyone, it’s John again, producer here at Groovy Concepts.

I spent three days in Montreal last week during the unexpected heat wave. The extremely high temperatures caused 33 heat-related deaths.

Taking measures to stay cool and hydrated made me reflect back to just six months ago . . . and what a difference six months can make in weather conditions here in Canada!

On January 29, the Groovy team was flying out of Pearson International Airport for a video production in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Wintery conditions, snow and high winds were hitting Toronto that day, which led to flight delays and cancellations. We were delayed nine hours.

We arrived in Thunder Bay at midnight. With our luggage and nine pieces of equipment gathered and all accounted for, we set off through the airport to pick up our car rental. Our directions were to head out though the sliding doors to our black SUV – 100 yards to the right in the parking lot.

A band of hearty Canadians who left home in a snowstorm, we were prepared for winter weather. We had our parkas, our toques, our gloves, we were layered – bring it on we said! Winter is winter, the rules are the same, we said! But as the automatic sliding doors opened, we entered a brand new world of cold where the rules are not the same – the most bitter cold air we had ever experienced. It literally took our breath away, as though our lungs were going to explode.

But our intrepid team was not to be stopped by cold air. We made the 100-yard trek to the rental car, and as most northerners know a car that has been sitting in sub-zero weather will be blanketed in a thick frost that will need a good scraping to clear the windshield. Unsurprisingly this was the case as we arrived at our rental. Undaunted, we clicked the doors open, loaded our equipment, scraped the windows free of the thick frost, climbed into the car, hit the ignition and the SUV’s engine roared into life.

But wait! Something wasn’t right, we still couldn’t see out the window. As the reason dawned on us, our chattering teeth gave way to laughter. There was a film of ice covering the interior of the car – as thick as the outside had been. Laughing and scraping, we spent the next 10 minutes clearing the frost from the inside of the car. With the temperature hovering around -29C and a car interior that never quite warmed up, our only mission was to get to the lobby of the Holiday Inn, get our equipment out of the frozen SUV and warm up.

The dichotomy of life is 37° in Montreal in July to the ice-age-cold of -29 in Thunder Bay six months earlier. But the show must go on and travel weather is just one more factor we deal with in the video production game. Meanwhile, I’m back from sweltering heat in Montreal and my air conditioner is there for me once again.

That’s it for now. I look forward to touching base with you again down the line. Happy filming!

#videoproductionoakville #groovyconcepts