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- [00:01]
Emily Gracie
Summer is the time for blockbuster movies, when audiences pack theaters for explosive action sequences and jaw dropping spectacles. But while we're staring at the big screen, mesmerized by Hollywood magic, the production itself needs a meteorologist staring at the radar, watching for the real storms that could shut everything down. When a single day of shooting can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, a surprise thunderstorm isn't just inconvenient, it's a catastrophe. Lightning can shut down outdoor sets in seconds. High winds can transform props into deadly projectiles. This week we're going off the radar and headed to the set with meteorologist Brett Zwieback. He's been the unsung hero behind productions like Stranger Things, the Handmaid's Tale, and the Walking Dead. He's forecasted on set weather for blockbuster films like Jurassic World, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Join us for this revealing conversation with the weather consultant who keeps TV and film crews safe when Mother Nature demands an unscheduled cameo. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracey and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desk. On the show, we dig deep into topics about weather, climate, the ocean, space, and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it as much as we do.
- [01:26]
Ben Tom Ford
Foreign.
- [01:30]
Emily Gracie
Welcome to off the Radar special episode today because we have a special guest, Ben. Tom Ford. Good morning, Ben. How's it going?
- [01:39]
Ben
It's going great.
- [01:40]
Emily Gracie
Good. All right, so for those of you who are unaware of who Ben is, he is our intern this summer for the National Weather Desk. Probably heard his voice or seen his face on a lot of our digital content. You've been churning out some stuff this summer, huh?
- [01:55]
Brett Zwieback
Yeah.
- [01:56]
Ben
It's been been a great pleasure to work with you, Emily, and with the rest of the team. Again, I've enjoyed creating lots of content for Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, you name it. Also enjoy creating articles. Also enjoy getting time to spend with the WJLA meteorologist in the studio. Practice my broadcast and weather communication skills again. It's been a phenomenal time.
- [02:22]
Emily Gracie
Yeah, I mean, you've got a little bit of everything this summer for sure. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself. Where do you go to school?
- [02:28]
Ben
So I go to school at Penn State University. I'm there until December. I'll be graduating then. Originally, I'm from New Jersey and I think really my weather journey starts with Hurricane Sandy back in 2012. I lose power for a week. I have to go to school In a church, when I at least see all this, I see a lot of devastation, destruction, and I wonder, what can I do about this? How can I maybe make this into a passion? And a lot of meteorologists say, you know, that's their event, that's their calling to weather. So Hurricane Sandy, that was mine. And that's really where I kind of jumped headfirst into meteorology and weather. And from there, it was really creating weather forecasts.
- [03:12]
Emily Gracie
All right, so you've done a lot of stuff this summer. Has anything that you learned this summer, like pivoted your career goals at all? Is I know you were talking about, like, you love forensics. Do you think that anything's changed? Are you still kind of hoping for that path? Or have you learned anything this summer that's directed you another way?
- [03:29]
Ben
So I think this summer what I've really learned is, I think the value of communication within weather. I always wanted to do forecasting. I always wanted to be a forecaster. But having to at least dive into a field, you have to know your stuff and be a good communicator and be respected among others. So I think that what I want to do is definitely continue to take the path of forecasting. But again, on the side, if I want to again create these quick reels, whether it be for myself or wherever I want to go in the future, work for, I can do that. The field's changing. A lot's been happening, but at least I still want to stay within the weather communication realm and do forensics if I can on the side. It'll be fun.
- [04:18]
Emily Gracie
All right, well, let's talk about today's guest. You obviously brought him in. You know him. Can you give us a little background, tell us who we're talking to today?
- [04:25]
Ben
Yes. So the guest that I brought in, his name is Brett Zwieback. He is the owner, founder, CEO of Spot On Weather. He combined his love for movies, combined his love for production, put that together, and that's really how he came up with Spoton. His job so unique, where he really has this one on one contact with his client, which is usually someone within movie production. It's really unique to see. And with the forensics also learning how he takes care of slip and fall accidents. And it's definitely good to hear his story and hear what he has to say about what his work involves.
- [05:03]
Emily Gracie
Yeah, he definitely goes through kind of the good, the bad, because there's a lot of, you know, like, really exciting stuff when it comes to this sort of business where you're forecasting for these productions. But there's a lot of stuff too that's kind of less exciting that, that he talks about which is really interesting. So you get a good feel of both sides of the business, which is nice. And I was worried he wasn't going to name names, but he definitely names drops some big productions that he's worked on and gives us a few deets which is really cool. Awesome. Ben, is there anything else you want to share? It's been a great summer having you here. We appreciate all the hard work you've done with the National Weather desk and, and the help that you've done with this particular inter. You know, I was in a cabin in the woods and my wife. I was terrible. So you kind of took over and did a lot of the interview which was great. So appreciate everything you've done. Any last words for us before we hear from Brett?
- [05:53]
Ben
I'm not really. Again, the only reason that I'd be in this position is thanks to I guess a lot of the professors classmates working through at Penn State. So again, all the thanks to them. I appreciate being on the podcast for the first time as well.
- [06:09]
Emily Gracie
Awesome intern. Ben, thank you so much for all you do and best of luck in.
- [06:14]
Ben
Yep, thank you so much.
- [06:18]
Emily Gracie
Brett, thank you so much for joining us today to talk about this really interesting work that you are in because you know everybody thinks meteorologists are all on TV or working for the National Weather Service, but there's this whole private sector of meteorologists that are doing really cool things and you I'm sure have some great stories to tell. So we can't wait to hear some of those. Can you give us start by giving us a little background and exactly what it is you do like day to day?
- [06:43]
Brett Zwieback
Sure. We. I have my own company where I provide weather forecasting to a lot of production entities, feature films, TV shows. It could be something, something like observing as well like the Macy's fireworks. We have like an on site observer go each year to monitor the winds and well, everything from. The biggest concern of course is lightning and when you have a lot of crowds. A lot of, A lot of the times that the work I do for productions it's for safety reasons. You know, they have a lot of people on sets, a lot of extras and a lot of crew members and there's actors and this is a lot of running parts. So we, we, I provide this little niche where we go in and we, we provide them customized weather forecasts on a daily basis and it's. We also alert them when there's severe thunderstorm watches, wind watches, tornado watches, anything, any kind of entity that we feel is, is. Could be something that could affect their production, we alert them. And you might, you know, a lot of people may think, well, you can find that stuff online, you know, you know, for. But really it gives the, the customer and the clients an opportunity to speak to a live meteorologist all the time and to get very, very specific details, like how far is the lightning away from my set? How many miles is it, and which way is that moving? Which way is that lightning moving? How long is it going to last? There's a lot of, like, union rules with productions, and we kind of are aware of some of them. And a lot of that has to do with safety, like I said before, keeping the production alert to changing weather. So the bottom line is that we do a lot of weather forecasting for films, TV productions, music videos. It could be a concert. We did, you know, we do a lot of that kind of work. We do a lot of forensics as well. And what that is just simple is, biggest example, somebody falls on ice or snow outside of a business establishment, and they need to prove, was there ice there? What did this person fall on ice? How much ice was, how thick was the ice? So we look at a lot of, like, weather parameters and try and determine what the meteorological. They call it reasonable degree of meteorological certainty to what the weather conditions were. So we do plaintiff defense, either one. And, and it's very interesting because there's so many different angles with, with, you know, going back. And it's a lot different from forecasting, because forecasting is, okay, that's an estimate. But past weather, it's like, that's what happened. There's no guess that part of our business is, is it's not an everyday thing. Near the productions is all the time because there's always filming, there's always productions going on. Whereas legal, you know, an attorney might have a case. I might have five or six going on at once, you know, reports to write, or it could be a dry period with very, very little. So it's. But that's what I do. Those are the two main areas that I, that I, that I dip into as far as, like, my company goes.
- [09:58]
Unknown
So having worked with you, Brett, at least two summers ago, what sort of blockbuster films you might have done in the past.
- [10:05]
Brett Zwieback
Over the years, we've done so many films, and I mean, I'll just name a few of them that you're probably familiar with. The ncis Blue Bloods, Big In New York. One of the ones. One of. One of the. One of the favorites I've done is the Walking Dead. That one was a big one. You know, a lot of moving parts. And we actually. My wife and I actually went down to visit the set one year. It was maybe one of. I don't know what season it was, but it was very, very interesting to see how they film. I haven't really been on the sets that often you're watching them film and it's cuts and. And, you know, doing the scenes over in different angles, different camera angles. It was very, very interesting. And while we were there, we actually took a van with one of the actors, Norm Norman Reedus. You know, my wife was kind of starstruck and, you know, I was like, hey, how you doing, Norm? You know, it was, it was, it was. It was a fun experience to see how they film. Meet also really meet the. Meet my clients and producers who I speak to on the phone every day. Because a lot of times they just like, you know, oh, it's nice to see the face behind the voice, because that's how they know me. So it was very nice. You know, went to the production offices, saw the props and a show like that's got a gazillion kind of props. Jurassic World, we've done stuff like the Clifford spongebob. We also have done like different. Gone to different concert events at the Jonas Brothers. One real interesting thing and this, this was. Was. Was many years ago on a prior job, I actually met Taylor Swift. We were doing a. A weather observing for insurance purposes. So a lot of these times, these big gigs or they have, you know, productions, they have. They take out a weather insurance just in case or at an event and it go off the bid. There's lightning or there's rain and they have to close it down or shut it down. So, you know, we were there observing the. The weather at the. At this concert for. For rain purposes, just in case. So it was nice I met Taylor Swift. Another thing I did for many years as I was the meteorologist for the Macy's Parade. So I would be at the parade uptown watching the, you know, every little nick and cranny with weather, but more importantly winds. Because that was a, you know, a lot of things with the. With the Macy's Parade is regard involves the winds with the flying those big balloons. So that's much of the things I have done in the past. You know, there's just a lot of TV shows and films, you know, that we work on. You Know, Nickelodeon, cbs, you name the studio. We, We've, you know, we've kind of done it.
- [12:48]
Unknown
But how exactly do the movie productions really find you? How are you able to at least showcase your work with other productions or other clients and say, hey, I want to work with this movie. I want a forecast reader movie.
- [13:01]
Brett Zwieback
Well, a lot of it has to referral. I've been doing this for many, many years. A lot of these films and TV shows, they know me and you know, no, no TV show or film is, you know, is reoccurring. A lot of people don't know this, but, you know, when a new season of a TV show comes out, sometimes the producers change and the, the manager, production management changes. So they might not want to use a weather service. But I do look at leads and production lists as, as well, especially when the times are a little bit slower. And it has been, there has been times where it's been a, you know, especially in the past year or two. It had, you know, a lot of productions have, have gone overseas. It hasn't, hasn't been quite as, as, you know, busy in the United States as I'd like it to be. But we, we do look at leads and we do look at product. We do look at production lists and I do make cold calls. You solicit 10 productions, if you get one, that's great.
- [13:56]
Unknown
So do any of these productions, are they ever at least seeking like bad weather? Maybe they want like a scene with rain or.
- [14:03]
Brett Zwieback
Most of the time you would think they want nice weather. Of course, because a lot of movies they want to see, you know, they want to clearly see visible bridges and they want to see the ocean and they want to see mountains. But yeah, we do get a, we do get a couple of those kind of movies, like Scary Movie, for example, mean that was, I don't know how many they made of those. But yeah, they, they won. You know, a lot of the work they done with a lot of these horror movies is night work. So, you know, they, they, they want dark, they want clouds. So, you know, and a lot I would say the biggest thing I get is they, they want cloud cover because a lot of these, these films, they, they want it to be cloudy. They want, they want to match certain scenes. Sometimes they take a scene from part of a movie and, and they're like, oh man, we need to match that. So they have to wait for a day that's very, very similar. It's very, very precise sometimes because not only do they want cloud cover, but they want cumulus. Clouds, they want that kind of strato cumulative, that kind of straight deck of clouds, like a stratified. And so that's a challenge sometimes predicting that. Very challenging. But yeah, we do get occasional movies where. I've had movies where they want it raining all the time. It's not all that frequent, but where would you think that would be? Of course, Pacific Northwest. And they would film in like Seattle or Portland or San Francisco in the wintertime. So we do, we do occasionally get that as well.
- [15:32]
Emily Gracie
Have there been times in your career where you've been the bearer of bad news? Like bad weather is going to be dangerous to the set so you need to delay or shut things down?
- [15:42]
Brett Zwieback
Definitely, yes. There's, there's. I've had many, many times. I would say the biggest concern is thunder, thunderstorms, severe weather, tornadoes. Not all that doesn't happen all that often. But I do get, and I've had in the past few years a lot of clientele in Oklahoma and Tornado Alley, you know, in the, in the Midwest, you know, from Kansas, Oklahoma into the Midwest. So yeah, I, every big project I've done in a lot of the TV shows I've done where I know that they're very weather dependent and they have a lot of, you know, a lot of. Sometimes they have a lot of extras. I, I will get the producer or the person in charge of safety, the phone number to let them know that the weather is coming. So they have a little bit of a buffer zone to get people, to get people inside because that's the biggest thing with productions. You don't, you don't want 200 extras outside with a thunders, with, with a thunderstorm coming or you know, tennis ball size hail. It would just be a disaster, you know, not only to the safety but also to the stuff outside. A lot of these productions have a lot of sex.
- [16:51]
Unknown
And is there anyone who's really trying to like, I don't know, give some sort of like a pushback when they like get your forecast and they're kind of, I guess a bit concerned that.
- [16:59]
Ben
They might not finish the film on time.
- [17:01]
Brett Zwieback
Yeah, that, that's definitely something that we've dealt with because a lot of these productions have budgets. I mean they have very, very tight budgets and timelines. But when it comes down to, to, to weather, they will stop. Yeah, but there's been instances where they, we see storms coming and I give them a window. Hey, you have another two hours, you know, and they're happy because they, they rather get another hour, hour and a Half in there, then, you know, you know, and come back the next day for, you know, for two hours instead of eight hours. And believe it or not, even after they're done filming, they have to wrap a lot of the crew members, have to get all the equipment back and they have to, you know, get all the stuff back to the warehouse. So that's also another very important time. I get a lot of calls. We're done filming, Brett, but when is this lightning going to stop? Because we need people to get home. There's a lot of information, as I said before, moving parts to production. And another thing that I deal with a lot of times is actors. I don't speak to actors directly, but I'll get a phone call every so often. Hey, we have an actor flying and it could be a big name flying from point A to point B. Can you tell me when the best time to get on a flight would be? When there'd be the least amount of delays or the best course that we would, you know, the best course of action.
- [18:15]
Unknown
I know that when I was an intern, a lot of the movies that we forecasted for, they were under a code name. Are you able to talk about these specific movies and, or like what movies are going to be once they're out onto the public?
- [18:27]
Brett Zwieback
Yeah, I think a lot of the, the code names was because when they were in production, they didn't want a lot of, you know, hysteria or, you know, people coming to. People coming to the set, you know, unsolicited, you know. But, you know, some of the shows that we did, you know, that we really enjoyed, I would say Stranger Things is one of the ones that was, you know, that stands out. That was that. That they had some code names throughout the seasons, but they just wrapped season five. We just did season five. And that was a lot. There were a lot of fun and nice, really good people to work with. You know, another big show that we did and they also had some, some, you know, different names each season was the Handmaid's Tale, Very, very popular show on, on Hulu. We have these productions that have these codenames. They also. We also have to sign agreements, non disclosure agreements. Very, very frequent, because they have very, you know, preparatory information about their show, about their filming, about what the script is. Because a lot of times we get call sheets to see where they're going to be filming. So we could see in advance. But on these call sheets there'll be information such as what the script's about. So we have to sign in the non Disclosure agreements, you know, for me, for my companies, that we won't say anything.
- [19:42]
Emily Gracie
All right, well, let's talk about the other side of your business, the forensic side. Can you take us through what a forensic case might look like?
- [19:52]
Brett Zwieback
Let's hypothetically say someone comes out of a major department store, a plaintiff, and they slip on ice in the parking lot, will go while going to retrieve that car. Hypothetical. You know, basically a plaintiff attorney will call me and, and this will be years later because it takes a long time for these, you know, these cases to go to court. But they'll call me and we'll get, you know, they say they'll have a case. Plaintiff, Jane Doe. She fell on ice at 9 in the morning going to a car. I need you to, to get all the weather records that area and, and let me know. Was it cold enough for there to be snow? There was a cold enough for there to be a layer of ice there. When the last time there was precipitation, what were the temperatures like? So I'll go in and I'll dig in. I'll look at the area that it fell. You know, let's, let's say it was, you know, Bay Ridge. So now what I'll do is I'll take a look at the closest stations, you know, Central Park, Kennedy Airport, maybe even some smaller stations near Staten island or in Brooklyn. Some, some, you know, some smaller stations as well. But we'll look at the, and then we'll look at all the, the weather information. That area, last time it snowed, how much snow fell, what the temperatures were. And we'll go back and we'll, we'll devise a report. And, you know, a lot of the times in these cases, there was a snowstorm, not all the time, but there was a snowstorm five days prior, and the few days after that it warmed up. And then, whoa, 24 hours before the accident, temperatures drop below freezing. So there you go. I mean, you have a prime example of where there was a storm, a thaw, and a rephrase. A perfect recipe for feist. And I could look at pictures, I could look at depositions, and I could come up with a report. And ultimately, what the lawyer is trying to do is to try and get, based on the report, trying to get the case dismissed. If it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, then we go to the trial. A lot of the weather information I get has to be from the Department of Commerce, and they used to be called ncdc. A few years back, they changed it to ncei. National Centers for Environmental Information. We go in, we get certified weather records. That's like the blue ribbon and seal, the blue ribbon unsealed, it makes it authentic. That's the only place United States, you could get certified records. Doing it for many years. I have experience and it's, it's been, it's been great because I've actually gotten work where I work for the plaintiff on the stand and the defense like my work that he hired me on a case down the line on another case. So it's definitely also a great business because you just don't know who you're going to get involved with. And, and it could be more referrals from there. So that's, that's another aspect of the business. I really, I'd like to continue to grow, but you know, this day and age, you know, years ago we used used to be law books where you could put an ad in this day, you know, 20, 25, nobody's looking at law journals anymore and everything is online. You know, I, I just have to, you know, have a good website and have, you know, the, the, the search engine optimization which I do every so often so people could see me and it could go, you know, to the top of the list.
- [23:09]
Ben
But yeah.
- [23:09]
Unknown
Well, that's awesome. If someone wants to maybe get into this type of work, obviously, assuming you need a meteorology degree background, maybe communication skills, personality obviously has to be a factor if you want to get into the movies. How exactly should someone really approach this style of meteorology in general?
- [23:30]
Brett Zwieback
Yeah, that's also a good question. I mean, from what I've, from everybody that I spoke to, a lot of the interns I've had, majority of them have had their bachelor's in meteorology. And I really urge someone that's in their junior year in meteorology to reach out to a company, to private sector, to reach out to the National Weather Service, the government sector. That's when you really should get your hands on getting an internship junior year, senior year at the latest. Other things to do is to intern at a TV station. I, I, I, that's a great, I've done, I've done two of those. That's a great way to see how they implement graphics with forecasting and also how they implement story lines because a lot of the times there's big stories that go on with the weather and they'll have the on talent person, you know, discuss that and they'll have to cut video. So that's really my advice for, you know, in your junior year to really start actively looking for from other companies, go online, look at your resume out there. From there, you might want to do forecasting or you might decide I want to go into the energy sector, which has been big in the last 10, 20 years. But you know, if you're interested in forecasting a private company or TV station radio, it's really the way to, way to go. Just, just to get your feet wet in that area.
- [24:54]
Unknown
Well, thank you so much, Brett, for your time. It's obviously been a pleasure to talk to you, learn about your story.
- [25:00]
Brett Zwieback
You're very welcome. My pleasure.
- [25:03]
Emily Gracie
Yes, thank you so much, Brett. It was great to hear all about your career. Best of luck in the future. Off the Radar is a production of the National Weather Desk. Make sure you're following the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes publish every Tuesday. A big thanks to Brett Zwieback from Spoton Weather for joining us today to talk about his career. Also thank you to our summer intern at the National Weather Desk, Ben Tom Ford, for helping me host this episode. Thanks to the National Weather Desk and Sinclair Broadcast Group for their ongoing support of the podcast. And as always, my amazing associate producer, Brian Petras for his help with today's episode. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie. Make it a great day.
- [26:01]
Ben Tom Ford
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- [26:13]
Brett Zwieback
Thanks.
- [26:13]
Ben Tom Ford
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