Acting as a pop-up set, the green screen has enabled the station to air weather reports from kayaks and golf courses as well as snowstorms.
: WGME’s mobile green screen enables meteorologists to take weather reports on-the-road
WGME-TV, Sinclair’s CBS affiliate in Portland, Maine, is making weather reporting anything but boring.
Called Weather on the Road, the station’s signature forecasting feature is centered around the idea of fostering next-level viewer engagement by broadcasting weather segments from the community.
Using its fleet of three mobile green screens, which are basically the backbone for pop-up sets, WGME meteorologists have made reports big on fun, reporting live from a kayak, golf course and ice skating rink, as well as a pen filled with alpacas.
The mobile screens, which are used as platforms for weathercasting visuals, also aid reporting around severe weather, when, from a safety perspective, it matters most.
“Taking our green screen and weather team out of the studio and into the community has been an excellent way to showcase our talent, technical capabilities and creativity,” said WGME general manager Tom Humpage. “It engages our viewers in a fun and informative way. We have seen an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the WGME viewers on Facebook and other social media channels.”
The screens enable meteorologists to do live reports from the sites of snowstorms or, say, tornado-wracked areas while also having access to visuals like radar images and graphics that back up what they are saying with science, which isn’t necessarily easy to do.
A broadcast from a local pumpkin patch, for instance, had to cope with high winds and rain by using sandbags and pumpkins to keep the green screen properly in place. The crew also had to employ multiple cameras, a jib and Skype to pull it off. Another snowy instance involved the station setting up two screens for two meteorologists so that both real-time conditions and what was forecast ahead could be illustrated.