Remembering the Day the Sky Turned Black

March 19 marks the release of The Twister: Caught in the Storm, a new Netflix documentary that revisits the catastrophic EF5 tornado that tore through Joplin, Missouri, in 2011. The film, crafted by director-writer Alexandra Lacey and Raw TV, the production house known for compelling documentaries like The Tinder Swindler and Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me, shifts the focus to the human story behind the natural disaster.

The 2011 Joplin tornado wasn’t just another storm; it was an event that redefined a community. Striking the heart of Joplin, a town nestled in the Bible Belt, the tornado left a scar that went beyond physical destruction, challenging the residents’ faith and resilience.The documentary aims to explore these deeper, often untouched, aspects of the tragedy.

High School’s Heroic Stand: Joplin’s Youth remembered

Joplin High School became an unexpected focal point, and the documentary highlights the cooperation received from the school. As Lacey explains,
Luckily, Joplin High School were fully on board. Kerry Sachetta, who was their principal back then, now their superintendent, Matthew Harding and Sarah coyne. They were incredible. They helped us source yearbooks and find students and here more about that experience from their perspective too. As, of course, the high school was destroyed, and a lot of the other surrounding schools were as well.

The decision to focus on the perspectives of the young people present during the storm provides a relatable lens for viewers, regardless of their background. Lacey adds,
They also felt that it was worthwhile for us to tell it from the young perspective, because it felt like that was more global. So even if you’re somebody from London, who hopefully will never experience a tornado, perhaps when you’re watching it, you can be thinking about if that was you as a teenager. How that might change you.

the documentary explores how the tornado forced these young individuals to mature rapidly.
One thing I found interesting is that each of the characters, I feel like they were forced to grow up in one day rather of over several years. But also, I think they each found their magic that day, their strength, their resilience — they almost had to grow up and help the grown-ups around them. So, I guess that would be the silver lining of their experience,
Lacey notes.

Character Profiles: The Voices of Joplin

The documentary introduces a diverse cast of characters, each with their own unique story of survival and resilience. Lacey details the backgrounds of some of these individuals:
Cecil was 17 at the time,he was a junior in high school. We have our out-of-towner character, Chad. He was 13. Steven had been kicked out of high school, he was 16, and then Mac and Kaylee were 19 and 20. So recent graduates.

These characters represent different facets of the community, offering a extensive view of the tornado’s impact. lacey further explains her approach to structuring the documentary:
I always want to approach documentaries like movies in the way that they’re told, the characters that we meet. [I like to] embrace different movie genres but with a sensitive approach because we’re dealing with real people here, not actors. So with that in mind, when we decided to do it as a coming-of-age film, we wanted to think about, okay, what sort of characters would you expect to find in a natural disaster movie, but young versions of those, right? So we needed to have storm chasers. We needed to have a weather man. We needed to have also some of the characters you’d find in high school, right? The football captain in Keegan, who also was the son of the head of the paramedics in town — he could also help to tell the blue light story and the story of recovery. That’s how we chose the surrounding characters. Cecil was a junior in high school, so we thought that was also unique. When he went to high school his senior year, he had to go to high school in the mall as they’d lost the building.

The use of these varied perspectives aims to make the documentary more engaging and relatable, similar to disaster movies such as Twister (1996) or even shows like Stranger Things.

Faith and Doubt: Emotional and Complex Legacies of the Storm

The documentary explores the complex relationship between faith and trauma in a community deeply rooted in religious belief.One notably moving narrative is that of Cecil, a young gay man grappling with his identity in the Bible Belt.

Particularly with Cecil, he talks about being gay growing up in the Bible Belt, and how difficult that was for him and truly believing that the rapture was coming and that he didn’t want to be left behind,
Lacey shares.

The idea of divine punishment loomed large in the aftermath of the tornado. Lacey describes the intensity of Cecil’s emotional experience:
I thought that was one of the most gut-wrenching parts of this documentary — to see a town so deeply entrenched in faith that the tornado almost felt like a form of punishment from God.

Cecil’s experience was deeply influenced by religious texts and teachings. Lacey elaborates:
I couldn’t include everything, but [Cecil] had told me about how he had been shown these books called Left Behind, these Christian books that are written for children to teach them about how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world if they are left behind in the rapture.He’d grown up reading these terrifying books. When he was coming out of this storm and he’s speaking in the interview about the fact that he felt he’d been left behind — that’s what’s running through his mind: that he’s going to be on his own. It was an incredibly emotional interview, probably one of the most emotional interviews I’ve ever done.

Lessons Learned: community and the Power of Human Connection

The overarching message of the film is one of hope and the importance of community in the face of adversity. Lacey emphasizes the relevance of this message in the context of recent natural disasters.

I think it’s probably quite critically important just to mention that there’s been so manny natural disasters over the past few years, and particularly the tornados that have just hit Missouri in the past couple days in the surrounding states.I think it just feels more important than ever that people understand the human impact of mother nature’s power. And that is something I want people to think about. I also really hope that, particularly in today’s world, that they will see the hope and adversity in this film as well. They will leave thinking community is important and we must come together,
she asserts.

Living in Joplin during the filming process allowed the team to immerse themselves in the community and gain a deeper understanding of the residents’ experiences.
yeah. I pretty much lived in Joplin for a period of few months because I think we came in and out of town five or six times over the course of a year. We stayed right in the path of where the tornado had hit. It’s not a small town,Joplin,but it has a small-town feeling. People in the Midwest are just wonderful,
Lacey recalls.

The trauma experienced by the community had lasting effects, with everyday occurrences like strong winds triggering painful memories.
The documentary shoot took place in Joplin, but the visual elements we purposely did not film in Joplin. We filmed those in a entirely different state due to sensitivity. But in terms of the Joplin shoot, we made sure that our team went to PTSD training before doing the shoot to help the contributors. I think what really struck me was the lasting mental health impact on the folks there in Joplin. Every time the wind gets stronger or the sirens go… it’s really hard. The question everyone kept asking me is, “Why would anybody stay in Tornado Alley after having that experience?” But what I learned from the folks there is two things. One: it’s a shared experience of trauma, it’s bonded them all because each one of them understands what the other went through and the things [and] the people they may have lost. But also, I think it’s just such a special place, joplin.It’s a gathering point of multiple farmland communities that come together,
Lacey explains.

Visualizing The Unimaginable: Crafting a Storm On Screen

The documentary faced the challenge of visually representing the events inside the tornado, given the lack of archival footage.Lacey and her team had to improvise, drawing inspiration from the accounts of Joplin residents.

So, as we were learning the testimonies from each of our characters, it took us into the eye of the storm. We had a challenge: how do you visualize these moments? We were never going to find an archive from within the storm. We did not have a Twister or Hollywood budget. So we had to get creative. I took my clues from [the Joplin citizens] because they said to me that their memories inside of the storm felt like slow motion. This gave me the idea that perhaps what we should do is shoot our additional visual elements in super slow motion so they would stand out completely from the archive and not upstage it but just be a separate layer. It would feel immersive, I thought, for the audience as well, going into the storm with them. So we used a phantom camera and shot on a super high frame rate. You have flour being dusted into the sky, pieces of drywall being throw. It’s actually chaos when you’re in the room. But then, of course, when you watch slowed down, it becomes almost ethereal,
she details.

This creative approach resulted in powerful and evocative visuals that capture the surreal nature of the storm.

unearthing The Archive: A Treasure Trove of Joplin’s Past

The documentary also features a wealth of archival footage, including news tapes and cell phone recordings, offering a glimpse into the immediate aftermath of the tornado. Lacey describes the extensive process of collecting and curating this footage:

Ever as discovering a box of unseen Betamax tapes of the Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith for our doc Anna nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me,which was on Netflix a couple years ago,I have been absolutely obsessed with finding golden nuggets in archive,particularly stuff that had never before been seen.From day one, the producer and I were scooping up archives. Carla had a drive that she took everywhere that she went [in case] folks in joplin had photos or film or video. She went to the news channels and saw what they might have in their back catalogs. and I think we collected around 6000 clips of archive. this included cell phone footage or home cam footage, news footage, security camera footage. We managed to get access to all the security camera footage that was from the high school building and the surrounding schools, which show the incredible power of that wind as it blew through the school. several clips are never before seen, which is pretty exciting, particularly the archive that Kaylee and Mac share that takes us into the eye.

The sheer volume of footage required meticulous organization and selection. Lacey acknowledges the crucial role of her editing team:
And I’m gonna have to just give a fast shout-out to my editor and assistant editor,Nic Zimmerman and Sladana Tegeltija. To have had 6000 clips to choose from, it was incredible to see them working to select the very best bits from there and just being so organized. By the end of it,I feel like Nick had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the clips that were available.He really is a true visionary. He cuts with such heart, as well.

What’s Next?

Lacey is already working on her next Netflix project, though details remain under wraps.
I am developing another netflix feature right now… but I can’t speak about yet.