“Okay, let’s put it on the truck!”

“No, wait. Bring it back! It can’t go out until tomorrow!”

These are the screws that hold my TV together. The TV I haven’t been able to put back together since I moved. Mainly because I’m not smart enough to put the original screws with the TV during a move.

Well, not exactly.

Starting next Monday (July 7th), 6News at 7:00 will be sponsored solely by Chevrolet. When I say “solely” I mean whatever that word means.

There’s going to be one 90 second commercial break in the middle of the show, and that’s it. No other, “we’ll be right back” or “stay tuned or else we’ll come kidnap your dog.” Just one break. Featuring one of Chevrolet’s “MVPs of MPG.”

As part of the arrangement, RTV6 is producing those 90 second commercials. We’re going to feature a different car each day (Monday-Thursday), and then wrap it all up with all four cars on Friday.

We shot all of the spots last week using a local showroom (can’t say which dealer, because it’s supposed to look generic). If you can guess the dealership we used when the spots run next week, you’ll win something. But it probably won’t be worth anything.

Of course, one commercial break wouldn’t be enough incentive to get most people to watch a newscast, so there’s this additional gem:

The single-sponsored week of news will also feature the Gas Card Watch & Win contest. Right now viewers can register to win $100 gas cards by visiting the theIndyChannel.com. 6News Chief Meteorologist Kevin Gregory will announce a registered name during his forecast that week. That person will have six minutes to call and claim the $100 gas card.

-rtv6gm.com (the blog of RTV6 General Manager and Vice President Don Lundy)

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Or at least that’s what Judge (of Judge’s Barbecue [link]) had to say when we used him for the latest A-List [link] campaign.

If you don’t know, the A-List is a collection of local businesses, grouped by categories, that users can rank, comment and vote for. Think, the phone book at a bar, but with more pages and less stuff scribbled inside. It’s managed by a company called CityVoter.

Part of our agreement is to push the service on Channel 6 a couple of times a year. In this case, it’s to announce that voting for the best businesses of 2008 has been opened.

My boss came to me on a Friday with the script, we looked it over and hammered out a rough idea for what we wanted. Last week, we ran out and spent the day shooting people from area businesses (if you follow me on Twitter, you know all about it).

We managed to piece a spot together, then shot some more business-folks and tada, this is the :30:

The most fun we had was with the guys at Sakura, mainly because we had just eaten around 7 sushi rolls between the two of us. They had a fun time with their lines, and the customers seemed to enjoy it, too.

So, go online and vote for your favorite local business. It’s easy, just visit The A-List at TheIndyChannel.com

We also hacked that spot down to make a :15, :10 and a :05. The rest were all kind of guesses of what to use and how they would flow. Read on to see those 3 spots.

[Note: Silly case-sensitive server. I could have published this last night, if I wasn't suffering stupidity.]

Read the rest…

Well, sometimes you really do need a montage. They don’t always have to be the Rocky kind of montage; but those are pretty cool, most of the time. I think Forrest Gump running across the country is a montage. Do pornos have montages? Oh, and any time Santa delivers presents it’s in a montage.

Anyways…

We needed a nice montage to wrap up a presentation to a bunch of representatives and clients. The network put together a fantastic opening montage (which I cannot share here, unless I want the “Mouse” to come and smother me in my sleep).

Their piece highlights all of the popular returning shows and new series for the fall, and also reminds you how much you both love and hate Meredith Grey and her whiny attitude. “Boohoo, McDreamy doesn’t love me-Yay! He loves me again.” Get over it, he’s going to end up with the Chief at the end of the series. Just wait. You’ll see.

We needed to put together our own montage for a nice little bow on the whole pitch. The creative process was… well, odd on this one. My boss wrote a quick script, with a bunch of throw-away lines. We knew that we wanted to show the big events, but had no idea where the piece was going.

By the way, I spent hours keyframing track mattes to make the ribbons and bubbles go behind the people and objects. This is what I came up with:

This one caught me really off-guard the other day.

Usually two or three times a week, I make the treacherous trip down to the basement of the station. There could still be Asbestos lurking in the rafters, I’m not sure. But I do know that I have to go down there. That’s where they hide the candy.

I approached the vending machine. Trembling, I opened my wallet. I think my blood sugar was probably low; I mean I do get excited about Zingers, but not like that.

As I went to browse the bottom row, checking to see if we had Vanilla or Chocolate Zingers this week, I quickly glanced across the chip selection. You never know when you’ll need a bag of chips after the sugar rush is gone. Nothing truly interesting to see, but wait. “Did I just see a Burger King logo?” My eyes darted back to the center of the case. Thinking someone managed to get a Whopper wrapper into the vending machine I had to look. But to my surprise and disgust I saw…

Ketchup & Fries flavored chips from Burger King. Yes, you read it correctly. I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

I didn’t even give them a try. And the only reason they got a second and third glance was so that I could grab my camera. That kind of flavor atrocity is on the same level as Steak-flavored ice cream or Long John Silvers.

If you’ve tried them, let me know. But I have a feeling you might be even more sane than me.

Well, I finished cleaning up this blog. I made some changes to the theme, which may or may not be obvious.

I seem to “redesign” this site every month, or at least that’s what @mmagnolia22 is saying. But I find it’s a nice way for me to relax. Even though I sit at the keyboard for hours on end and will eventually swear loudly and complain about how the Internet doesn’t work the way it should. Sounds odd doesn’t it?

But for some reason it relaxes me. Sports and expensive toys are good hobbies for some people, I guess. I never really got in to cars, and if it doesn’t have anything to do with the Hoosier basketball team I don’t really care. We don’t own a house, so I don’t need to paint or replace furnace filters. So, I do this when I’m bored or inspired.

Anywho, I started revamping earlier this week, then finished up today. I actually added content to some of the pages, but that’s not the story I’m actually here to tell.

It’s valid!

I have validation now. Not for this site (there are still at least 17 warnings about my CSS, but my XHTML is fine). The station blogs are both valid XHTML and valid CSS. You may not think that’s a big deal, or care at all, but I’m proud of that fact. Especially considering I wasn’t out to have valid code when I redesigned the themes a month ago.

So, that’s what I did with my Saturday, validated code. Oh, and @mmagnolia22 and I looked at a new place a few blocks up the street. Do you have a house-warming gift? That doesn’t involve fire?

Time for the Death Cab for Cutie concert, I should probably finish doing the dishes before I leave.

PS: Look for some nice After Effects work to be posted in the next few days.

Every year the networks bring in big advertisers to showcase what’s coming next year and where there will be great improvements. They’re called the “Upfronts,” and each network holds their own. There’s a lot of bull that gets tossed around usually, but you can get a great idea of the new shows coming in the fall.

Locally, affiliates invite their big clients in to watch a closed circuit feed of the “Upfronts,” which take place in New York. At most stations a special video is then produced to hand out to advertisers, to show them what’s coming this fall.

We receive a lot of content from network for this presentation, but sometimes logos have to be covered up or changed. And sometimes you need elements that don’t exist. Here’s just a sampling of some projects from today:

Network Upfront ID
Since sometimes our clients are national, we needed a transition device that would cover a big jump cut and remind people where we are.
http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/network_upfront_id.flv

Network Upfront Endtag
ABC’s “Black Pearl” is pretty, but we wanted to use our ABC/RTV6 logo at the end. This took a while to fake…
http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/network_upfront_entag.flv

That’s where we’re at right now. I’ll be updating this post as I finish more elements, including a pretty awesome daily program lineup, if all goes as planned.

I thought venting about my recent call to Sprint (see Sprint Screws Me) would help ease my anger at their inability to do what the customer asks.

Whoops. I couldn’t be further from the truth.

On Sunday, a very nice customer service agent called me to inform me I was overdue on my payment. As I’ve previously explained, I knew about this and called customer service because I felt they were at fault. I proceeded to recount all of this to Sunday’s customer service agent, we’ll call her “Sun-gent.”

I told Sun-gent I had disputed the charges with another representative earlier in the week, and since I got nowhere with her I would be paying the bill in full and had dropped payment in the mailbox on Saturday. Note that I said, “the bill in full.” I was then asked how much of the bill they could expect. Note that I also said, “dropped… in the mailbox on Saturday.” I was then asked when I would be mailing them payment. I HAVEN’T EVER MISSED A PAYMENT, GIVE ME A BREAK.

Sun-gent then told me that I could pay my bill online. WTF? That’s where this whole thing began, apparently I cannot pay my bill online because my hardware is too high-tech. Here’s a recap from earlier:

“… every time I go online to sign up for a Sprint account I’m told that the activation code will be sent to my phone as a text message. Unfortunately, I don’t have a phone [I have an aircard]“

She told me that she would take care of canceling the scheduled service interruption. Perfect. I thanked her, and she told me that I would not be receiving any more calls regarding this matter.

Fast forward 24 hours. 24 hours EXACTLY. I get another call from Sprint.

I’m asked if I know about the late balance on my account. I tell this customer service agent, we’ll call her “Mon-gent,” that I talked with one of their representatives the prior day and had taken care of the problem. I’m then asked if I would be paying my bill in full. WTF?! Do they not keep records? Sun-gent kept telling me she was making notes to my accounts, was she just mashing her hands on the keyboard while I thought she was typing?! Mon-gent had no idea I had been called the previous day by one of their agents, and didn’t believe me.

No wonder Sprint needs my measly $61 so quickly. They’re doing everything twice. And still getting it wrong!