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:

http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/rtv6_upfront_montage.flv

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.

If you’re in Indiana, then you know about the severe weather that passed through last Friday night and again today.

I personally thought we did a great job with our coverage. We’re very aware that you’re actually watching us to see programming, not sitting at home praying we’re going to interrupt your cerebral numbing with weather happening 100 miles away from you. To that end, we do our best to not cover programming. We wait until ABC goes to a break, we cut in, then get you back in time for our local break and back into the show.

During last Friday’s storms, we did our best, and did it pretty well. We didn’t cover any of the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee, which let Hoosiers see an Indiana boy take the prize. We did blow off 20/20, but at that point the storms were extremely severe on Indianapolis’ east-side.

We spent the entire weekend covering the severe weather, so on Monday I was asked to put together a P.O.P. (Proof of Performance) spot. Here’s what we put together in just a few hours, with very little determined going in to the project (really, the music was the only thing we knew would make it into the spot).

http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/5567_weatherpop15.flv http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/5566_weatherpop30.flv

So, that was our fun Monday at RTV6. Be expecting these spots to change on Wednesday, as we get more video in from the TWO tornadoes Tuesday evening (does that make it a two-fer Tuesday?).

This could be my biggest fear as someone who works in broadcast television.

Now, they claim this was supposed to be a recorded segment, and the wrong tease was cued up. Last time I checked, a station like WNBC (which is facing major cutbacks) would be on some sort of automation system. Which means a Media Manager-type would have to ingest the spot, and I’m hoping would catch “what the fuck are you doing?”

It definitely makes for a more exciting newscast, though.

Anyone in television have an opinion on that?

“On*Star, how can I take your money?”

Okay, so that’s not what they really say when you push the blue button, but I’ve always thought of them as a scam. What are the chances that I’m going to crash in the middle of nowhere with no one there to see me? (Granted I do travel on many country back roads where sickle-wielding caped men try to kill young people just for being young). I just don’t see the purpose in paying an ungodly amount of money every year to have someone call 911 for me, that’s why I have a cell phone with GPS. Oddly enough though, I don’t see a problem with paying nearly $100 a year for RADIO (you know, that thing can come through the air for free?).

So, I’ll never use the blue button. Have no desire to. Have no need to. I won’t even push the phone button next to it, again, that’s why I have a cell phone. But I must say, that the e-mail I received the other day could make my free year of On*Star completely awesome.

My car e-mailed me.

Seriously.

I thought it was pretty cool to get a “Diagnostic Report” from my car. Now I know this isn’t supposed to surprise me because I’m a “geek,” but c’mon, how can you not be intrigued by this? I just hope the car doesn’t figure out my cell phone number, I’d hate to start getting texts like these at 3:00 in the morning:

R U redy 2 go outz?

Meetin up wit a hot Bonneville 2nite!!

I had so much ethanol I blew a gasket. It was awesome!

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On a completely unrelated note, I finally finished the Helio spot I’ve been complaining discussing on Twitter this week. Take a look… (I’m still not a fan of the disco ball, but at least it’s on the air)

http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/5553_heliodance15_hi.flv

No, my spacebar isn’t broken. I just wanted you to know I was shouting the second title because of it’s importance. But it’s not important enough to be first… moving on…

Just a quick mention, that summer is officially here. How do I know this? Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy is in stores!

While I’m definitely a fan of pale ales, stouts and pretty much anything that isn’t made by Anheuser-Busch, Coors (for my purposes, Blue Moon is not technically a Coors product) or Miller, I must say that I enjoy the Shandy immensely.

It’s beer with lemonade! Imagine bubbly lemonade that gets you drunk. When I first heard Summer Shandy described I thought to myself,

“Well that sounds absolutely awful. I’d be better off putting mayonnaise in the sun for a few days, then mixing it with Jägermeister.”

But now that I’ve tried it? It’s absolutely delicious.

Grab a six-pack, crack one open and take a seat outside. You’ll know that summer is here.

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Gotta love a quick turnaround. Four hours, 10 seconds of final product.

http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/5550_election10.flv

I spent a few hours early last week updating some of our news bumpers. They’re the quick 5 second spots that run between commercials in our newscasts. Most are things like, “Listen to 6 News in your car at 87.7 FM,” “School closings and delays. Get them first on the 6 News ticker during Good Morning Indiana.” Now you know.

I was pretty happy with how they turned out, especially for not taking a full day.

http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/5431_newsbumpvideos.flv http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/6002_newsbumpgas.flv

Now to what everyone wants to know, “What caused the Midwest earthquake?”

Well, judging by the switch in the Weather Office, I’d say the Off The Cuff guys or Kevin Gregory are to blame.

People said no one would watch. People said it wouldn’t last. People said there’s no way viewers will keep watching season after season. And yet, dancing fever struck a chord.

Especially last fall.

Who would have thought that Helio Castroneves, an IRL driver and 2-time Indianapolis 500 champ you wouldn’t know unless you kept track of the track, would win Dancing With The Stars and bring in the show’s highest ratings in the country right here in Indianapolis?

Well Hoosiers loved Helio and Julianne so much that Ms. Hough is performing the National Anthem at this year’s Indianapolis 500. I’m not sure if some people (including Hoosiers) realize how big of a deal this is. This is the largest single-day sporting event in the world, seen by racing fans around the globe. This could definitely help Julianne gain exposure as a recording artist.

But she’s not the point of this post. RTV6 (WRTV - ABC) has secured Helio Castroneves to be our “Driver Analyst” on Trackside 6 this year.

Amazing.

To that end, it has to be promoted. Here are the spots we’re using on-air to let the viewers know.

My boss wrote the spot, I produced and edited. Let’s just say, that I’m more than impressed these spots made it to air; especially considering we turned these in less than 6 hours (including audio cuts, hunting for video and crazy post-production to make that ribbon dance around Helio).

Enjoy.

http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/helio_15.flv http://www.sethkeever.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/helio_05.flv