Tomorrow night is the 42nd Annual CMA Awards live from Nashville at 8:00 PM ET on ABC.

We’ll hit the air at 7:30 PM with the RTV6 CMA Countdown, our live pre-show special from the red carpet. As part of the pre-production for tomorrow’s special, I was asked to put together the open for the broadcast.

Here’s what you’ll see tomorrow at 7:30 PM following 6 News at 7:00:

The CMA Awards are closing in quickly.

Every November you can count on ABC to pull out the “country’s night to rock” line. The awards are Wednesday night in Nashville, and aside from the actual awards show, we send a crew down for our live CMA Countdown from the venue.

Here’s an early look at the promo we put together. It starts running tonight during primetime. My boss produced the spot, Steve shot Paul Poteet and the gang from WFMS, Kirk designed the 3D logo and I edited and added effects. Take a look:

Should be a good show this year, I don’t even like country music, but the awards broadcast is usually pretty fun to watch.

I did my civic duty today. And boy, did it feel good.

It wasn’t even painful.

In Indiana there had been a lot of talk about how long it would take the typical Hoosier to vote. Some people have waited in lines for as long as 3 hours, just to get inside the polling place. I would have been glad to wait that long to make sure my voice was heard, but I didn’t have to.

My wait didn’t even come close.

I walked into Indianapolis Fire Department Station 5 around 9:50am; and walked out at 10:00am.

Easy. Simple. Painless.

Then I got to work.

Sweeps is always hectic at a TV station, but Election day at the beginning of ratings is especially crazy. I fully expect to put in 12 hours today, if not more. It’ll all be worth it in the end, though.

Instead of the typical “here’s what’s coming up at 5:00pm” promo, I took a different approach.

Here’s the spot that starts running in about 15 minutes:

We’ll see how long we’re on the air, and how long before we know who the President-elect will be.

(Some are betting we’ll know the next President by 11:00pm, I’m saying 2:00 or 3:00am)

Sweeps is upon us, and that means not only are political candidates vying for your vote, but so are television stations.

November sweeps and elections go hand-in-hand. All the local TV stations try to out perform the competition by promising “the most experienced news team,” “accurate reporting,” or “trust.”

I could talk all day about my competition’s position on such issues, but why would I want to? Instead, I want to ask you: “This November, can we count on your remote?”

I completely forgot about posting these pictures.

Earlier this month, Charles Gibson anchored ABC World News from Indianapolis. And I was there.

We showed up at around 3:00pm to shoot behind-the-scenes for some upcoming promos. And ended up spending the day at the location (the St. Clair St. bridge). The part I was most looking forward to, was the close of the show. When Charlie says, “I’m Charlie Gibson, and I hope you had a good day. For all of us at ABC News, have a good night.” That’s my favorite part of the show.

And I got to see him say it. He was 10 feet from me.

Awesome.

Here’s a first peek at the latest campaign we’re running at RTV6 for 6 News at 7:00.

These spots should debut over the weekend.

I think we did a great job, considering how quickly we put this spot together. We took more than half of the stills on Wednesday, grabbed the other images from stock photography and composited everything together in only 8 bench hours.

Steve B. took all the stills we used, except for the guy at the desk. I did all the Photoshop work to cut elements out from the background, and duplicate elements to become background plates. And I did the After Effects “camera” work and design. I must say, it came together nicely.

Look for it this weekend.

This is the most recent project I’ve finished, aside from all of the commercials I’ve edited in the last week.

Print it out. Hang it up. Just note that the weeks on a broadcast calendar are Monday-Sunday.

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.