So for the Indianapolis 500 this past weekend, the good folks from Extra graced us with their presence. My department got to help out with production do production for the show.

We shot all of the standups and wraparounds with Mario Lopez, plus an interview with Danica Patrick in her garage.

If you haven’t seen Extra, they open the show with people tossing around a “monitor” playing video of something. For anyone not in television, it’s just a flat piece of wood painted green, with a checkerboard pattern for motion tracking so it can be added later in post-production. They usually have the person toss the board at the camera to finish out the opening. Danica was holding the board, and it was my job to sit right beneath the lens of the camera and catch it as she tossed it to me.

The first throw was a little low, it kind of looked like she tossed it on the ground. Our photographer told her to “throw it a little higher, it’s got to fall.” Boy did she come through. The board made a pretty nice parabolic arc, and came down gracefully, right on top of my head. I was assaulted by Danica Patrick with a piece of green wood.

We did a third take which ended up being a keeper. You can watch the raw video from ExtraTV.com after the jump, and see all the pics we snapped while working with Mario.

“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

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