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:

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.

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.

I spent the last 20 hours busting my butt to produce a new spot for 6 News Good Morning Indiana.

Oh, and a spot for TheINDYChannel.com.

Actually, they’re the same spot.

Starting tomorrow morning we’re going to be soliciting regular viewers for video content. We’re asking anyone with a video camera to record a “Good morning, Indiana” greeting that could be used on-air during the morning newscast. So feel free to make you own video and send it our way. Just go to TheINDYChannel.com and look on the right side of the page for “Good Morning Greetings.”

Here are the spots that start running in just a few hours. From conception, to creation, to air in less than 48 hours. Not too shabby.